(Bloomberg) — Mongolia, the Asian nation with some of the world’s largest untapped mineral resources, is considering setting up separate companies owning the country’s gold, copper and coal reserves and using investment banks to sell shares to global investors, the prime minister said. The country will start the process toward listing this year and plans to sell shares first on the Mongolian Stock Exchange, Prime Minister Sukhbaatar Batbold said in an interview yesterday in Ulan Bator, the capital.
Mongolia Considers Selling Stakes of Copper, Coal, Gold Assets
February 9th, 2010 
Before You Invest Merrill’s Ex-CEO Will Lead CIT
February 8th, 2010 Before You Invest (Bloomberg) — John Thain, the ousted chief of Merrill Lynch & Co., was named to lead CIT Group Inc., the commercial lender that emerged from bankruptcy in December, after a nearly four-month search for a replacement.
Thain, 54, becomes chairman and chief executive officer immediately, New York-based CIT said today in a statement.
JPMorgan Chase chief gets $10m in shares
February 6th, 2010 Before You Invest Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive officer, has taken $10 million in shares after exercising stock options that have accrued over the course of ten years.
He has taken on an additional 250,000 shares – a move he had to make before the stock expired in March.
The windfall comes on top of his 2009 pay packet, which is set to be revealed in the next few days and is estimated to stand between $15 and $20 million, reports the Financial Times.
JPMorgan Chase shares have increased in value by around 60 per cent over the course of the past 12 months but company insiders indicated that Mr Dimon has no immediate intention of selling his stock.
It is believed that he is also likely to forgo a cash bonus for the second year in a row to help fend off potential criticism of JPMorgan Chase’s pay practices.
Last month, industry analysts predicted to the Telegraph that the firm’s bonus pot will stand at around $29 billion.
Billionaire Palmer Seeks Biggest Global Mining IPO Since 2007
February 5th, 2010 Before You Invest
(Bloomberg) — Billionaire Clive Palmer, a law school dropout who made his first fortune from real estate on Australia’s Gold Coast, is driving what may be the biggest initial share sale of a mining company since 2007. Palmer, 55, aims to raise as much as $3 billion in the Hong Kong IPO of Resourcehouse Ltd., which plans to spend A$10.2 billion ($9.1 billion) to develop iron ore and coal mines in Australia to supply steel mills and power companies in China. “Most of our funding comes from the People’s Republic of China,” said Palmer, referring to Resourcehouse, which this week sealed an investment and sales accord with Metallurgical Corp. 
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State Regulators vs. The Securities and Exchange Commission – Who Best Regulates Your Assets?
February 3rd, 2010 Before You Invest There is an ongoing debate regarding the role of state regulators in financial product oversight as Congress mulls over a proposal to expand the range of state oversight. Currently, financial advisors with under $25 million in assets are regulated by state regulators, with anything over that amount being regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Congress is considering increasing state oversight to include firms with up to $100 million in assets, effectively stripping the SEC of some oversight.
The timing of this change is directly related to the apparent failure of the regulation system in the United States following an explosion of long operating fraudulent schemes being uncovered over the past year. There has been finger pointing, calls for greater reform, and an apparent lack of consensus on the issue. The answer which no one seems to be able to answer is, how do we best split regulation between state and federal departments?
Texas Securities Commissioner Denise Voigt Crawford has been a vocal advocate of giving more power to state regulators. State regulators were stripped of many powers under the National Securities Markets Improvement Act of 1996, powers which Ms.
Italy Seizes Bank of America, Dexia Assets in Derivatives Probe
February 3rd, 2010 Before You Invest
(Bloomberg) — Italy’s financial police are seizing 73.3 million euros ($102 million) of assets from Bank of America Corp.
This Day in Wall Street History 1913: Income tax amendment takes effect
February 3rd, 2010 Before You Invest In 1913, the notion of an income tax, though perhaps not palatable to all Americans, was hardly a novelty. The U.S. government levied an income tax during the Civil War, and although it was allowed to lapse after the war, it was deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court in 1881.
Goldman Sachs chief to receive $40m bonus
February 3rd, 2010 Before You Invest Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein is likely to pick up a bonus of around $40 million for his work in 2009, it has been predicted.
Alan Johnson, a Wall Street compensation consultant, forecast to Reuters that Mr Blankfein would accept a pay package in this region –which will be a considerable drop on the $67.9 million payout he received for 2007.
Mr Johnson said that Goldman Sachs was highly likely to react to continuing criticism of its remuneration levels by reducing the size of Mr Blankfein’s 2009 bonus.
“They have made a number of moves to try to ameliorate the issues,” he said.
“I would be shocked if it didn’t have an impact on his and everybody else’s total.”
Last month, Goldman Sachs announced that it was paying out $16.2 billion to staff for their work last year – the lowest ratio when compared to revenue since the financial institution went public in 1999.
FINRA Fines Two Financial Firms for Inadequate Anti-Money Laundering Programs
February 3rd, 2010 Before You Invest
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has fined two financial firms for insufficiencies in their anti-money laundering (AML) programs. Penson Financial Services of Dallas, Texas and Pinnacle Capital Markets of Raleigh, North Carolina were fined $450,000 and $300,000, respectively. These two fines follow a similar action in October 2009 involving deficiencies in the AML program at Scottrade. Penson Financial Services was fined for failing to operate a functional AML compliance program. The specific failure involved insufficient personal resources allotted to review AML exception reports. In addition to this, FINRA found that penny stock deposits and liquidations were insufficiently reviewed, thus allowing the possibility for fraud and money laundering. Also, written AML procedures were inadequate, and the firm failed to maintain accurate records regarding unsecured deficits in the accounts of its correspondent firms, among other things. Despite enhancements to its AML program in 2007, deficiencies remained endemic to the Penson AML program. Pinnacle Capital Markets, whose principal business relates to providing online access of U.S. securities markets to foreign customers, including many foreign financial institutions, was fined for deficiencies found regarding detection and reporting of suspicious activity as well as failure to guarantee the identity of account holders. The firm used a manual system of daily reviewing its trade blotter and in doing so failed to detect suspicious trading activity. One such failure involved a pump and dump scheme targeted in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement action. In a specific failure based on their precise business model, Pinnacle failed to verify the identity of sub-account holders whose accounts were created under the main accounts of foreign financial institutions. In typical fashion, the firms neither affirmed nor denied the charges against them. To read the official FINRA press release, click here.
