Are you sick of the “rules” governing the place in which you currently live? Do you want to start a new land “free of old laws and practices,” where you kind of get to be like a King and say what’s what? You’re in luck.

As you may have heard, economist Paul Romer has been looking for a country that will let him start a “charter city,” like “William Penn did in Pennsylvania” and apparently Honduras is into it!

About a decade ago, Romer walked away from academia, started an online teaching company, sold it and then turned to his next big idea: To create jobs to lift millions out of poverty, take an uninhabited 1,000 square-kilometer tract (386 square miles), about the size of Hong Kong, preferably government-owned. Write a charter: the all-important rules. Allow anyone to move in or out. Invite foreign investors to build infrastructure for profit. And sign a treaty with a well-governed country, say Norway or Canada, to serve as “guarantor” to assure investors and residents that the charter will be respected, much as the British once did for Hong Kong, and—with some oversight from the Honduran Congress—govern the city.

Two weeks ago, with only one “no,” its Congress voted to amend the constitution to allow for a ciudad modelo. “This is a country in which most people want to pursue the American Dream,” says Octavio Sanchez Barrientos, chief of staff to Honduran President Porfirio Lobo. “And they have to leave the country and move to the U.S. This offers the possibility that, in the long run, they’ll have that opportunity here.”

All Romer needs is some deeply-pocketed people to pony up the dough. Supposedly “several major international investors have already expressed interest in the project” (Jorge Soros?) but no one’s signed on any dotted lines. Get in while you still can.

The Quest For A Charter City [WSJ]
Charter Cities: A New Honduras [CC]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Priscila

Last week we met Toby Carroll, a New Zealand-born real estate analyst for HSBC currently stationed in Dubai, who’d spent the last two months in prison. Carroll had ended up there after his ex-girlfriend, Priscilla Ferreira, found him and a new girl, Danielle Spencer, in his apartment and proceeded to start slashing curtains, furniture, etc, and go after the Danielle with a knife. The police were called and all three were put in jail because in Dubai, adultery is illegal (still unclear: why the law would apply to people who were a) never married and b) had broken up).

Today brings word that Carroll, who friends describe as as “a fun-loving party boy who was dedicated to his job, a snappy dresser who liked women but wasn’t womanizer,” has been released from prison. So, that’s good news! Unfortunately, some other details seems to suggest things aren’t going to be so great for him in the near term.

Other information that’s come to light includes:

* The ex-girlfriend’s full name (previously she was only identified by the first): Priscilla Ferreira, 24

* Some biographical details on Spencer: “Miss Spencer, 31, has worked in the emirate in real estate and as an investment consultant before moving to a firm that sells yachts last year. She is originally from Hull and worked as a pole-dancer before ending up in Dubai after a round-the-world trip.”

* Carroll “faces charges of having sex outside marriage”

* Ferreira “angrily denied reports she had been dumped by Mr Carroll a day before she caught him in bed with Ms Spencer. She said: “We hadn’t split up, we’d had an argument. We have been seeing each other for five years and were going to get married.”

* Perhaps the most terrifying of all: “Miss Spencer and Miss Ferreira became friends after being forced to share a mattress in the women’s cell at Bur Dubai police station, which is meant to house 40 but regularly holds between 70 and 100 inmates.”

British Woman in Dubai Sex Case Is Released [Telegraph]
30 days in a Dubai police cell, sharing a mattress with her Brazilian love rival [Daily Mail]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Yes, bonuses at RBS are expected to be “downsized” at least thirty percent this year but the relatively good news? The bank will get to pay out shitty bonuses on its own terms and not because anyone is forcing them to do so.

The British government has no powers to restrict bonuses at the Royal Bank of Scotland this year, the finance minister George Osborne said on Tuesday. “The (government’s contract with RBS) puts no contraints on RBS bonuses for this year,” Osborne told parliament.

