Moody's Investors Service has cut various ratings on UBS AG (UBS) pointing out the significant challenges the company continues to face in its Investment Banking and Wealth Management businesses.  Moody's has downgraded the bank financial strength rating and the long-term debt and deposit ratings of UBS AG. The bank financial strength rating was lowered two notches to C from B-, while its deposits and senior debt ratings were lowered to Aa3 from Aa2. The ratings for senior subordinated debt were slashed to A1 from Aa3. The outlook for all ratings is negative implying that further downgrades are possible over the next 12 to 18 months.   Moody’s has expressed its concern over the loss of customer confidence, which is reflected by the ongoing net fund money outflows in the wealth management business. Also a number of key employees have left the organization that resulted in a significant ...

Boston Properties Inc. (BXP), a real estate investment trust (REIT), has recently raised net proceeds of approximately $694 million by selling 5.875% senior unsecured notes due 2019.

The debt offering was managed by Bank of America Securities LLC, the investment banking arm of Bank of America Corp. (BAC), Citigroup Global Markets Inc., the brokerage and securities arm of Citigroup Inc. (C) and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., the U.S. investment banking and securities arm of the German banking colossus Deutsche Bank AG (DB).

The senior unsecured notes were priced at 99.931% of the principal amount to yield 5.884% to maturity. Boston Properties plan to utilize the proceeds to reduce its huge debt. At the end of the second quarter, the company had about $6 billion in debt maturing by 2015.

Boston Properties develops, redevelops, acquires, manages, operates, and owns a diverse portfolio of Class A office, industrial, and hotel properties

...

As part of strengthening its Global Energy banking practice UBS Investment Bank, a subsidiary of UBS AG (UBS), is hiring 18 Investment bankers who will focus on energy lending. Based in Dallas , this new team will have Darrell Holley serving as Managing Director and Global Head of energy lending.  The new team has significant expertise in energy lending and will complement UBS’s existing Energy Banking team in Houston and New York .  Holley will report to Stephen Trauber, Global Head of Energy banking at UBS. Previously, Holley was with Fortis Bank in Dallas , where he was Global Head of Oil and Gas banking.  Over the last month, UBS added more than a dozen of Managing Directors to its Investment Banking Department. The focus on the energy lending business is a strategic move as a result of the energy sector’s resiliency during the economic ...

UBS AG (UBS) intends to close its relationship with the Swiss government by purchasing its toxic assets back from the bad bank deal and hopes to turnaround by next year. With the recent rebound in the credit markets, the company believes that it could add back its assets to its balance sheets. However, this would not be possible before the second half of 2010. UBS AG is engaged in a fight with FINMA, Switzerland’s financial independent supervisory authority over its plan to opt out of the bad bank scheme. Under the bad bank scheme, the company incurs hefty charges for protecting against huge losses on toxic assets. However, FINMA has ruled out such possibilities in the midst of the current unstable market. Though the Swiss government sold its 9% stake in UBS last month, around $23.5 billion of UBS assets are there in the government’s bad bank....

On Wednesday, the US and the Swiss governments officially signed the new dual tax treaty which represents an important development for the Obama administration’s endeavor to fight international tax evasion.

The Swiss government has agreed to the international standard on exchange of data. The treaty calls for compulsory arbitration in some tax cases. It also demands changes in the dividend treatments when a pension or retirement fund holds shares.

The US government pursued a tax evasion case against UBS AG (UBS), which was settled last month with the Swiss bank agreeing to provide account details of its 4,450 American clients who allegedly evaded taxes.

Over the years, Swiss banks have enjoyed large foreign deposit inflows as its domestic tax system emphasizes extreme confidentiality. However, adoption of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s standards for tax co-operation coupled with the lawsuit between the US Internal Revenue Service and

...

Citigroup Inc.'s (C) Japanese private equity arm has restarted efforts to sell the country's largest call center company, Bellsystem24, by market share, with the first round of bidding due to close September 1st. Global buyout firms including Permira and KKR are set to bid for the company, grabbing a rare opportunity to chase big investments in Japan.

Around 20 buyout firms have reviewed the books of Bellsystem24, but only four or five may submit formal bids next week due to the deal size. Besides Permira and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, potential bidders include CVC Capital and Bain Capital. Some other firms, though not actively working on the deal at present, may enter the race if invited to partner prominent bidders.

Japanese mega-banks, which include Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MTU) and Mizuho Financial Group (MFG), which were hurt less by the global financial crisis, are willing to lend

...

The Financial Times profiles the new Russian owner of 2% of Facebook.

Mr Milner's story, like his growing portfolio, combines American ideas with Russian opportunities. The son of an economist and a doctor, he studied particle physics at Moscow State University and worked as a researcher at the Soviet Union's prestigious Academy of Sciences.

As the transformation of the country accelerated in 1990, "instead of sticking around and doing useful stuff like privatising oil companies, I went to the US to study," Mr Milner jokes. He became the first Russian graduate of the Wharton School of Business, after which he spent three years at the World Bank working on Russia's emerging financial sector. He then joined Menatep, the bank founded and formerly owned by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon arrested in 2003. Mr Milner set up

...

JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM) beat first-quarter estimates, and its Chief Executive said it has the money to repay the $25 billion the bank borrowed from the U.S. government.

After dividends, the second-largest U.S. bank reported net income of $1.52 billion, or 40 cents a share, on $25 billion in revenue.

Investors have been cautiously cheering the performance of the financial sector, whose enormous losses led the stock market into decline. JPMorgan’s quarterly earnings report – like that of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and rosy estimates from Bank of America Corp. (BAC) – serves as another psychological prop to jaded investors.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s claim that the Wall Street bank has the resources to pay back the $25 billion it borrowed from the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Earlier this week, Goldman Sachs sold $5 billion

...

BGI taps longtime Smith Barney executive Longley for key role in expanding asset manager’s distribution reach. 

 

As bloggers across the Internet were talking up a potential sale of exchange-traded funds leader Barclays Global Investors, some real news was taking place at the San Francisco-based asset management giant. 

The $1.5 trillion asset manager said on Thursday it had hired longtime Citi/Smith Barney executive John Longley as its new head of national accounts in the U.S.

In that role,

…

This morning, we our reprinting Currency Currents past from 28 August 2007; it’s the “best of Currency Currents” if you will.

What is interesting is that our top key news event back on 28 Aug ‘07 was Barclays, a UK bank that is in the news again today after sealing a deal to obtain funds from a couple of places that still have some—Abu Dhabi and Qatar. 

We particular liked this old issue because it lays out a thought process to help shield us from a world chock-full of guru-ism, which is always a danger to one’s trading account.  

As you know, we’ve been looking for a dollar “correction” and lately have caught a bit of it, after being first steamrolled.  But as you also know, the dollar doesn’t have to “correct,” and its cranking again this morning.  Are we seeing a digestion of the sharp moves higher in the

...