On-the-Job Training?
Should the big U.S. banks ever be broken up, the process would at least be familiar ground to some of them. Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. are part of the consortium advising Lloyds Banking Group PLC on the partial dismantling dictated by European regulators as a condition of fresh public aid.
Lloyds agreed to sell 600 branches to reduce its retail banking market share by 5%. It also plans to sell 19% of its mortgage business.
The half-dozen banks advising Lloyds, which include the Swiss giant UBS AG, could get as much as 500 million pounds, or more than $825 million, in fees for the restructuring, The Wall Street Journal estimated.
But the dealmakers will have their work cut out for them. Brian Pitman, former chief executive officer and chairman of Lloyds TSB Group PLC, told Bloomberg News this week that the Lloyds assets will probably fetch less than their net asset value.
Costly Comments
Dick Bove gave more details about the fallout from a controversial report he issued last year.
Bove, an analyst at Rochdale Securities, wrote in a "personal note" Wednesday that he has been paying $50,000 a month in legal fees to defend himself over a July 2008 analysis of bank failures. The report used several ratios to predict that 25 financial companies that were susceptible to failure. BankAtlantic Bancorp Inc. sued Bove and his then-employer, Ladenburg Thalmann & Co., for defamation after the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., company made his list.
The analyst resigned from Ladenburg Thalmann in February.
Bove also used this week's note to defend his findings: Seven of the companies on his list subsequently failed or were sold under duress, including Washington Mutual Inc., National City Corp. and BankUnited Corp.
BankAtlantic is still standing.
Movin' Up
Former Citigroup Inc. banker Tom King is to join Barclays Capital in December to be head of investment banking for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the latest move in Barclays PLC's recent management shakeup, according to a person familiar with the matter.
He is to succeed John Winter, who will become chief executive of Barclays' corporate bank. King will also be co-head of global corporate finance with Ros Stephenson.
David L. Maraman has been promoted to president of M&I Bank's Florida region.
Maraman was formerly an executive vice president and regional credit officer for the bank's Indiana region. He joined M&I in January 2008 after its parent, the $58.5 billion-asset Marshall & Ilsley Corp. in Milwaukee, bought the $2.1 billion-asset First Indiana Corp. of Indianapolis.
Maraman had been chief operating officer at First Indiana Bank.
