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Posted
Mar 12 2009, 03:15 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Rogue financier Bernard Madoff is expected to plead guilty today to operating a vast decades-long fraud, and details of his elaborate international Ponzi scheme continue to emerge. The Wall Street Journal leads its coverage today with details that Madoff used his London office to launder cash in a type of carousel trade, "transferring client money from the investment-advisory business in New York to London and then back to the U.S. to support the U.S. trading operation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, and also for his personal benefit and for family members and associates." The revelation means British authorities have opened up an investigation of their own into the alleged fraudster's dealings, the newspaper adds.
According to the New York Times, after today's plea hearing in federal court, "there is a strong chance that [Madoff] will not return home." The most suspenseful moment today will come after the plea, the newspaper writes, when Madoff's attorneys will argue that the judge ought to preserve his $10 million bail agreement and let him resume living in his penthouse apartment rather than wait out the next few weeks (or few months) until he's sentenced behind bars. He may be guilty of running the largest financial fraud in history, BusinessWeek notes, but does a potential life sentence for Madoff fit the crime? The magazine talks to a variety of trial attorneys, and their verdict is not heartening for Madoff
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Posted
Jun 24 2009, 05:19 PM
by
Andrew Horowitz
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 We have seen a great deal of questionable activities over the past year or so. We have already been through market manipulation and commodity fixing, tax evasion and sex scandals. Now we are learning about the possibility of one of the most respected positions in our government involved in a multi-billion dollar cover up. Would that even surprise you these days? Probably not, as nothing is a surprise anymore.
But what are the implications if it is concluded that Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke and Former Treasury Secretary Paulson had pressured Bank of America's (BAC) CEO Ken Lewis to keep material information from shareholders?
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Posted
Oct 31 2008, 04:30 AM
by
Andrew Horowitz
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 As if the economic bailout by U.S. taxpayers isn't enough to make you sick to your stomach, new information has come to light that several banks are planning to pay billions of dollars in year-end bonuses from the bailout funds they received. Investigations are beginning into the nine banks that took in the first $125 billion -- the same $125 billion that was supposed to be used to unclog the credit system which was preventing banks from providing much needed funds for individuals and businesses.
There are many feathers in a ruffle over this and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and several congressmen are furious that over $20 billion has already been earmarked as bonus funds for management and employees. Unbelievably, that is just the estimates from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch. There are six more banks that are also working on similar heists.
Here is their rationale for using that money:
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Posted
Dec 08 2008, 06:09 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
First the good news for General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner. After weeks of industry pleading, it looks likely that lawmakers will drive through a short-term $15 billion auto loan, writes the Detroit News. That will save GM and Chrysler from hitting the wall for at least a couple of months. The bad news for Wagoner, writes the Wall Street Journal, is that he is "coming under increasing pressure from outside the company to resign," most notably from Sen. Chris Dodd, a supporter of a broad auto bailout.
Whatever form the rescue takes, it will come with strict regulatory strings attached, including "the possible creation of an oversight board made up of five cabinet secretaries" and maybe even a "car czar," writes the New York Times. (What, no SUV Svengali?) President-elect Barack Obama "accused auto executives of a persistent 'head-in-the sand approach' to long-festering problems," even as he lent his support for a short-term bailout, writes CNN Money. "If this management team that's currently in place doesn't understand the urgency of the situation and is not willing to make the tough choices and adapt to these new circumstances, then they should go," Obama said.
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Posted
Sep 16 2008, 03:15 PM
by
Andrew Horowitz
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Since when do we rely on government to intervene in every case of a failing business? If anyone wonders why we have such a mess on our hands, look no further than our boneheaded government that has obviously forgotten its way. Think of this week's action within the financial markets as a result, not the cause of our problems.
AIG is in a battle for its very existence, Merrill has been absorbed and Lehman is bankrupt. And we're only part way through the week. What's next?