UK government cannot restrict RBS bonuses this year [Reuters]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

The last month or so has not been the best of times for Phil Falcone. Harbinger Capital’s flagship is down, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and some others have pulled their money, investors have been giving him shit for borrowing $113 million from one of his funds (where redemptions had been frozen) in order to pay personal taxes, he had to put up his art as collateral to borrow even more cash (for what, it’s unclear), he’s being investigated by the SEC and every time he drives down the road he just wants to jerk the wheel into a god damn bridge abutment.

First, though, he’d like to put some rumors to bed, and in a profile with the Times yesterday, did just that.

* On the hideous suggestion he’s got a liquidity problem:

Mr. Falcone has been selling investments. He has unloaded stakes in Citigroup and The New York Times Company and a $650 million investment in Inmarsat, a British satellite company. All of this has led to speculation in the hedge fund community that Mr. Falcone and his firm are confronting a cash squeeze. If more investors withdraw money, the whispers go, Mr. Falcone could be in trouble. Nonsense, said Mr. Falcone in an interview in his office. “The last thing I’m thinking about in the morning is whether I have a cash-flow problem,” he says.

* On people not getting that he loaned himself investor money because he really needed it and not because he was just dicking around.:

A little more than a year ago, Mr. Falcone took a $113 million personal loan from the fund, a move that was vetted by his lawyers, he said. Mr. Falcone said a big chunk of his personal wealth is tied up in his own funds. “It’s not like I have $113 million in my checking account,” he said, chuckling.

* On whether or not he’d do it all over again:

“In 20/20 hindsight, I regret being in this position,” he said, leaning forward on the sleek black conference table and clasping his hands together. “This has not been a fun process.”

* On his singing and dancing pig’s name, which some press accounts have wrongly claimed is ‘Pickles’:

Ms. Falcone turned heads with a Prada sensibility and her pet pig, Wilbur.

* On whether or not all this has him freaking the fuck out:

Mr. Falcone has adopted a rather grounded outlook on the ups and downs of hedge funds, including his own. “You can’t go through this business and think every day is going to be a winning day,” he said.

So, just, everybody chill. Phil’s good, Lisa’s good, Harbinger’s good, and tonight, we will dance.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Foreign Firms Got Feds’ Cash (WSJ)
Among the biggest loans from a Fed commercial-paper lending program was one to Swiss banking giant UBS AG, which tapped it for $37 billion in October 2008. Barclays PLC, the British bank that declined to rescue Lehman Brothers but later bought much of it from bankruptcy, tapped the Fed for roughly $10 billion in commercial-paper loans in October 2008.

Bank of America Becoming Bank Of Asia As Revenue Rises 30% (Bloomberg)
Bank of America is headed for its best year advising on mergers and acquisitions in Asia-Pacific since 2005, and arranging initial public offerings since 2007. The combined companies have generated 30 percent more revenue from traditional investment-banking businesses in the region than they did as separate entities, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who asked not to be identified because the figures aren’t public.

Kinnucan Won’t Keep Quiet After Refusing To Wear A Wire For Feds (Bloomberg)
“It is a larger story at work here about the proper role of the SEC and its mandate as I understand it to provide guidance to the investment community,” Kinnucan said in an interview. “The Justice Department evidently would like to retroactively criminalize research activities which have been complicitly condoned by the SEC for years. If I don’t raise my voice, nobody will because everyone has gone underground.” Andrew Stoltmann, a securities lawyer in Chicago said: “He’s violating rule number one: don’t do anything that might upset the prosecutors. When someone talks to the FBI, he usually goes as far underground as possible. He’s not helping himself.”

ECB to Keep Unlimited Liquidity, Bond Hints Awaited (Reuters)
“They will probably say something to the effect that they stand ready to increase purchases in government securities if they considered this necessary,” said Frank Engels at Barclays Capital. “I think that would be slightly disappointing.”

Single Trader Holds Bulk Of LME Copper (WSJ)
That trader, whom the exchange hasn’t identified, owns between 50% and 80% of the 355,750 metric tons held in LME-listed warehouses. This amounts to more than 177,875 metric tons of copper, valued at about $1.5 billion. The exchange first disclosed the large position on Nov. 23 in its daily inventory holder report.

Peter Orszag Close to Joining Citigroup (FT)
Buds from the old neighborhood.

