John Paulson is a more aggressive risk-taker than other hedge fund managers, a Bank of America executive told clients on a conference call yesterday, Bloomberg reports. Mr. Paulson answered questions from BofA’s wealth management clients after Citigroup’s private banking unit redeemed $410 million from Paulson funds last week.
Ray Dalio isn’t making friends in Stamford, Read More
As Europeans return from August vacations, Greece is at the top of the to-do list. Athens needs another bailout; the Germans may be wary, but are they willing to risk a Grexit? Some hedge funds are nibbling at Greek debt, increasingly optimistic of further European assistance. Another way to bet on Read More
Zuck enters Facebook’s first road show presentation by the side door, Yahoo! CEO says sorry for … the distraction and a financier with fashion sense steps in to save Barney’s from bankruptcy court. Today’s morning roundup:
Road show: Mark Zuckerberg slipped into the midtown Sheraton through a side door to address investors yesterday, and left in the company of “a dozen beefy security guards,” the Journal reports, as Facebook kicked off its IPO road show. The presentation opened with a 30-minute video presentation available here. Following a delay while Facebook’s 27-year-old CEO was apparently having a hard time finding his way back from the bathroom, Zuck, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman fielded questions on the company’s strategies for China, mobile revenues and its recent $1 billion Instagram acquisition. With excitement building, analysts have been quick to offer opinions on Facebook, with Sterne Agee slapping a buy on the company and Wedbush Securities assigning a $44 price target to the stock.
So sorry: Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson apologized to employees for lying on his … wait, no, for the distraction caused by the “disclosure of my academic credentials.” You can find the whole letter (addressed “Yahoos:”) over at Dealbook. Third Point Capital’s Dan Loeb has been calling for Mr. Thompson to step down since last week, when the hedge fund manager asserted that the executive lied on his resume.
Trader exodus: Nearly two dozen of Wall Street’s most profitable credit traders have defected from banks in the past 13 months, Bloomberg reports, as lenders cut bonuses and regulators seek to limit the types of trading banks can engage in.
Chopping red tape: Bank of America data chief John Bottega has a fourth-degree black belt in Okinawa karate, so watch what you say about consolidating bank data, a cause Bottega championed in a previous position at the New York Fed.
The posse of state attorneys general that began investigating foreclosure practices at major banks in the fall of last year could be getting ready to settle with the top five U.S. mortgage lenders at the heart of the controversy, Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller told Bloomberg. Still, nothing is finalized, according to the Read More
The U.S. government may turn a profit on its equity investment in Ally Financial, one of the major mortgage lenders to suspend foreclosures earlier this year amid reports of illegal documentation practices, The New York Times reports. The Times‘ analysis stems from a recent conversion of government preferred shares into common stock.
This Read More
Senator Al Franken is asking the feds to launch investigations into potential criminal activity by Ally and its subsidiary GMAC Mortgage, which have come under scrutiny of late for allegedly using fraudulent foreclosure documents to boot people from their homes.
In a letter to a veritable who’s who of financial regulators, Franken says Read More
