By Kim Velsey 1/14 3:43pm

Stratospheric Sales

Revealed as the owner of a 40th-floor apartment.

Guess Where Barclays’ Disgraced CEO Bob Diamond Spent His Ill-gotten Gains?

The Observer has spent many an afternoon trying to puzzle out the clues in mysterious LLCs. That is, the LLCs that have clues—those that were not registered in Delaware approximately a month before the real estate purchase they were created to shield, named after the building that they are buying property in, and/or in the care of a huge midtown law firm.

But as real estate chronicler Michael Gross proves in a new Newsweek article, promising clues may well be red herrings. When Novgorod LLC purchased a nine-room spread on the 40th floor of 15 Central Park West in 2009, it was assumed that the buyer was one of the many rich Russians who had been sniffing around the building. Quite possibly a rich Russian with some intense personal or professional connection to the city in whose name he’d purchased a $37 million dollar condo. Read More

By Patrick Clark 8/31/12 12:28pm

sloppy seconds

Richard-Fuld-006

Again With the Curse of Dick Fuld: New Barclays, Nomura Brass Signal Retreats From Lehman Acquisitions

A little over a month ago, The Wall Street Journal identified the Curse of Dick Fuld, after the bank bosses who picked assets off the carcass of Lehman Brothers resigned from their posts in unceremonious fashion.

First went Bob Diamond, who snapped up Lehman’s U.S. securities business for Barclays, and who stepped down at the beginning of July after his bank agreed to pay $450 million to settle an investigation into its efforts to manipulate interbank lending rates.

Next fell Nomura chief executive Kenichi Watanabe and chief operating officer Takumi Shibata—who led Nomura’s deal for Lehman’s European and Asian units—amid an insider trading scandal that roiled the Japanese firm.

This week, it seemed, Barclays and Nomura appeared to pare back their respective global ambitions in tandem. Read More

By Patrick Clark 8/20/12 7:18am

Morning Read

British Lawmakers Find Flaw With Barclays’ Ex-CEO Bob Diamond; Deutsche Bank Up Next in Iran Inquiries? Roundup

British lawmakers published results of their investigation into Barclays efforts to manipulate Libor and other interbank lending rates. They were less than happy with cooperation provided by former CEO Bob Diamond.

Deutsche Bank is one of four European lenders being investigated by U.S. authorities for possible violations involving oil-trading and Iran, a source told Bloomberg. Read More

By Patrick Clark 7/23/12 8:23am

Morning Read

Libor Arrests Said to be Near; Nasdaq Sweetens Refund for Facebook Flop: Roundup

Libor arrests: U.S. and European regulators are on the verge of arresting traders believed to have manipulated Libor and other interbank lending rates, Reuters reports. The arrests, and criminal prosecutions or plea agreements to follow, are largely separate from enforcement actions regulators are pursuing against individual banks.

Soft tactics: The Federal Reserve Bank Read More

By Patrick Clark 7/17/12 6:30am

Morning Read

Diamond Contradicted Again in Libor Hearings; HSBC Let Problems ‘Fester’: Roundup

Conflict of interest? Royal Bank of Scotland is fighting a Canadian inquiry into the bank’s role in manipulating interbank lending, arguing that British law prevents the bank from turning over documents pertaining to the investigation. If RBS’ resistance is surprising, it’s because the bank has been majority-owned by the British government since the Read More