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February 27,
2009
FDIC Poised
to Double Fees Charged to Lenders
The Federal Deposit Insurance
Corp. is expected to raise the fees that it charges banks by more than
double in an effort to replenish the government's deposit-insurance
fund, the Wall Street
Journal reported today. The FDIC had $18.8
billion in its deposit-insurance fund at the end of the fourth quarter
to protect about $4.8 trillion in insured deposits at U.S. banks. This
is the lowest insurance level since the savings-and-loan crisis, FDIC
officials said. Fourteen banks have failed this year so far, bringing
the total to 35 since July.The FDIC is required by law to launch a plan
to restore the fund any time it dips below 1.15 percent of insured
deposits. It was at 0.4 percent of insured deposits at the end of the
fourth quarter.
href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123569409253488329.html#mod=testMod'>Read
more. (Subscription required.)
Federal Home
Loan Banks Stung by Mortgage Losses
The Federal Home Loan Banks of
San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Boston and Chicago reported heavy losses
caused by write-downs in the value of mortgage securities, the
Wall Street Journal
size='3'>reported today.Investments in such securities are straining the
finances of several of the 12 regional home-loan banks, an important
source of funds for thousands of large and small banks across the
country.Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh yesterday reported a loss
of $187.9 million for the fourth quarter, Chicago said it expects to
report a loss of $119 million for the full year 2008, Boston reported a
loss of $73.2 million and San Francisco posted a fourth-quarter loss of
$103 million.Not all of the home-loan banks are being hit by big
write-downs. Those in New York, Des Moines, Iowa, and Topeka, Kan., all
reported net income for 2008.
href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123568705436087183.html'>Read
more. (Subscription required.)
Fannie Mae yesterday reported a
$25.2 billion loss for the fourth quarter, and Freddie Mac is expected
to report a huge loss for the latest quarter when it posts earnings in
early March, the Wall Street
Journal reported today. Homeowner defaults
have continued to increase even as the government has redirected the two
companies to focus their attention on preventing foreclosures and
propping up the housing market. Fannie's loss was caused by mortgage
defaults and drops in the value of derivative contracts used to hedge
against interest-rate risks. For the full year, Fannie had a loss of
$58.7 billion, compared with a year-earlier loss of $2.1 billion. The
loss for 2008 exceeds net income for the preceding 17 years.The company
said it expects that the housing and financial-market conditions that
led to 2008's huge losses 'to continue and possibly worsen in 2009.'
href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123568951227387517.html'>Read
more. (Registration required.)
Department Agrees to Raise Stake in Citigroup
After two multibillion-dollar
lifelines failed to shore up Citigroup, the Treasury Department
announced today that it will increase its stake in the company to 36
percent from 8 percent, the New
York Times reported today. Under the deal,
Citibank said that it would offer to exchange common stock for up to
$27.5 billion of its existing preferred securities and trust preferred
securities at a conversion price of $3.25 a share, a 32 percent premium
over Thursday’s closing price.The government will match this
exchange up to a maximum of $25 billion of its preferred stock at the
same price. As part of the deal, Citi will shake up its board so that it
has a majority of independent directors, according to Citigroup chairman
href='http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/business/28deal.html?_r=1&ref=business&pagewanted=print'>Read
more.
Analysis: In
Auto Talks, No Cure-All for Health Care Costs
As General Motors, Chrysler, the
autoworkers union and the Obama administration enter negotiations and
plot the future of the U.S. auto industry, one of the most delicate
issues they face is what to do about the health benefits of an estimated
800,000 retirees, the Washington Post reported today. Although
the union and Detroit's three automakers recently settled on a new wage
agreement, they still must resolve the question of how to cut or
rearrange their $30 billion in obligations to retiree health. To retain
$17.4 billion in emergency federal loans, the companies are seeking to
win union concessions on benefits and complete viability plans before a
March 31 deadline. Based on life expectancies and expected medical costs
of its current and future retirees, GM and the union figure the company
still owes about $20 billion into its retiree health fund; Chrysler owes
href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/26/AR2009022600849_pf.html'>Read
more.
Lehman Moves
to Let Insurers Pay Defense Costs
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has
asked a federal bankruptcy court to modify a stay in its chapter 11 case
so that its third-party insurers can cover defense costs for the
investment bank’s current and former directors and officers who
have been targeted in a string of lawsuits and investigations,
Bankruptcy Law360
size='3'>reported today. The debtor said that its insurers were willing
to pay the defense costs and fees, but only if the court revises the
automatic stay to allow such payments to be made.Lehman said that it was
not requesting a determination of any insurer’s obligation to pay
any particular expense or claim, but was only seeking a change to the
stay to allow the insurers “to fulfill their obligations, whatever
they may be, to pay claims and expenses of the individual defendants
under the terms of the policies, including amounts incurred both pre-
and post-petition,” according to court documents.
href='http://bankruptcy.law360.com/articles/89198'>Read
more. (Subscription required.)
