Receiving Wide Coverage ...
Target's CEO Resigns: Target is still reeling from the data breach it suffered over the winter, in which the cardholder information of 40 million customers and personal information of 70 million people was compromised. In the latest and perhaps largest piece of fallout from the event, Gregg Steinhafel, the company's chairman and chief executive, resigned, the New York Times reports. The retailer replaced its CIO last week. Target's chief financial officer John Mulligan will replace Steinhafel as interim president and chief executive of the company. "The last several months have tested Target in unprecedented ways," Steinhafel said in a letter to the board of directors. "We have already begun taking a number of steps to further enhance data security, putting the right people, processes and systems in place. With several key milestones behind us, now is the right time for new leadership at Target." The Wall Street Journal notes the resignation "leaves a void at the top of one of the largest U.S. retailers at a time of deep change in shopping habits, a weak economic recovery, especially among low-income shoppers, and questions over whether internal failures at Target made it an easy target for the data thieves." Target officials have acknowledged in the months since the breach that warning signs of computer hacking had been missed in the weeks before the breach was made public. The breach had an immediate impact on the company's stock performance, and also drove sales and traffic down.
Financial Times
It's no secret that U.S. banks have been imposing sanctions, as directed by the U.S. government, against certain Russian individuals and institutions since Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. Some of the effects of those sanctions are now becoming public as banks file their quarterly earnings reports, according to the Financial Times. Citigroup reported in a filing that its exposure to Russia fell 9% to $9.4 billion in the first three months of the year. JPMorgan Chase cut its exposure to Russia by 13% to $4.7 billion in the same period while Bank of America Merrill Lynch cut its exposure to the country by 22% to $5.2 billion. The U.S. and Germany warned on Friday they would impose further sanctions on sections of Russian industry if Moscow impeded the presidential elections in Ukraine this month. Last Monday, the U.S. imposed new sanctions aimed at seven government officials and 17 companies linked to President Vladimir Putin's inner circle, including three small banks.
Citigroup beat out JPMorgan for a major contract to safeguard the securities of a large Norwegian wealth fund, the Financial Times reports. Citi's gain of the Norwegian oil fund's $865 billion portfolio is said to be a setback for JPMorgan, which is one of the top three competitors in the custodian business.
