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GM has earned a stunning $22.6 billion since 2009, when the automaker filed for chapter 11 with government assistance, according to a CNNMoney.com analysis yesterday. Taxpayers didn't fare nearly as well, losing $10.6 billion by the time the U.S. Treasury Department closed the books on GM’s $49.5 billion bailout in December 2013. GM, which filed for bankruptcy five years ago this Sunday, has repaid everything it was obligated to pay Treasury. Taxpayers came up short because the U.S. decided to buy GM stock to keep the automaker alive instead of giving it a loan and saddling it with more debt. Although GM has been very profitable since 2009, its stock price hasn’t risen to a level that has enabled Treasury to recoup that investment. GM is now one of the 40 most profitable companies in the nation. But the costs related to its controversial ignition-switch recall essentially wiped out its profits in the first quarter of this year. GM estimates that repairs to the 15.8 million vehicles it's recalled this year will cost at least $1.7 billion, which doesn't include any legal costs, fines or victim payouts that it will face.

JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s biggest bank, said that it will provide $100 million to help debt-ridden Detroit with housing repairs, blight removal, job training and economic development projects over the next five years, the New York Times reported Wednesday. The investment, a mix of loans and grants, will add to a growing pile of money from outside private institutions as the city nears the final, painful stages of the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy proceeding. JPMorgan’s support will focus on city revitalization efforts and may help ease concerns by some legislators that Detroit could find itself in financial trouble again down the road. The bank will direct half of the money toward community projects that would otherwise lack access to capital. It will put $25 million toward assisting groups like the Detroit Land Bank Authority and the Detroit Blight Removal Task Force, which have begun aggressive demolition campaigns to rid the city of its estimated 78,000 vacant structures. The rest will be diced up: $12.5 million for work-force training, $7 million for small-business assistance and $5.5 million toward economic growth projects such as a new streetcar system.

Beleaguered Specialty Hospitals of America LLC filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday with a plan to sell its Washington, D.C., health care facilities to hedge fund Silver Point Capital, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Silver Point's proposed purchase of Boston-based Specialty's long-term acute care hospitals via an auction process supervised by the bankruptcy court marks the culmination of weeks of uncertainty about the fate of the company's hospitals and nursing homes. The deal will enable Specialty's two long-term acute-care hospitals in Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill and Southwest sections, as well as its two nursing homes, to continue to serve more than 300 patients.

Jefferies LLC will pay $25 million to resolve U.S. criminal and civil investigations into its mortgage bond trading operations after one of its former traders was convicted for defrauding clients, and authorities said they are investigating whether other individuals broke the law, Reuters reported yesterday. The settlements announced on Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney in Connecticut, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the FBI resolve charges that Jefferies failed to properly supervise traders who cheated clients that took part in a federal program to kick-start bond markets after the 2008 financial crisis. The payout includes $14 million in fines and $11 million in restitution to customers, authorities said. Now part of Leucadia National Corp., Jefferies agreed to a non-prosecution agreement with U.S. Attorney Deirdre Daly in Connecticut in exchange for its cooperation and improved oversight of its employees.

Investment-banking fees generated from advisory services and debt and equity issuance rose 4.9 percent to an estimated $53.4 billion in 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News yesterday. That’s the highest amount since the peak of $86.9 billion in the pre–financial crisis, irrationally exuberant year of 2007. U.S. equity markets went on a tear in 2013, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index surging 30 percent. Initial public offerings, from companies such as Twitter Inc. and Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., returned in a big way. The total value of global IPO issues rose 45 percent to $164.7 billion, according to Bloomberg data. The rebounding U.S. stock market last year also gave voice to a noisier brand of investor: the activist. Hedge-fund executives, asset managers and other institutional shareholders are increasingly using their large stakes to wrest changes from corporate boards, which dealmakers say may translate to fee revenue down the road. Activists targeted 369 companies last year, 12 percent more than in 2012 and 14 percent more than in 2011, according to Philadelphia-based Hedge Fund Solutions LLC, which tracks investor agitation.

Axonic Capital LLC, LibreMax Capital LLC and Saba Capital Management LP are among firms positioning to provide loans as more than $1 trillion in commercial real-estate debt originated before the property crash comes due over the next three years, aiming to bridge the gap for borrowers needing more cash than banks are willing to lend, Bloomberg News reported today. Funds that buy corporate debt or mortgage-backed securities that package dozens of loans are targeting individual buildings, drawn by yields as high as 15 percent after returns elsewhere in credit markets shrunk. The firms are wagering commercial property values will continue to rebound after recouping 75 percent of their decline since 2009 even with the record wave of maturing loans. About $350 billion in commercial real estate debt comes due every year through 2017 after a borrowing binge last decade, according to Morgan Stanley. The firms are aiming to provide mezzanine loans, which are repaid after traditional commercial mortgages if a borrower defaults, making them a riskier bet in exchange for higher yields.