Bank of
America Subpoenaed on Bonuses
Though Bank of America Corp.
Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis testified in a meeting with New York
Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office, the attorney general's office
subpoenaed the bank to turn over a list of who received $3.6 billion in
bonuses at Merrill Lynch, the
size='3'>Wall Street Journal reported today.
Cuomo’s office said that Bank of America had refused to turn over
the information in recent weeks and Cuomo's office had hoped to question
Lewis about the list on Thursday. Bank of America said that it has been
offering to provide Cuomo's office with the names for two weeks as long
as Cuomo agrees to keep them confidential.
href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123570733935590947.html'>Read
more. (Subscription required.)
Swimwear
Retailer Files for Bankruptcy
Everything But Water, which sells
swimwear in 70 stores in 26 states, filed for bankruptcy late on
Wednesday, saying it had tried to restructure but economic conditions
were too tough, Reuters reported yesterday.In court documents, the
company listed assets of $58 million and liabilities of $35 million. The
company is seeking a $5 million debtor-in-possession financing from D.B.
Zwirn on an interim basis and $11 million on a final basis.The case
is In re Everything But Water
LLC, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of
Delaware, No. 09-10649.
href='http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN2654540620090226'>Read
href='http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN2654540620090226'>
Regal Jets
Files for Chapter 11
Regal Jets LLC filed for chapter
11protection in a Delaware court on Wednesday, Reuters reported.The
Dallas-based company listed assets in the range of $10 million to $50
million and liabilities in the range of $100 million to $500 million in
its chapter 11 filing. Regal Jets listed less than 100 creditors,
according to court documents.
Judge
Issues Injunction to Prevent Actions Against Chemical Firm’s
Parent Company
Bankruptcy Judge
face='Cambria' size='3'>Robert E. Gerber
size='3'>yesterday issued a 60-day injunction preventing creditors from
taking action against the Lyondell Chemical Co.'s European parent
company, a move Lyondell said was necessary in order to prevent the
further erosion of its assets,
size='3'>Bankruptcy Law360 reported yesterday.
The injunction follows the extension of a temporary restraining order
that barred creditors from pursuing certain claims against Lyondell
Basell Industries AF SCA, Lyondell's Luxembourg-based parent company.
The injunction also prevents hundreds of noteholders of approximately
$1.2 billion in debt related to 8.375 percent senior notes due in 2015
from taking action against LyondellBasell Industries, including moving
to accelerate the maturity of such notes.
href='http://bankruptcy.law360.com/articles/89154'>Read
more. (Subscription required.)
Continuing
Jobless Claims Top 5 Million
New U.S. claims for state unemployment
benefits unexpectedly jumped last week to a 26-year high, while total
claims cracked the five million mark for the first time ever, the
Wall Street Journal reported today. Initial claims for jobless
benefits rose 36,000 to 667,000 after seasonal adjustments in the week
ended Feb. 21, the Labor Department said in a weekly report yesterday.
That's the highest level since Oct. 2, 1982, although the labor force
was much smaller then. The United States has lost 3.6 million jobs since
the recession started in December 2007, with about half of those losses
coming in the last three months alone including the largest monthly drop
in over 30 years last month. That would almost certainly push the
unemployment rate higher. That rate currently stands at a 16-year high
of 7.6 percent. The Federal Reserve projects that the unemployment rate
could climb as high as 8.8 percent by the end of the year.
href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123565460187982083.html'>Read
more. (Subscription required.)
name='12'>Rocky Mountain News
size='3'>to Cease Operations
After not being able to find a
buyer, Colorado's oldest newspaper, the
size='3'>Rocky Mountain News, is shutting down
today, and industry analysts say it won't be the last to be pulled under
by a rising tide of financial woes, the
size='3'>Washington Post reported today.E.W.
Scripps announced yesterday that it is closing the 150-year-old
Rocky Mountain News, which has won four Pulitzer Prizes in the
last decade, leaving Denver, like most American cities, a one-newspaper
town. Scripps said “unfortunately, the partnership's business
model is locked in the past.'That model is a joint operating agreement,
an eight-year-old arrangement blessed by the Justice Department, in
which the Rocky
size='3'>has shared business and production costs with the rival
Denver Post.
Each has a daily circulation of 210,000. Scripps said in December that
it would try to unload the
size='3'>Rocky.
href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/26/AR2009022602108_pf.html'>Read
more.
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