| CATEGORY: INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES |
US paper round-up: TARP, Citigroup, AIG |
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Mon 07 Dec 2009
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LONDON (SHARECAST) - The Treasury Department expects to recover all but $42bn of the $370bn it has lent to ailing companies since the financial crisis began last year, with the portion lent to banks actually showing a slight profit, according to a new Treasury report.
The new assessment of the $700bn bailout program, provided by two Treasury officials on Sunday ahead of a report to Congress on Monday, is vastly improved from the Obama administration’s estimates last summer of $341bn in potential losses from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, says the NY Times.
The FT adds that Citigroup is racing against the clock to convince US authorities that it be allowed to repay $20bn of bail-out funds, with insiders and regulators arguing that unless the bank acts in the next 10 days it will have to wait for more than a month.
Meanwhile, the Kuwait Investment Authority, the Gulf country's sovereign wealth fund, said Sunday it sold a $4.1bn stake in Citigroup making a profit on the deal. The fund, also known as the KIA, said it made a $1.1bn profit from the sale, or a 36.7% return on its investment, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Supreme Court this week will consider whether to apply the brakes to what critics have called a vague and limitless law that has proved essential to federal prosecutors going after corrupt politicians and greedy corporate executives. The court has taken the unusual step of accepting three cases that raise challenges to a federal anti-fraud provision that has been key to the prosecutions of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former Illinois governor George Ryan (R) and executives involved in the collapse of Enron, reports the Washington Post.
Officials gather in Copenhagen this week for an international climate summit, but business leaders are focusing even more on Washington, where the Obama administration is expected as early as Monday to formally declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant, writes the Wall Street Journal.
Five high-ranking executives at AIG said last week they were prepared to quit if their compensation is cut significantly by the insurer's government overseers, according to people familiar with the matter. The threat is the latest in the running fracas between AIG and the government's compensation czar, Kenneth Feinberg, who is charged with setting pay limits for top executives at companies receiving the most federal bailout money, says to the Wall Street Journal.
A takeover battle for an Orange County coffee roaster has turned downright frothy, with major rivals Peet's Coffee & Tea and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters trading bids and barbs, according to the LA Times.
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