SEC, Banks Discuss CDO Settlement (WSJ)
The Securities and Exchange Commission, after issuing subpoenas for documents and interviewing officials from nearly every bank that was a major player in creating, selling or trading CDOs, has begun negotiating with the companies, these people said.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/thomas-hoenigs-war-shrinking-behemoth-banks/“>Too Big To Succeed (NYT)
Thomas Hoenig: “A competitive, accountable and successful domestic economic system, supported by many innovative financial firms, would restore the United States’ economic strength. More financial firms — with none too big to fail — would mean less concentrated financial power, less concentrated risk and better access and service for American businesses and the public. Even if they were substantially smaller, the largest firms could continue to meet any global financial demand either directly or through syndication. Crises will always be a part of our capitalist system. But an absence of accountability and blatant inequities in treatment are why Americans remain angry. Without accountability, we cannot hope to build a national consensus around the sacrifices needed to eliminate our fiscal deficits and rebuild our economy.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

General Motors Raises IPO Price to $32-$33 a Share (CNBC)
Previously, the company had estimated the price range for the offering of 365 million shares of common stock within the range of $26.00 to $29.00 per share. The company also increased the size of its Series B mandatory convertible junior preferred stock offering to $4 billion from $3 billion…A source familiar with the matter told CNBC Monday that after ten days of investor presentations and a growing sense of optimism about the offering, the underwriters opted to raise the price range high above its original level.

Fed officials defend $600bn stimulus (FT)
The Federal Reserve has deployed two of its most senior officials to defend its new $600bn round of quantitative easing in rare on-the-record interviews that reveal the bank’s concern over domestic and international criticism of the policy. Janet Yellen, Fed vice-chair, and William Dudley, president of the New York Fed, dismissed concerns that quantitative easing was aimed at weakening the dollar or that it could ignite inflation. Mr Dudley dismissed concerns that the Fed’s policy could lead to inflation, saying that the central bank has the tools to withdraw the additional stimulus if it needs to. “We are very, very confident that those tools will be completely effective at keeping inflation in check,” Mr Dudley told the New York Times. “We are completely willing to use those tools, when the time comes, to prevent an inflation problem. Higher inflation is not a way out. It is not a solution.” Ms Yellen also said the Fed was not trying to generate above-target inflation. “I am not happy to see us caught up in a political debate. But Congress has assigned us tasks which we need to carry out as best we can. To fail to take action that is in our power that we, in our best judgment, believe to be helpful to the economy – that would be political,” she told the Wall Street Journal.

China’s ‘State Capitalism’ Sparks Global Backlash (WSJ)
Charlene Barshefsky, who as U.S. trade representative under President Bill Clinton helped negotiate China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization, says the rise of powerful state-led economies like China and Russia is undermining the established post-World War II trading system. When these economies decide that “entire new industries should be created by the government,” says Ms. Barshefsky, it tilts the playing field against the private sector.

Paulson Trims Bank Of America, Entire Goldman Stake (Bloomberg)
Paulson sold 30 million Bank of America shares in the quarter, or about 18 percent of his stake, according to a regulatory filing yesterday. The billionaire’s position in the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank was valued at $1.8 billion as of Sept. 30. Bank of America shares fell 8.8 percent in the quarter…Paulson’s fund also cut its Citigroup stake by 16 percent, yesterday’s filing showed. The firm still owned $1.7 billion in shares of the New York-based bank. Paulson trimmed his Wells Fargo stake by 11 percent, holding 15.5 million shares in the San Francisco-based bank valued at $389 million as of Sept. 30. He cut his position in JPMorgan Chase & Co. by 29 percent, keeping a $190 million stake in the New York company, and sold his entire holding in New York-based Goldman Sachs, valued at about $144.4 million at midyear.

Morgan Stanley’s Net `Queen’ Meeker Predicts Mobile-Web Boom (Bloomberg)
Mary Meeker will predict a $50 billion online advertising boom in an address at the annual Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco today. The Morgan Stanley analyst will say as well that mobile commerce may gain market share faster than traditional online retailing.

