The Federal Reserve bank released the minutes from its September meeting yesterday. Among other things, we learned that the Fed Governors moved largely in lockstep on September’s rate hike, even as the crew was less unanimous...more
At some point, you must ask just how corrupt is an organization? What does the tone from top which says to make your numbers at all cost, translate to in operationalization? Unfortunately, we have seen yet another dramatic...more
A federal jury in Brooklyn has found former HSBC Holdings exec Mark Johnson guilty on 9 counts of front-running that grew out of the DOJ’s investigation into forex manipulation at HSBC....more
Big news in the streaming world late yesterday, with Disney announcing that was acquiring a 75 percent stake in BamTech and would be pulling all of its content from Netflix in anticipation of launching its own streaming...more
We covered subprime auto yesterday. Today, it’s the other growing debt concern in the US—student loan obligations. Though here’s an unexpected take on it: due to missing or fake documentation, billions in defaulted student...more
Uber made it official today, announcing that controversial CEO Travis Kalanick will be taking an indefinite leave of absence, though even the announcement and board commentary that followed seemed to highlight the “bad-boy...more
Hoping to reverse recent years of struggles, J. Crew is bidding farewell to CEO Mickey Drexler (though he’ll stay on as chairman) in favor of West Elm’s James Brett....more
Several members of healthcare hedge fund Deerfield Mgmt have been implicated in an insider-trading case over the alleged use of confidential information about gov’t financing to trade shares in affected health care companies....more
We know that China’s Didi Chuxing is powerful enough to have driven Uber out of China altogether. So what happens when Didi sets its sights outside of Chinese borders? Flush with $5.5 billion in new funding, Didi is likely...more
A collection of corporate heavy hitters are betting big on the blockchain technology behind bitcoin rival Ethereum to build a computing system to track data and financial contracts. The project is seen by some as a way to...more
Japan’s SoftBank hasn’t been shy about bold moves, but its most recent one—the decision to buy American PE giant Fortress Investment Group—is an especially big one. The deal is seen as bolstering SoftBank’s recently announced...more
The emissions cheating scandal that recently cost VW $4.3 billion and a mess of criminal indictments isn’t, it seems, confined to the Germans. We heard months ago about a similar probe into Mitsubishi, and yesterday we...more
Some early signs of the focus of SoftBank’s “hugely ambitious” $100 billion investment fund are beginning to emerge, and at first blush, it appears a majority of the cash will land in private and public markets rather than...more
The Fed’s anticipating faster growth in the coming year and rate increases to go with it. That and a whole lot of uncertainty about the incoming administration are the big takeaways from the Fed’s December meeting minutes....more
Federal regulators are on the verge of creating a brand new type of banking license specifically for fintech. Called “special purpose national bank charters,” the licenses are intended to enable fintech companies that accept...more
As most expected, the Fed held rates steady yesterday. Though its divided FOMC and Chair Yellen’s comments about an improving economy seem to portend a rate hike before the end of the year....more
And after all the sturm und drang surrounding the Hershey Trust and the Mondelez buyout offer over these past few months . . . it’s over. Mondelez announced yesterday that it’s no longer seeking to acquire the Hershey...more
Plaintiffs in the Forex MDL currently in NY federal court argued this week to Judge Lorna Schofield that the 2d Circuit’s recent ruling dismissing some plaintiffs in an aluminium price fixing suit did not apply to rob them of...more
We heard last week about Unilever’s $1 billion acquisition of start-up Dollar Shave Club. With a few days to reflect, the Deal Professor suggests that this relatively innocuous deal should make “every other company . . . very...more
We’ve got numbers for Bayer’s unsolicited bid to buy Monsanto—a cash offer of $62 billion, representing a 37% premium on Monsanto’s May 9 closing price...more
The fallout from Lending Club’s surprise news about Renaud Laplanche’s departure continues, with Goldman Sachs and Jeffries LLC hitting the pause on planned LC bond sales – WSJ... A Treasury Department white paper...more
Chair Yellen will report on the Fed’s latest meeting at 2pm EDT today. Thanks to the Journal, we’ve got 5 Things to Watch when she does – WSJ... All is not well at Valeant, the struggling drug maker whose stock dropped...more
The move’s been in the works for some time, but it was still a big deal yesterday when then IMF officially added China’s renminbi to its designation as an approved world reserve currency. The renminbi—also known as the...more
NY state regulators have tagged Barclays with an extra $150 million in fines for its role in a Forex-manipulation scandal that’s already cost the bank $2.4 billion – NYTimes and Law360... As expected, the minutes from...more
Only a couple of weeks ago I was commenting on a NERA report that had found that in the period between April 2012 and October 2014 the FCA had imposed fines of over £1bn, in sharp contrast to the preceding decade during which...more