Opening Bell: 9.27.16

Wells Fargo’s CEO Forfeits $41 Million in Fight to Keep His Job (Bloomberg)
Wells Fargo & Co. Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf, fighting to keep his job amid a national political furor, will forgo more than $41 million of stock and salary as the bank’s board investigates how employees opened legions of bogus accounts for customers.

Wells Fargo Isn’t the Only Bank That Draws Cross-Selling Complaints (WSJ)
While customer complaints don’t equal illegal conduct, the complaint database run by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shows that Wells Fargo hasn’t been much of an outlier when it comes to complaints associated with cross-selling and other sales abuses...Citigroup Inc. customers’ 1,722 account-management issues during the nearly 21-month period represented 1.8 complaints for each $1 billion of deposits at the bank. Bank of America Corp. customers had 1.7 complaints, using the same metric, while customers of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. had 1.1.

Deutsche Bank Rises as CEO Sells Unit, Rules Out Raising Funds (Bloomberg)
Deutsche Bank AG rebounded from a record low after the German lender agreed to sell its U.K. insurance business for 935 million pounds ($1.2 billion) and Chief Executive Officer John Cryan ruled out a capital raise. Responding to investor concerns that the bank may be forced to raise capital to meet mounting legal costs, Cryan told Germany’s Bild newspaper that it’s “currently not an issue.”

Germany denies preparing Deutsche Bank rescue plan (Reuters)
The finance ministry dismissed a newspaper report that a rescue plan was being prepared in case Deutsche was unable to raise capital to pay for costly litigation.

Teacher on the prowl for hot moms did nothing wrong: court (NYP)
A married Brooklyn teacher skipped Tinder and instead pestered his students to help him land dates with their sisters and moms — but that’s hardly anything to get hot and bothered about, a court ruled Tuesday. Terrell Williams, an eighth-grade gym instructor with two kids, did “not violate any specific rule or regulation,” the appellate panel said in overturning his firing. Williams was booted from PS/MS 282 in Park Slope in 2013 after five female students testified that he repeatedly approached them before volleyball practice and asked “whether they had older sister, how old they were, what they looked like, and whether he could have their phone number,” according to court papers. Williams also inquired about aunts and mothers and whether the female relatives had boyfriends, according to evidence presented at a city Department of Education hearing. The questioning made the students feel “uncomfortable,’’ and one mother filed a complaint when Williams texted her daughter, according to court papers. After he was canned from his $80,000-a-year job, Williams sued. He claimed that the preteen students were the ones who tried to set him up on dates. He also claimed moms routinely asked him out for drinks.

SABMiller shareholders comfortably back AB InBev takeover offer (Reuters)
SABMiller (SAB.L) shareholders backed the brewer's $100-billion-plus takeover by rival Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABI.BR) by a large majority on Wednesday, paving the way for one of the biggest corporate mergers in history. The 79 billion pound deal was comfortably passed by the SAB shareholders who voted. It had required approval from a majority in number of shareholders and by at least 75 percent in share value. For the latter, it secured 95.5 percent support.

Investors get new reasons why not to buy bank stocks (CNBC)
Another new round of banking regulations likely will give investors yet another reason to stay away from the battered industry. Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo this week announced that future stress tests will be geared toward demanding even higher cash buffers for big banks. The new rules, which won't take effect until 2017, will establish a "stress capital buffer" for stress tests that analysts say could raise capital requirements for large institutions by 3 or 4 percentage points.

It’s Paul Singer Versus Citigroup in High-Stakes Bankruptcy Feud (Bloomberg)
As Peabody Energy Inc. stumbled toward bankruptcy last year, its Wall Street adviser raised a red flag for management. Two powerful and litigious distressed-debt hedge funds held Peabody bonds. “Both are bomb throwers and we should be very suspicious,” wrote Tyler Cowan, a restructuring expert at Lazard Ltd. Six months later, in April, the world’s largest private-sector coal company was in bankruptcy. And, sure enough, the two New York hedge funds -- Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. and Mark Brodsky’s Aurelius Capital Management -- soon became embroiled in a bitter $1 billion dispute as they sought to extract a bigger share of Peabody’s assets.

Warren Beatty has not slept with 12,775 women (NYP)
In his first interview in nearly two decades, the actor made clear that reports that he’s bedded some 12,775 women during his 79 years are wildly exaggerated. “Think about it, sleeping with 12,775 people,” the Hollywood legend recently told AARP The Magazine. “That would mean not just that there were multiple people a day, but that there was no repetition.” The number was first attached to Beatty because of Peter Biskind’s 2010 biography of the “Bonnie and Clyde” actor, “Star.” “12,775 women, give or take, a figure that does not include daytime quickies, drive-bys, casual gropings, stolen kisses and so on,” the author deduced in the book.