UBS May Lose $41 Billion Deposits Over Tax Deals (AP)
UBS says customers from Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Britain made net withdrawals worth 20 billion francs over the past years. The bank said Tuesday that “15-40 billion francs are still at risk as a result of changes in the tax regulations.”

Prince William To Marry Girlfriend Kate Middelton (Reuters)
William, 28, the elder son of heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, and Middleton, 28, daughter of self-made entrepreneurs, became engaged while on holiday in Kenya last month. The wedding will take place in the spring or summer of 2011, in London…William, who is currently serving as a helicopter search-and-rescue pilot in the Royal Air Force, met Middleton when they shared a house at university in Scotland in 2001. They split up in 2007 because, newspapers said, Middleton, who has been dubbed “waity Katie” by the British tabloid press, was getting fed up of waiting for William to propose, but they soon got back together.

Bailout Panel Warns of Bank Mortgage Losses, Urges Stress Tests (Bloomberg)
“If document irregularities prove to be pervasive and, more importantly, throw into question ownership of not only foreclosed properties but also pooled mortgages, the result could be significant harm to the financial stability,” the Congressional Oversight Panel for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said in a report today. “Bank regulators should also conduct new stress tests on Wall Street banks to measure their ability to deal with a potential crisis,” the report continued.

Securitization Industry Set To Defend Practices (WSJ)
The American Securitization Forum, a trade group for the securitization industry, is set to release on Tuesday a 28-page defense of widely used practices for bundling mortgages into securities. The securitization process and foreclosure-documentation practices are likely to face criticism from lawmakers at a Senate Banking Committee hearing Tuesday.

Bond Market Defies Fed (WSJ)
“The recent run-up in bond yields is worrying to many,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at Miller Tabak, a New York trading firm, but “you need to keep it in context of what happened before the Fed moved.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

RBS Faces `Long, Hard Slog’ as Hester Forecasts Reduced Loss (Bloomberg)
The loss for the year will be “nominal,” Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hester, 49, said on a conference call with journalists today, following a 3.6 billion-pound ($5.8 billion) loss in 2009. The third quarter net loss narrowed by 36 percent to 1.15 billion pounds from 1.8 billion pounds in the year- earlier period as impairments fell, RBS said in a statement…“There are inevitably clouds still out there on the horizon,” Hester said. “We still have our raincoats on.”

HSBC Profit Growth Slows, Sees ‘Bumps in the Road‘ (Bloomberg)
“Our latest data from emerging markets points to a slowdown in the rate of recovery and the likelihood of some bumps in the road ahead,” Chief Executive Officer Michael Geoghegan said in the statement. “We believe the long-term fundamentals for emerging economies are as compelling as ever.”

German Finance Minister: US Policy ‘Clueless’ (Reuters)
“With all due respect, U.S. policy is clueless,” Wolfgang Schaeuble said at a conference.

AIG Posts $2.4 Billion Loss (AP)
AIG lost $2.4 billion, or $17.62 per share, compared with earnings of $92 million, or 68 cents per share, a year ago.

Representative Bachus Warns Geithner On Volcker Rule (Reuters)
“If the Volcker Rule’s prohibitions are expansively interpreted and rigidly implemented against U.S. institutions while other nations refuse to adopt them, the damage to U.S. competitiveness and job creation could be substantial,” Bachus wrote in the November 3 letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and other top regulators.

GM Touts Its Profit Potential In IPO Pitch (WSJ)
GM tells investors the company can generate $11 billion to $13 billion in annual pretax profit and profit margins of 7% to 8% as the North American auto market recovers, according to a video in the presentation by Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell that was available Thursday on a website used by underwriters to distribute IPO information. Mr. Liddell says GM should be able to hit those targets as the industry moves up from the trough of 2009. When the car market is at its strongest, he says, GM will be capable of delivering pretax annual profit of $17 billion to $19 billion, with profit margins of 9% to 10%.