These days, many people are wondering what our government will do to stop the insanity. Yet, in a capitalistic society that relies on a free market system, we should only look to the government to guide and regulate against fraud and the manipulation of the system. Sometimes known as a laissez-faire philosophy, the government has a role, but it
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Posted
Mar 10 2008, 04:30 PM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The first quarter should be another brutal right of passage for big investment banks. Citigroup is forecasting that they will have to write-down another $9 billion in Q1. According to Reuters the damage will be "primarily driven by additional leveraged loan and mortgage-related losses."
Among the hardest hit firms will be Goldman Sachs which is facing as much as a $3.2 billion write-off, Merrill Lynch, which may post $2.9 billion in write-downs, and Morgan Stanley where the figure could be as high as $1.2 billion.
If the numbers are correct, it may open the door for another round of raising funds for the brokerages. Now that most of them have called on sovereign banks overseas, it will be essential that U.S. private equity firms or Treasury help them out of the mounting mess.
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Posted
Jun 26 2009, 07:29 AM
by
admin
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post was written by Company Focus columnist Michael Brush.
For years whenever I’ve criticized companies like Merrill Lynch, Time Warner (TWX), KB Home (KBH) and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) for showering execs with excessive pay, outsized bonuses and juicy perks, two responses have inevitably followed.
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The companies say they need to pay executives that much to attract the “best talent."
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Free marketers tell me to leave them alone. The executives, after all, are so good at what they do that they deserve whatever they get. They earned it.
Reality, however, is not so simple. Tellingly, excessive pay and perks often go hand in hand with poor stock performance -- not the kind of superior performance you’d expect from “the best talent” or overachievers.
A quick look at the charts of the stocks of all the companies above bears this out. Each stock has either blown up or vastly underperformed the S&P 500 index over the past five years. Several studies have demonstrated a link between excessive pay and poor stock performance, and now a new one from the Corporate Library joins the chorus
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Posted
Mar 25 2008, 03:58 PM
by
Charley Blaine
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Al Copeland died on Sunday. You might not know the name. In Louisiana and certainly around New Orleans, he was about as well known as anybody both for the chicken you can get at Popeyes Famous Fried Chicken, the chain he started, and for his lavish, complicated and exuberant lifestyle.
He liked getting married. But all four of his marriages ended in divorce -- often acrimoniously. He liked Christmas. His house along Lake Pontchartrain in Kenner, La., was so lit up with lights at the holidays that airline pilots would use it to line up their approaches to the airport.
He liked fast cars and fast boats. He carried on a fun feud over the decor of one of his restaurants with no less than Anne Rice, the author of "Interview with the Vampire."
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Posted
Mar 04 2009, 03:45 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's crusade against the highest paid provides the Wall Street Journal with front-page fodder today. Meanwhile, those that brought you the housing crisis are reaping big rewards for buying back defaulted mortgage loans at "pennies to the dollar," according to the New York Times in a front-pager about Stanford Kurland, Countrywide's former president, who has launched a distressed debt firm.
The WSJ has identified the top 10 best-compensated Merrill Lynch employees, who are the target of an investigation led by Cuomo into $3.6 billion in bonuses paid by the firm in the days before it was taken over by Bank of America. Those executives, the story reveals, received a grand total of $209 million in cash and stock in 2008 ($8 million more than what was doled out to the top 10 last year), much of which came from bonuses. Merrill's base salaries for top executives are usually $200,000 to $750,000. Bank of America hasn't yet coughed up the names of Merrill's highest-paid executives, "claiming it would help rivals woo its top talent."
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Posted
Oct 10 2008, 07:46 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Shhh. Can you hear it?
Remove your ear from the ground. It's no longer a murmur. The shifting social mood has bubbled to the surface: Americans are starting to fight back.
Our 401(k)s are evaporating before our eyes. Elected officials trumpet power grabs that moonlight as rescue packages. Talking heads mention in passing that General Motors may not be around next year.
And while some are content to sit, mouth agape, staring at a screen, watching flickering symbols drop in value and bank accounts dwindle, others have had enough and are doing something about it
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