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Reuters – U.S. securities regulators have about 150 active hedge fund investigations and more than 50 probes involving credit default swaps and other derivatives, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro said on Monday.
The SEC also has about two dozen active municipal securities investigations, possibly involving arbitrage-driven fraud, public corruption and price transparency, Schapiro told a conference of business journalists in Denver.
Bloomberg – Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest bank by assets, was sued by investors in Olympus United Funds who claim they lost more than $90 million in the funds’ collapse.
Royal Bank, based in Toronto, “secretly managed” the funds, according to a complaint filed Jan. 23 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The funds’ parent company Norshield Financial Group filed for receivership in June 2005 amid probes by securities regulators.
“In its dealings and relationships with Norshield, Royal Bank of Canada assumed control of investments, exercised discretion in key areas and thus became liable for my clients’ losses,” Lee Squitieri, a lawyer for the investors, said in an interview.
Bloomberg – Royal Bank of Canada, the country’s biggest bank by assets, was sued by investors in Olympus United Funds who claim they lost more than $90 million in the funds’ collapse.
Royal Bank, based in Toronto, “secretly managed” the funds, according to a complaint filed Jan. 23 in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The funds’ parent company Norshield Financial Group filed for receivership in June 2005 amid probes by securities regulators.
“In its dealings and relationships with Norshield, Royal Bank of Canada assumed control of investments, exercised discretion in key areas and thus became liable for my clients’ losses,” Lee Squitieri, a lawyer for the investors, said in an interview.
San Francisco Chronicle – A major investor called on Yahoo Inc. to sell its search business to Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday, adding to the pressure on the Sunnyvale Web portal to restart talks with its rival.
Meanwhile, Yahoo agreed to water down an employee severance plan that had been criticized as extravagant, raising speculation that the company was shopping itself for a sale. The changes were made to settle a lawsuit in which shareholders accused Yahoo of devising the severance plan to foil Microsoft’s takeover bid earlier this year.
Ivory Investment Management, a hedge fund that owns a 1.5 percent stake in Yahoo, sent a letter to board members that said a sale would garner $15 billion and help restore the company’s tumbling finances.
Yahoo News- Investors can’t seem to catch a break — Wall Street again starts a week with oil prices at their highest levels yet, and banks poised to reveal that they remain on shaky footing.
None of the troubles that have rocked the market over the past year have let up yet: not the housing market, not high commodities costs, not the ailing financial system.
"We’ve got a fistful of drivers that are working against the market," said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co. "And they’re all important."
It’s a different collection of worries than the ones that hurled stocks lower at the beginning of the decade, after the technology bubble burst and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks sent the country reeling. But many on Wall Street are worried that the effects of the country’s current problems could end up being just as devastating, or more so, for stocks.
Bloomberg- Carl Icahn has hit the roughest patch of his hedge-fund career.
His $7.9 billion in hedge funds fell 7 percent between October and April, the biggest peak-to-trough loss since the funds opened in November 2004, according to investors. That compares with an average annual return on his investments of 53 percent from 1996 to mid-2004.
Icahn has lost money on cellular-phone maker Motorola Inc., his biggest investment. The 72-year-old billionaire also failed to persuade executives at Yahoo! Inc. and Biogen Idec Inc. to take his advice for boosting their stock prices.
Reuters- Officially, a potential $47.5 billion deal for Microsoft Corp to buy Yahoo Inc is over, at least for now.
But longer term, hedge fund managers and analysts said the Yahoo board now faces more pressure than ever to deliver shareholder value in the wake of the collapsed deal and could be forced to reopen merger talks with the software maker.
"This board is toast with a capital T," said Herb Denton, a veteran shareholder activist and head of Providence Capital. "They managed to leave $14.5 billion on the table. Name one shareholder that can be pleased with this outcome, other than the insiders."
