Citigroup names Bill Mills as head of North America operations. [Wall Street Journal] J.P. Morgan appoints Viswas Raghavan as new global head of equity markets. [On Wall Street] Bank of New York Mellon appoints Ridgway Powell to run family wealth and international business. [Reuters] Citigroup taps Mike Corbat as sole CEO of Citigroup in Europe, Middle East, Africa. [Wall Street Journal] J.P. Morgan names Andy O’Brien, Jim Casey co-heads of... Read more

Wealthy investors trust Paul Singer, Robert Zoellner, Kyle Bass and Israel Englander more than other hedge fund managers, according to a survey by Tiger 21, an investment club whose 180 members have $15 billion in assets under management, according to Reuters. Norman Miller, Richard Dowdle, David Einhorn, Andreas Halvorsen and John Paulson were also on the list. “Traditionally, the wealthy share stocks tips and the names of their favorite investment... Read more

Wall Street bonuses are expected to drop 20 to 30 percent this year, according to a closely tracked survey by Johnson Associates, Deal Book reports. Employees in trading and investment banking divisions, which have struggled mightily this year, face the biggest declines. “It would be the weakest bonus season since the financial crisis and a reflection of the leaner times confronting the industry,” the Web site writes, noting that bonuses... Read more

Citigroup is attracting a lot of reputational risk in Asia, the Wall Street Journal is reporting. In Japan, the bank is trying to assuage regulators who are “growing increasingly impatient at what they see as the bank’s inability to fix regulatory problems that have led to three scandals in seven years.” Earlier this year, Citibank was under fire in Indonesia for an employee’s alleged embezzlement scheme and for the death of... Read more

Today’s results suggest RBS may indeed need to make 4,000 redundancies in its investment bank. Also, it has accrued no bonuses RBS likes to hearken back to the worst of times. Its investor releases are prefaced with references to the bad old days when its cost income ratio was 97 percent and its return on equity was -31 percent. "Look how we’ve improved" is the implication. RBS’s Q3 results suggest... Read more

MF Global Holdings Chairman and CEO Jon Corzine has resigned, less than a week after the firm declared bankruptcy. “The resignation capped a disastrous week for Mr. Corzine, as he saw MF Global lose two-thirds of its market value, file for bankruptcy and face a handful of federal investigations into more than $600 million in missing customer money,” DealBook writes. “The decision also signaled a rapid downfall of what was... Read more

ING, the Netherlands’ largest financial services firm, says it will cut 2,000 positions and 700 contractors at its retail bank, news media are reporting today. The firm says the cuts will create $412.4 million in annual savings starting in 2014 and help it prepare for leaner times ahead, according to Bloomberg. The news came on the same day that ING posted a steep jump in third-quarter earnings, a jump partly... Read more

European governments have decided on several new measures aimed at containing the euro zone crisis, news media are reporting. European Union leaders held an emergency summit at European Council headquarters over the weekend, the 13th crisis management summit in less than two years, Bloomberg notes. “The new effort, which leaders hope to finalize at another summit on Wednesday, involves a sweeping recapitalization of European banks, a substantial restructuring of Greece's... Read more

Financial services firms in Ireland are facing a SHORTAGE of accountants It's not often in the current climate that there's a shortage of a particular skill-set in Ireland, but financial services firms are struggling to recruit sufficient numbers of accountants. In some ways you could say they only have themselves to blame – hundreds of newly qualified accountants were made redundant from Big Four firms in Ireland in 2009. [Ireland] Worrying signs... Read more

France and Germany still don’t agree on how to bolster the faltering European banking system, ahead of an important EU leaders summit taking place next week, Reuters reports. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet this Sunday to try to find a compromise. “Under strong U.S. and market pressure, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy will try to bridge sharp differences on how to use... Read more