A bankruptcy judge yesterday approved bidder protections, including a $65 million breakup fee, to NRG Energy Inc. as it works to close a $2.6 billion offer to take Edison Mission Energy out of chapter 11 protection next year, Nasdaq reported yesterday. Less than one week after announcing what Edison Mission's bankruptcy attorney called a "monumental moment" in the company's chapter 11 case, Judge Jacqueline P. Cox of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago signed off on the bidder protections for NRG. Edison Mission attorney Joshua Sussberg of Kirkland & Ellis LLP said that such bidder protections as the breakup fee and a pledge to reimburse NRG's sale-related expenses were necessary to securing the deal that Edison Mission hopes will take it out of bankruptcy next year. Judge Cox also authorized Edison Mission to continue shopping its assets to other buyers through Dec. 6. If the company were to find a better deal than NRG's offer to acquire the company for $2.285 billion in cash and $350 million in stock, NRG would receive the $65 million breakup fee. Judge Cox also signed off on Edison Mission's request to extend the time in which it alone may file a bankruptcy-exit plan. The company said it would file its plan, which is expected to have the NRG sale as its backbone, by mid-November. It hopes to win court approval of the plan by March 31 and close the sale by the end of July. Edison Mission, a unit of Edison International, generates energy at about 40 facilities in 12 states. It sought chapter 11 protection in December.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge yesterday cleared the way for hedge fund Elliott Management and King Street Capital Management L.P. to buy a multibillion-dollar bankruptcy claim owed to a Lehman Brothers U.K. subsidiary at a discount, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Judge James Peck of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York rejected a bid by a rival group of hedge funds to take a closer look at the deal, the details of which they argued were unfairly kept secret. Those funds, including such major distressed-debt investors as Paulson & Co. and Baupost Group, had argued that rival bidders had been shut out of the sale process. Lehman officially exited bankruptcy last year under a chapter 11 approved by its creditors, including the hedge funds involved in the dispute. Harvey Miller, a lawyer for Lehman’s post-bankruptcy overseers, said at yesterday’s hearing that the sale to Elliott and King Street is not simply a purchase of a claim, but reflects a complex web of claims and litigation involving two Lehman U.K. subsidiaries, which are being wound down under English law. The company’s liquidation is expected to continue for several more years as the team sells off Lehman’s still-considerable real-estate and private-equity holdings and unwinds its derivative positions.

JPMorgan Chase & Co., under siege on multiple fronts by state and federal prosecutors investigating alleged wrongdoing at the largest U.S. bank, is in talks with federal prosecutors in New York to resolve allegations it helped facilitate Bernard Madoff’s crimes, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The probe by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is tied to how the bank handled the funds of the convicted money manager and whether it turned a blind eye to his multibillion-dollar fraud, the biggest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history. The case may end in a deferred prosecution agreement. JPMorgan is in the midst of negotiating the terms of a tentative $13 billion accord with the Justice Department to resolve state and federal civil investigations tied to residential mortgage-backed securities and the collapse of the housing market that led to the 2008 financial crisis. “The firm is responding to various governmental investigations relating to Madoff, including by the Department of Justice and other regulators,” the bank said in a securities filing in August. JPMorgan was the primary banker for Madoff’s Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, or BLMIS, for more than 20 years. JPMorgan benefited from Madoff accounts while it “helped perpetuate Madoff’s fraud by ignoring the red flags, and continuing to structure products and collect fees for their own enrichment,” according to a lawsuit filed by Trustee Irving Picard. The bankruptcy trustee’s case is Picard v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., 11-cv-913, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

While all eyes are on the criminal trial of the former employees of the biggest Ponzi-scheme operator of all time, Bernard Madoff, the operator of another fraud is quietly — and tearfully — fighting to avoid dying in prison, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Tom Petters maintained his innocence following his 2009 conviction for running Minnesota’s biggest Ponzi scheme, even trying to take his battle to the Supreme Court. But in court Wednesday to seek a shorter prison sentence, he has finally conceded his guilt. “This is my only chance to clear my conscience and soul,” Petters said. “I made a horrible mess of things.” News reports say Petters cried as he apologized to U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle for lying in his courtroom when he denied his guilt for his role in the Ponzi scheme. Petters, who was convicted more than three years ago and sentenced to 50 years in prison, says he was never told that he could have cut a plea deal with prosecutors that would have put him behind bars for 30 years. Prosecutors deny this and accuse Petters of lying to win the shorter sentence. Petters was a well-known Minnesota businessman whose empire once encompassed Polaroid and Sun Country Airlines. He was arrested in 2008 and later found guilty of running a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme. His businesses have since gone into bankruptcy liquidation.