Posts Tagged ‘Goldman Sachs’

Fabrice Tourre denies fraud allegations

Goldman Sachs executive Fabrice Tourre has denied acting improperly in regard to the controversial Abacus collateralized debt obligation (CDO) product.Fabrice TourreLast week, the bank agreed to pay out $550 million after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused it of misleading investors by not informing them that hedge fund Paulson & Co – which helped make the CDO – was betting on its failure.The SEC said it would continue its case against Mr Tourre, who is said to have helped design the product.But lawyers acting on his behalf have questioned for the civil fraud charges against him to be dropped, reports Reuters.”The purported claims against Mr Tourre are based solely on alleged actions and omissions concerning information known to many different Goldman Sachs employees working in various aspects of its business,” his legal team said.Goldman Sachs has not admitted or denied the SEC’s claims, but did state that it regrets that marketing materials for the CDO did not tell Paulson’s involvement.

Goldman Sachs reports lower second-quarter earnings

Goldman Sachs shares tumbled in pre-market trading after the company reported earnings that beat Wall Street views, but revenue came in shy of what analysts had been expecting.The financial giant said its net income was 78 cents a share in its second quarter, compared with $4.93 a share this time last year.Excluding one-time items, Goldman earned $2.75 a share, topping analysts’ estimates.Sales for the most recent quarter reached $8.84 billion, down from $13.76 billion in the same period last year.Analysts who follow the company projected Goldman Sachs to earn $2.08 a share on revenue of $8.94 billion.Last week Goldman resolved a major headache by paying $550 million to settle the SEC case. The fraud charges stemmed from Goldman’s marketing and packaging of the Abacus collateralized debt obligation.Weakness in its trading and investment banking divisions also weighed on earnings.Goldman said earnings were also impacted by a $600 million expense related to the UK tax.”It’s a pretty significant slowdown in their overall business: Investment banking revenue was down 36 percent year over year, and fixed income, currency, and commodity trading was down 35 percent,” said Walter Todd, portfolio manager at Greenwood Capital Associates.

Goldman Settles With SEC

“Today’s settlement sends positive message of deterrence and accountability,” said the SEC’s director of enforcement, Robert Khuzami.Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $550 million to settle civil charges that it duped clients by selling mortgage securities that were secretly designed by a hedge-fund firm to cash in on the housing market’s collapse.Goldman agreed to pay $550 million to resolve allegations that the company misled investors who bought subprime mortgage-related securities made by Goldman.

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UBS re-Files Highland Capital CDO Case

UBS is re-filing its lawsuit against distressed hedge fund firm Highland Capital claiming the firm did the Swiss bank out of $686 million in a CDO deal. The new case, filed Monday in New York State court, is reminiscent of the SEC’s case against Goldman Sachs over a CDO deal gone terrible.

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FINRA Panel Awards $21 Million to Bayou Creditors

A securities arbitration panel has ordered Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing LP and Spear Leeds & Kellogg LP to pay nearly $21 million to unsecured creditors of the Bayou Group LLC, according to an award. The Official Unsecured Creditors’ Committee of Bayou Group LLC filed the case against the two units of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

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Corzine Slashing Staff at MF Global Amid Losses

By ReutersURL: http://www.wallstreetandtech.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=224900505* Workforce to be cut 10-15 percent* Adj Q4 loss 17 cents/share vs Street view profit 1 cent* Q4 net revenue $240.5 mln vs year-ago $257.1 mln* Shares up 1 pct in morning tradingNEW YORK – Jon Corzine, the new chief executive of MF Global Holdings Ltd , said the futures and options broker would cut its workforce by up to 15 percent as it looks to stem five straight quarters of losses.Corzine’s cost-cutting goal came as MF Global reported quarterly results that fell small of analysts’ expectations.

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Greek PM does not rule out legal action against US banks

(AFP) – ATHENS — Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou raised the possibility of taking legal action against US banks which he said in an interview on Sunday bore “fantastic responsibility” for Greece’s debt crisis.Questioned in an interview with CNN whether Greece was the victim of investment banks, he said: “I reckon, yes the financial sector, I hear the words fraud, lack of transparency, so yes there is fantastic responsibility here.”When the interviewer followed up by asking whether legal action were a possibility, he responded “I wouldn’t rule out that this may be a recourse,” according to extracts of the interview aired on Greek public television.The Greek parliament is currently looking into deals Greek authorities carried out in 2000 with help from Goldman Sachs that allowed them to mask the extent of Greece’s debts through the use of complex financial instruments.”Right now there is a parliament investigation in Greece, we are looking into the past how things went in the incorrect direction and what kind of practices were negative practices,” Papandreou said.German Chancellor Angela Merkel has led criticism in Europe against banks’ role in the debt crisis, slamming “treacherous” practices during the Greek drama and urging governments to crack down on speculators hunting profits in the turmoil.Greece is paying a painful price for its past overspending with the government forced to slash civil servants’ and pensioners’ pay while raising taxes as a condition for a 110 billion euro EU-IMF bailout.But, a poll published Sunday in the Ethnos newspaper found that 58.8 percent of the 1,028 people surveyed expected the country to steer clear of bankruptcy while 36.6 percent considered default inevitable.While 56.2 percent of those polled by the Marc SA institute considered the austerity measures to be “necessary”, 87.8 percent judged them to be “unfair”.

Waddell is mystery trader in market plunge

(Reuters) – A huge mystery seller of futures contracts during the market meltdown last week was not a hedge fund or a high frequency trader as many have suspected, but money manager Waddell & Reed Financial Inc, according to a document obtained by Reuters.Waddell sold on May 6 a large order of e-mini contracts during a 20-minute span in which U.S.

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Probe of US Banks Continues

U.S. authorities are expanding their probes of past mortgage securities deals, with New York’s attorney general opening an investigation into whether eight banks misled rating agencies, a source familiar with the matter said.New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office on Wednesday served subpoenas on four U.S.

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4 Big Banks Score Perfect 61-Day Run

By ERIC DASHIt is the Wall Street equivalent of a perfect game of baseball — 27 up, 27 down, the final score measured in millions of dollars a day.Despite the running unease in world markets, four giants of American finance managed to make money from trading every single day during the first three months of the year.Their remarkable 61-day streak is one for the record books.

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