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Reuters – Merrill Lynch & Co Chief ExecutiveJohn Thain has suggested to directors that he get a 2008 bonus of as much as $10 million, but the battered company’s compensation committee is resisting his request, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the situation.
The compensation committee has not reached a decision, but is leaning toward denying Thain and other senior executives bonuses for this year, the people told the paper.
Merrill could not be immediately reached for comment.
Shareholders on Friday approved Bank of America Corp’s takeover of Merrill, a deal fraught with risk but one that would create a banking giant with a leading position in almost every major area of the financial system.
Barron – In the 1980s, Carl Icahn loomed large as a corporate raider, in the mold of the Gordon Gekko character in the movie Wall Street. Icahn made a lot of money but was vilified for what some considered a slash-and-burn approach to taking over companies.
Twenty years later, Icahn has morphed into a shareholder activist and rails against what he considers to be incompetence among senior executives and on boards. "They call me raider. They call me an activist," says Icahn, who, at 72, shows no sign of slowing down. "I don’t know what those labels mean. All I know is that something should be done to improve corporate governance and management. If we don’t, managements will remain unaccountable and our economy will suffer."
Bloomberg.com: UK & Ireland – Citadel Investment Group LLC, the $19 billion hedge-fund firm run by Kenneth Griffin, hired three senior executives from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. to boost its fixed-income team.
Timothy Bryan Wilkinson, former head of fixed income proprietary trading at Lehman Brothers, will work on the same business at Citadel’s proprietary trading group along with John Alexander Goodridge, the company said in an e-mailed statement today. Alex Maddox, 38, formerly head of European mortgage-bond trading, will become Citadel’s head of securitized products in Europe. The team will report to Patrik Edsparr, Citadel’s global head of fixed income and European chief executive officer.
Banks and hedge funds are hiring Lehman executives as the bankrupt U.S. securities firm cuts 750 jobs in its European fixed income division after talks to find a buyer failed.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net)- A Hedgeweek Special Report for March 2008 shows a strengthening of the South African hedge fund industry from just a few funds with aproximately ZAR1.4 billion ($0.18 billion) in as recently as mid-2002, to more than 130 funds with at least ZAR26 billion ($3.35 billion) in assets under management.
In the report by Simon Gray, he says, "Industry members predict that the current soaring growth rate will be maintained for some time, pointing to plentiful capacity available in existing funds and a level of allocation to alternative assets which remains well below those in other markets."
The constrictive rules governing the South African hedge fund industry has constrained investors from investing in alternatives in Africa, Gray reports, instead, investors have focused more on Asia and Latin America.
Gray predicts that factors are set to change to the benefit of South African managers, many of which are now developing the extended track records of success that conservative institutions are looking for.
"The industry is becoming broader and more sophisticated as established asset managers launch alternative products, and the dominance of equity long/short and market neutral strategies gradually diminishes while the asset share of multistrategy funds soars." Gray concluded.
Hedgeweek was launched in October 2002 and is part of the London-based Hedgemedia group, founded by financial publisher Sunil Gopalan and internet entrepreneur Oliver Bradley. Hedgeweek now reaches over 3,000 senior executives at hedge fund companies and investor groups worldwide.