The two co-heads who ran the UBS unit in which a rogue trader caused $2.3 billion of losses have resigned, the Financial Times reports. The co-heads of global equities – London-based Francois Gouws and New York-based Yassine Bouhara are leaving less than two weeks after former UBS CEO Oswald Gruebel was forced to quit. They will be replaced by Mike Stewart, who was scheduled to join as co-manager from Merrill... Read more

UBS appoints Hermann Prelle as chairman of M&A for Europe, Middle East and Africa. [Reuters] Barclays Corporate hires Shona Tatchell from HSBC to run financial institutions trade sales. [Dow Jones Newswires] Brazil’s BTG Pactual nabs Barclays star Roger Jenkins to work on global management, investment. [Financial Times] Raymond James taps financial advisor Cheryl Peschke from Morgan Stanley in Texas. [On Wall Street] Cantor Fitzgerald promotes Jeffrey Lumby to manage equity capital... Read more

Morgan Stanley is struggling to reassure investors after rumors about its supposed exposure to faltering European banks sent its shares crashing, DealBook reports. To fight the rumors, top Morgan Stanley bankers have been rallying workers and speaking with the firm’s largest shareholders. “It is a war that is being fought in large part in the shadows: against anonymous blogs and market whispers, but also against undefined fears about... Read more

Deutsche Bank plans to cut 500 investment banking jobs as business slows sharply amid the European debt crisis, news media are reporting. The bank also said it would miss its $13.2 billion pre-tax profit goal for 2011. “The intensifying European sovereign debt crisis led to sustained uncertainties among market participants in the third quarter and thus to significantly reduced volumes and revenues,” Deutsche Bank said, according to The New... Read more

Anti-Wall Street protests spread to cities around the U.S. this weekend, with police arresting more than 700 in New York as protesters marched on the Brooklyn Bridge, Bloomberg reports. The “Occupy Wall Street” protests began 16 days ago and initially started dwindling before gaining steam in recent days and spreading to Los Angeles, Philadelphia and other cities. On Friday, police arrested 25 people in Bank of America’s Boston building. "On... Read more

Danish banks facing a grim autumn It’s probably going too far to get all Shakespearean and suggest there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark, but for ambitious bankers – or even just those keen for a bit of job security – the picture is unarguably grim at the moment. [Denmark] It's official: Qatar is the new place to be in the Gulf One of the side effects of the Arab Spring has been... Read more

J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s aggressiveness may have undermined the banking sector’s push against regulators, as fallout from a recent altercation with Canadian central bank head Mark Carney shows, Reuters reports. Last week, at a meeting between Carney and the world’s top bank chiefs, Dimon lashed out about the onslaught of new regulations. He called new liquidity rules “cockamamie nonsense,” arguing they were detached from reality and made up by... Read more

Bank of America and its subsidiary Merrill Lynch have agreed to support Lehman Brothers’ $65 billion bankruptcy exit plan, reducing their claims by a combined $7.5 billion, Reuters reports. Bank of America will cut its derivatives claims by $4.5 billion while Merrill Lynch will cut claims by $3 billion. In addition, Bank of America will return $356 million in funds to Lehman Brothers that had been paid as part of... Read more

Barclays’ head of UK, European retail and business Deanna Oppenheimer resigns, to be succeeded by Ashok Vaswani, Anthony Jenkins. [Dow Jones] Barclays names Trevor Kelham as director of Wealth Advisory division. [Reuters] Northern Trust appoints Marie Dzanis from BlackRock to run ETF sales and servicing. [On Wall Street] Nomura hires Steve Kilcullen from UBS to run flow derivatives sales. [Hedge Fund Net] Cambridge Strategy Asset Management nabs Adam Reynolds from Societe... Read more

Citigroup investors will receive more capital from their investments, as the bank’s growth will allow it to pay more dividends and buy back shares in coming years, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit tells The Wall Street Journal. In an interview during a trip to Singapore for a Citigroup board meeting, Pandit said investors would see the results of his Asian expansion, most of which has been in retail banking. The Journal... Read more