Octogenarian Finds Copper With China as Biggest Customer (Bloomberg)
In the snake-infested jungle of southeastern Ecuador, the American explorer David Lowell found himself sliding over a waterfall and heard his head bounce off a rock “like a melon being hit by a hammer,” he says. Lowell was 72 and prospecting for copper that day in May 2000. He stepped into the slippery streambed for a vantage point free of vipers and vines. A broken rib and throbbing head diverted him to a nearby hamlet in search of help. “There was one man in the village who was a combination chiropractor and mortician,” Lowell says. “We decided to just buy a little tin of liniment with the picture of a dragon on it.” The expedition carried on. In the clear water of the stream, Lowell saw enough to help him find one of South America’s richest copper deposits. This May, a joint venture of Chinese state-owned companies paid $652 million to buy Lowell’s partner in the exploration, Vancouver- based Corriente Resources Inc. Lowell kept a stake there for himself, though local opposition has prevented mining. In a career spanning six decades and 44 countries, Lowell has made 14 major discoveries, including the world’s largest copper deposit in Chile. He found treasures where others detected nothing worth mining. Lowell revolutionized exploration and unearthed metals that helped the U.S. build the world’s largest economy. He also made investors billions.

BlackRock Fund To Finance, Securitize US Mortgages (Reuters)
The $1 billion BlackRock Mortgage Investors Fund will provide capital for prime “jumbo” loans through lenders under strict underwriting guidelines, said Randy Robertson, a managing director and co-head of securitized products.

FrontPoint Cautioned Manager On Trades (WSJ)
FrontPoint Partners manager Joseph F. “Chip” Skowron, who has been put on leave pending the outcome of an insider-trading investigation concerning a biotechnology stock, was warned by supervisors about trading other securities he or others on his team discussed with a network of health-care advisers, said people familiar with the matter.

Spoonachos Are The Holy Grail Of Chips (Gizmodo)
Dare to dream.

Volcker: Future Inflation Risk Limits Easing Effect (Reuters)
Volcker told reporters after a lecture in Seoul that short-term U.S. interest rates had almost no room to go down further, while long-term bond prices were under pressure from increasing concern about future inflation.

‘Pay To Play’ Guilty Plea Expected (WSJ)
Henry “Hank” Morris, who was an adviser to former New York Comptroller Alan Hevesi, was accused by the state’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, in March 2009 of taking kickbacks disguised as “placement” fees in exchange for arranging business for investment firms from New York’s $125 billion Common Retirement Fund, one of country’s largest public pension funds. [He] has agreed to plead guilty to a felony in the long-running corruption investigation, people familiar with the situation said.

Banks Face $31 Billion Loss on Mortgage Buybacks (NYT)
So sayeth Standard & Poor’s.

HSBC Says British Remuneration Rules Hurt Hiring (Dealbook)
HSBC finds it increasingly difficult to compete for talent with banks from the United States and local rivals in Asia, Stuart T. Gulliver, chief executive of HSBC’s investment banking business, said Friday. “We’re competing against the local banks and against the American banks, which are not subject to the same remuneration rules, which means we simply can’t pay what these guys are paying,” Mr. Gulliver, who is set to take over as chief executive of HSBC this year, said on a media call about the banks’ third-quarter earnings.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Variety reports that Al Pacino has been cast as a hedge fund manager in a “financial thriller” tentatively titled Arbitrage, opposite Eva Green and Susan Sarandon. The only plot details that have been revealed are that Pacino is a “magnate” who gets “in over his head” and is “desperate to complete the sale of his trading empire to a major bank before his fraud is revealed. But an unexpected, bloody error forces him to turn to the most unlikely corner for help.” Naturally, we need to know more.

Specifically about the “bloody error” and the “unlikely help.” Unfortunately shooting doesn’t start ’til next spring so it’s going to be a good long while ’til the gaps are closed, meaning our only recourse it to make an educated guess based on our inner knowledge of the industry. As it’s unclear whether or not Variety is being literal when it says ‘bloody’ or simply getting their British on, we’ll have to dig deep for possible real-life scenarios for either instance. In the event we’re talking actual blood:

* Pacino’s character goes long AB negative and short O negative. Tagline: “You NEVER short the universal donor, asshole.” (Unlikely help: a blood drive volunteer with loose morals.)

