October, 2009
CIT spurns Icahn, accepts loan
CIT Group, the stricken US commercial lender, on Wednesday said it had received a $4.5bn loan from a “diverse group” of lenders and had turned down a competing offer from Carl Icahn, the activist investor.
GMAC set for $5.6bn injection
GMAC, the car financing company which is poised to merge with Chrysler Financial, is set to receive up to $5.6bn in a capital injection from the US Treasury, paving the way for the government to become the majority shareholder.
K1 founder faces fraud inquiry
German prosecutors revealed on Wednesday they are investigating possible fraud and breach of duty by Helmut Kiener, founder of a hedge fund group known as K1, reports the FT. The move came after Bloomberg had earlier reported that authorities in Europe and the US were investigating whether some banks had been deceived in dealings with K1,
AIG recoups collateral
AIG has in recent months regained billions of dollars it lost to Wall Street banks last year as trades turned sour, thanks to a turnaround in the very securities that helped drag down the troubled US insurer,
Lazard future remains uncertain
Lazard on Wednesday faced questions about its future after the recent death of its CEO Bruce Wasserstein, even as the investment bank reported better-than-expected Q3 results. Lazard’s Q3 revenues climbed to $412m from $405m a year ago while its net Q3 income of $37m marked a sharp turnround from its $76m year-earlier loss.
Morgan Stanley in China case
Morgan Stanley has been dragged into a risky Chinese court battle over a hedging contract with a local company, China Haisheng Juice Holdings, extending a case it is fighting in the UK. While the sums involved are small – relating to currency hedges worth just tens of millions of dollars – a legal battle in China could be prolonged,
Geely named Volvo bidder
Ford Motor on Wednesday named a consortium headed by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co as the preferred bidder for its Volvo Swedish brand, bringing the Chinese carmaking group a step closer to buying it.
NatEx ditches Stagecoach
National Express, the debt-laden UK bus and rail operator, has withdrawn from talks with rival Stagecoach about a possible merger and will press ahead with a rights issue. The development follows weeks of speculation over a possible tie-up between the two.
Globe pub group on brink
Globe Pub Company, the ailing pub operator owned by property entrepreneur Robert Tchenguiz, was on the brink of administrative receivership on Wednesday night. The Bank of New York Mellon, which became the trustee to Globe’s bondholders after the group defaulted on a £257m asset-backed loan in April,
LSE poised to absorb Turquoise
The London Stock Exchange is nearing a deal to absorb Turquoise, the pan-European share trading platform, into a new joint venture. The fate of Turquoise will be determined within two weeks as talks are finalised with the platform’s backers.
Saudis drop WTI oil contract
Saudi Arabia on Wednesday decided to drop the widely used West Texas Intermediate oil contract as the benchmark for pricing its oil, dealing a serious blow to the New York Mercantile Exchange. The move by the world’s biggest oil exporter could encourage other producers to abandon the benchmark and threaten the dominance of the most heavily-traded oil futures contract.
Overnight markets: Down
Asian stocks on Thursday extended a global decline after new-home sales unexpectedly fell in the US. Futures on the S&P500 index lost 0.1% after the gauge fell 2% in New York on Wednesday, the most in a month,
Support the S&P 500
We often get accused of being grave diggers here on FT A-ville. So, at the close of one of the most difficult days for Wall Street in some time (coinciding with the 80th anniversary of the Great Crash of 1929) ,
Lazard’s posthumous $87m expense
The eagle-eyed types at the WSJ’s Deal Journal blog have spotted something that should give Lazard investors pause for thought – the tremendous expenses related to paying stock awards to the late, great Bruce Wasserstein.
Saudi Aramco’s WTI snub
Remember those problems WTI crude had earlier this year with Cushing delivery? Remember how they cast a doubt on the grade’s position as a global oil benchmark?
Well it seems Saudi Aramco, the state oil company of the world’s top oil exporting nation,
CDS report: Credit rally loses momentum
Gavan Nolan of Markit wrote this CDS report
European credit indices widened for the third day running as the long rally showed signs that it was losing momentum. The Markit iTraxx Europe index was traded wider than 90bp,
Crystal ball gazing with Goldman
Wednesday morning in New York. There’s less than 24 hours until the release of the third-quarter US GDP report and Goldman Sachs has just lowered its forecast.
Citing today’s durable goods report, Goldman economist Jan Hatzius has cut his estimate to 2.7 per cent from 3 per cent.
On the 80th anniversary of the Great Crash of 1929…
And as of the time this post was published, the FTSE 100 and S&P 500 were looking a little peaky…
The onset of rally-slaying dengue fever, or just a mild bout of the sniffles?
Related links:
S&P issues a fresh warning on US mortgage insurers
In April, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the entire rated universe of private mortgage insurers, and mostly by multiple notches. On Wednesday, the rating agency decided that drastic action didn’t fully reflect just how,
More than you probably ever wanted to know about the Hamp
The Federal Reserve Board had just released a working paper on the Home Affordable Modification Plan — the Hamp.
The paper is fantastic for details on just how the programme — which is aimed at making mortgages more affordable by reducing interest payments — came about and feeds into the wider financial system.
It’s Chico’s time!, RealtyTrac says
RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosed properties, released its market report for the third quarter on Wednesday. The results make for typically downbeat reading:
Cities in California, Florida and Nevada accounted for the 10 highest foreclosure rates in the third quarter among metro areas with a population of 200,000 or more.
The K1 asset allocation strategy
Go figure:
. . .
. . .Ah but wait, this looks more familiar:
. . .
UPDATE: 17:05
Any further questions about the K1 miracle funds can be answered by this highly comprehensive yet short explainer:
Lunch Wrap
On FT Alphaville Wednesday morning,
- Lloyds, RBS and state aid.
- Analysts still confident even if US consumers aren’t.
- Regulators looking at banks’ coverage ratios, BarCap says.
- Rights issue fees:
Vitol’s energy asset grab
The problems facing independent refiners refuse to go away, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Europe’s largest independent refiner Petroplus last week agreed to sell its Antwerp refinery’s processing facilities in a bid to raise much needed cash.
Markets live transcript 28 Oct 2009
Markets live chat transcript for the chat ending at 12:12 on 28 Oct 2009. Participants in this chat were: Neil Hume, FT (NH) Miles Johnson, FT (MJ) NH:hey there NH:this is FT Alphaville
Lloyds, RBS and state aid
The UK’s two part-nationalised banks, Lloyds Banking Group and RBS, are under pressure again on Wednesday morning as the market continues to fret about potential state aid remedies.
Since ING, the Dutch financial services group,
Regulators looking at banks’ coverage ratios, BarCap says
Remember the issue of declining coverage ratios at European and US banks?
Coverage ratios are essentially loan loss reserves (provisions for bad debt) divided by non-performing loans, and they declined in the second-quarter for European banks and the third-quarter for US banks,
Rights issue fees: underwriting angst
An interesting sideshow to Lloyds Banking Group’s ongoing wrestling match with the UK Treasury has been the debate over what slice of the proceeds investment bankers should get.
The Guardian on Wednesday,
Houston, we have a problem
Michael Shedlock of Mish’s Global Trend Analysis flags up a rather worrisome review by some concerned retired auditor folk on the situation facing the City of Houston in Texas, USA.
Indeed, according to Bob Lemer,