Opening Bell: 10.19.15

Cryan Puts His Stamp on Deutsche Bank (Bloomberg)
John Cryan, co-chief executive officer at Deutsche Bank AG, is undertaking the biggest management shakeup in more than a decade and splitting the investment bank as he prepares to scale back the trading empire built by his predecessor. Colin Fan, 42, the co-head of the investment banking and trading unit, will resign effective Monday while Michele Faissola, 47, a former senior banker at the fixed-income business who now leads asset and wealth management, will leave after a transition period, Deutsche Bank said Sunday. Among other changes, Stefan Krause, 52, a longtime executive who currently oversees transaction banking, will depart at the end of the month.

Credit Suisse's Thiam set to show hand as CEO (Bloomberg)
When Tidjane Thiam unveils his plans for Credit Suisse on Wednesday the Swiss bank's new chief executive will likely rest his case on three Cs: capital, cuts and charm. Thiam will show his hand after taking the reins at Zurich-based Credit Suisse in July from British insurer Prudential. Investors expect him to refocus the bank's business toward wealth management and asset management, while shrinking its investment bank and closing the capital gap on rivals.

Economists expect Fed rate rise this year (FT)
Despite a tempering in the US labour market, 65 per cent of the 46 economists from leading banks in the US, Europe and Asia polled by the FT said the central bank would increase the Federal funds rate at its December meeting.

Few in Venezuela Want Bolívars, but No One Can Spare a Dime (NYT)
Pity the bolívar, Venezuela’s currency, named after its independence hero, Simón Bolívar. Even some thieves don’t want it anymore. When robbers carjacked Pedro Venero, an engineer, he expected they would drive him to his bank to cash his check for a hefty sum in bolívars — the sort of thing that crime-weary Venezuelans have long since gotten used to. But the ruffians, armed with rifles and a hand grenade, were sure he would have a stash of dollars at home and wanted nothing to do with the bolívars in his bank account. “They told me straight up, ‘Don’t worry about that,’ ” Mr. Venero said. “ ‘Forget about it.’ ” The eagerness to dump bolívars or avoid them completely shows the extent to which Venezuelans have lost faith in their economy and in the ability of the country’s government to find a way out of the mess.

Couple Prolongs Police Standoff To Have Sex 'One Last Time' (HP)
Ryan Patrick Bautista, 34, and Leanne Hunn, 30, allegedly refused to surrender to police until they could have sex together one last time. A standoff began Wednesday night when Jacksonville Sheriffs responded to a call about Michael Forte, 34, who was wanted on several warrants including armed burglary, FirstCoastNews.com reports. A Jacksonville Sheriffs Office spokeswoman said deputies were also looking for Bautista, who also had several warrants, including armed burglary. Bautista and Hunn reacted to the police visit by barricading themselves inside a mobile home and refusing to leave for more than six hours, according to News4Jax.com...At some point during the standoff, Hunn told police she would give herself up but not until she had sex with Bautista “one last time,” according to the website.

Challenging Private Equity Fees Tucked in Footnotes (Dealbook)
In an Oct. 12 letter to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and California State Teachers’ Retirement System, Mr. Chiang urged both organizations to help him devise legislation to solve the problem of investors who “pay excessive fees to private equity firms and do not have sufficient visibility into the nature and amount of those fees.” [...] Opacity is a byproduct of the secrecy permeating the $3.9 trillion private equity industry. Giants like Blackstone, TPG and the Carlyle Group have said that disclosing their agreements with investors would reveal trade secrets. Pension funds investing in these deals also refuse to disclose relevant documents, saying private equity firms would bar them from future deals if they did so.

Big Banks to America’s Companies: We Don’t Want Your Cash (WSJ)
U.S. banks are going to new lengths to ward off a surprising threat to their financial health: big cash deposits. State Street Corp. , the Boston bank that manages assets for institutional investors, for the first time has begun charging some customers for large dollar deposits, people familiar with the matter said. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., the nation’s largest bank by assets, has cut unwanted deposits by more than $150 billion this year, in part by charging fees.

Brazil Bet Burned Fortress Investment Group (WSJ)
Michael Novogratz, one of Wall Street’s most famous investors, recently decided to leave Fortress Investment Group LP and close his macro hedge fund after it lost about $100 million over the past two months from investments in Brazil, according to people familiar with the matter. Earlier this year, the fund lost $150 million in a single day from wagers placed by a different Fortress trader against the Swiss franc, the people said. The latest losses left the fund down 17.5% for the year through September, according to a regulatory filing.

NYC's Stuyvesant Town Said for Sale With Blackstone Weighing Bid (Bloomberg)
Manhattan’s Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village apartment complex is being prepared for a sale, five years after its prior owners defaulted on the mortgage and walked away from the property in one of the biggest collapses from the last decade’s real estate boom. CWCapital Asset Management, the loan servicer that has been in control of Stuyvesant Town on behalf of bondholders, has hired Eastdil Secured LLC to advise on the sale of the 80-acre (32-hectare) property, which is expected to fetch $5 billion to $6 billion, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. Blackstone Group LP is among the companies in talks for a deal, said two people, who asked not to be named because the matter is private.

Student Driver Crashes Car Through Front Of Driving School (HP)
Police responded to reports of a car that crashed into a building around 8:30 a.m. "Unfortunately, that student mistook the gas pedal for the brake, sending the car into the building," Seth Tyler of the Bellevue Police told KOMO.