* The script is loosely based on a quant fund located in Greenwich, CT. After lunch one day, the founder decides to do some impromptu and very amateur manscaping on himself, using only a pair of dull scissors. He cuts a bit too close for comfort and losing a dangerous amount of blood, is forced to rip the cape off the vintage Captain America doll on his desk, which he hasn’t so much as taken out of the box (it loses its value if removed from its original packaging) and use it as a tourniquet until the ambulance arrives.

In the event we’re talking British bloody:

* Pacino’s character is a hedge fund manager who loves sweets and has been known to drive all the way from his office in Chicago to an ice cream shop in Milwaukee just for one of his favorite shakes. He sold the bank on the deal based on his ultra-successful track record, but just before the deal is about to close, he discovers the firm has actually been down for the last three years after having some Twinkie residue squeegeed from his monitors.

* The magnate is based on one of the most well-known, successful managers in the world who is also exceedingly good looking. Walking down the hallway after working late one night he passes a piece of installation art– a shark suspended in formaldehyde.  He’s always wondered, what would happen if I just stuck my finger in the tank, in the same way people think, what would happen if I just stuck my finger in this pencil sharpener?  He unlatches the top and sticks it in, not knowing the artist, a deeply disturbed man who’d been waiting for someone to do just that, had stuck a motor in the shark’s mouth set to clamp down on any appendages that might make their way inside.  He shrieks in agony until the only person left in the building, the guy who replaces the snacks in the pantry finds him. His finger still stuck, writhing in pain, the manager yells “get me out of here!”  The snacks guy, never imagining in his wildest dreams that he’d have the upper hand over the boss, considers it and says, “I’ll pull you out. But you gotta let me get fancy with the treats.  No more of this healthy crap.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the manager counters.  “You know exactly what I talking about,” Snacks says. “The Soy Chips? Gone. I get free reign. Make Your Own S’Mores sets, the works.  I want to spread my wings. Or, you can just keep your finger there. I’m good either way.”  They come to an agreement.

* The magnate is based on one of the most well-known, successful managers in the world who has an ass you can bounce a quarter off.  His trainer cancels their session one night and he’s forced to circuit train on his own in the company gym.  He benches, he lifts, he wales on the Nautilis, all with the strength and agility of a Navy Seal and then boom! Out of nowhere, he’s hit with a debilitating Charlie Horse. Laying on the ground, unable to move he screams for help.  The only person left in the building is a recently hired IR chick who finds him there and carries him to his car.

* The magnate is based on one of the most well-known, successful managers in the world who has a cock from the Gods. One of his passion projects is a line of all fleece apparel (boxers, 3-piece suits, mini-skirts, the works), which he plans to present to the staff the next day.  Working on a sample jumpsuit the 11th hour, he gets his lapels caught in the power sewing machine. He yelps for help until the one person left in the building, a P&L analyst, finds and untangles him. Normally the two would never have so much as uttered a word to each other, and though he’s grateful and promises the young man he won’t forget this, the manager warns, “if you tell anyone about this I’ll fucking kill you.”

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Wells Fargo Earnings Rise On Mortgage Originations (MarketWatch)
The bank earned $3.3 billion, or 60 cents a share for the third quarter. Like other banks nationwide, improving credit boosted its earnings; the San Francisco lender released $650 million it had previously set aside to cover potential loan losses, up from $500 million in the second quarter.

Dimon Best By Bad WaMu Loans (Bloomberg)
Dimon, like his counterparts at other banks, is waiting impatiently for the housing crisis to ease so the bank can rid itself of its huge portfolio of bad loans. In addition to the WaMu writedowns, the bank faces an avalanche of litigation over allegedly predatory and fraudulent WaMu mortgages and has set aside a total of $3.5 billion in reserves to cover the cost of mounting lawsuits.

