Brokerage Decision May Favor Morgan Stanley Over Citi; Regulator Who Probed Insder Trading Commits Suicide: Roundup

Patrick Clark — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:23:41 -0400

Morgan Stanley is going to win out over Citigroup when a mediator places a value on the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney brokerage, The New York Post reports. The two banks have disputed the value of the joint venture: Morgan Stanley, which owns 51 percent of the brokerage and plans to acquire remaining shares, said the joint venture was worth $9 billion. Citi, meanwhile, submitted a $22 billion valuation. Citing an unnamed source, The Post says the mediator is likely to value the brokerage between $10 and $15 billion, which could be an especially good result for Morgan Stanley.

Tadahiro Matsushita, the Japanese official leading a recent crackdown on insider trading, died yesterday in what police concluded was a suicide. Mr. Matsushita's investigation, which Bloomberg reports was not yet complete, led to the resignations of Nomura Holding's chief executive officer.

With the government reducing its stake in AIG, Andrew Ross Sorkin and Neil Barofsky had a telephone conversation about how taxpayers have fared in the bailout.

A German court will rule tomorrow on the legality of the European Central Bank's new bond-buying program.

With the ECB set to start buying sovereign debt, investors' bets on European bonds are looking pretty smart.

Deutsche Bank will cut costs by $5.8 billion in order to meet new regulatory capital requirements, the bank said.

Carl Icahn called the board of directors at Navistar International, the truck and diesel engine maker, a “poster child for abysmal business decisions and poor corporate governance.” Navistar answered that despite Mr. Icahn's “unproductive tactics of threats, attacks and disruption,” the board knows what it's doing.

Court bailiffs in Hong Kong evicted Occupy protestors from HSBC headquarters.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner finished ninth in the 50 to 54 age group at a recent triathlon.

There's a 4 percent chance Ron Paul is the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, according to Morgan Stanley (via Business Insider).

Canadian banks! Hiring amid cutbacks at financial firms elsewhere.

Greece Woes Likely Making Matters Worse for JPMorgan’s Dimon, Grandson of Greek Immigrant

Patrick Clark — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:43:49 -0400

The European Central Bank stopped monetary operations with some Greek banks today, Reuters reports, the latest bit of bad news for Greece and just about everyone else. Savers have been withdrawing funds from Greek banks at a rate of more than $800 million a day, as the failure by Greek political parties to form a governing coalition raises fears of a eurozone Grexit. Markets fell on the news. And JPMorgan's credit derivatives bet, the one that led the firm to disclose $2.3 billion in trading losses last week, is looking worse and worse.

From International Financing Review:

So far, the market environment has not been forgiving. Bank downgrades in Italy, renewed fears of a Greek exit from the eurozone and sovereign contagion have weighed on markets.

“When I look at the way the indices have been for the last 24 hours I think they [JP Morgan] must have lost another US$200m. I don’t know what their exit strategy is, but their mark-to-market is going to be very painful,” said the credit trading head (speaking on Monday afternoon).

“The indices have been blowing up in the last 72 hours. Either [JP Morgan] are unwinding with clients or these guys are front-running them. They’ve been unlucky with the broader events like Greece, but it looks to me as if they’re chasing the market,” he added.

Observer » ECB

Brokerage Decision May Favor Morgan Stanley Over Citi; Regulator Who Probed Insder Trading Commits Suicide: Roundup

Greece Woes Likely Making Matters Worse for JPMorgan’s Dimon, Grandson of Greek Immigrant