Financial Leaders Expect Shift Of Power After Elections (NYT)
Analysts and lobbyists say a Republican-controlled Congress may be less likely to investigate industry practices or hold oversight hearings that may embarrass the industry. While that won’t affect hearings like ones set for later this month in the Senate that will examine the foreclosure mess, it makes them much less likely in the next Congress. “It changes the tone in Washington,” one industry lobbyist said. “If a regulator knows they’re going to get yelled at on Capitol Hill, that influences their decisions.”

GM’s New Sticker Price: $50 Billion (WSJ)
The new projections by GM say the company could have a stock-market value at the start of trading of $50 billion—about the same as the solidly profitable Ford Motor Co.—and that it could be as high as $60 billion, said people familiar with the plan. But for the U.S. to break even through sales of the rest of its stake, the share price may need to rise more than 60% from its initial level, to about $50. The initial public offering plan envisions the shares would be priced at $26 to $29 each, these people said. The actual price of the stock to be sold in the IPO would be set about Nov. 17, and the sale would take place the following day.

A Hedge Fund Manager’s New Groove (WSJ)
After years of “long-short” investing, Mr. von Mueffling and his analysts and traders no longer short stocks at all. Instead, like a typical stock mutual fund, they stick to buying company shares they expect will rise. Mr. von Mueffling said the strategy is “the right long-term decision.” “I’m not saying there aren’t overvalued stocks out there,” he said in an interview. “There are, but trying to short them when the government is printing money is a very, very challenging game,” he said, referring to, among other things, Federal Reserve programs to buy government bonds, which the Fed is widely expected to announce this week. The remade Cantillon pulls in much lower fees than a hedge fund with similar returns would…the majority of Cantillon investors pay just a management fee of 1.25% or less, according to fund documents.

Brooklyn Rabbi Blackmailed SAC Capital Because Founder Was “Rich” And “Jewish” (NYP)
A Brooklyn rabbi ran an unholy scam on a $16 billion hedge fund — because he knew that its founder was “Jewish and . . . rich,” a prosecutor told jurors yesterday. Rabbi Milton Balkany demanded $4 million from SAC Capital Advisors founder Steven Cohen by threatening that a prison inmate he was counseling would go to the feds with insider-trading allegations against the firm, Manhattan federal prosecutor Jesse Furman said. Balkany — whose “statements were lies, pure and simple,” according to Furman — was videotaped pocketing checks from an SAC lawyer and saying “that Mr. Cohen and SAC were in the clear,” Furman said in the extortion trial’s opening statement.

Roubini Says Advanced Economies Show Anemic Growth (Bloomberg)
“Economic recovery will be U-shaped,” Roubini said. “The next year is going to see a painful process of deleveraging, both in the private and public sector, lower consumption, lower spending, lower budget deficits, more savings, reduction of debt. That implies an anemic economic recovery.”

Fed Will Probably Start $500 Billion Of Bond Buys, Survey Shows (Bloomberg)
“There’s no silver bullet right now” and central bankers have “very few options left in terms of lowering interest rates,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. He predicted $500 billion of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities purchases in the next six months.

Despite Oil Spill Charge, BP Returns To Profitability (NPR)
The cost to BP PLC of dealing with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill was more than offset in the third quarter by revenues driven in part by higher oil prices, with the British giant posting a $1.79 billion profit, the company reported Tuesday.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

He loves a British accent as much as the next guy but you know what? That may not be enough. He’s had it up to his gleaming pate with this regulatory crap and somebody better figure out something and fast otherwise the Golden scrots are gone. Be a good bunch of boys and girls and take this warning seriously, as LB is deadly serious about it.

Lloyd Blankfein, the outspoken chief executive of Goldman Sachs, has issued a thinly veiled threat that the bank will shift operations out of Europe if the regulatory crackdown on the industry becomes too tough. Mr Blankfein told a conference organised by the Eurofi think-tank in Brussels that Europe remains of vital importance to Goldman, with less than half of the bank’s business now generated in the US.

But he warned that the introduction of “mismatched regulation” across different regions as officials seek to ward off another financial crisis would tempt banks to search out the cheapest, least intrusive jurisdiction in which to operate. “Operations can be moved globally and capital can be accessed globally,” he said.

Goldman Sachs Threatens To Quit Europe [FT]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker