May 17, 2010 at 5:12 p.m.
Filed under:
Food,
Investing,
Stock activity
Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett in Omaha on May 2, 2010. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
Associated Press | Billionaire Warren Buffett’s firm says it cut its holdings in a dozen companies in the first quarter, including slashing its stake in Kraft Foods Inc., as it finished raising cash for its $26.7 billion acquisition of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad.
The sale of more than 30 million Kraft shares came after Buffett criticized the company for overpaying when it acquired British candy maker Cadbury for $19.5 billion in February.
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May 17, 2010 at 10:33 a.m.
Filed under:
Investing
From Crain’s Chicago Business | Chicago-based Ariel Investment LLC, which is led by investment manager John Rogers, saw its flagship Ariel Fund rise 56 percent for the past 12 months, outpacing the 38 percent average rise for rivals, according to Chicago-based fund rater Morningstar Inc.
Get the full story: chicagobusiness.com.
May 10, 2010 at 12:28 p.m.
Filed under:
Investing,
Stock activity
Dow Jones Newswires | Shares of Boeing Co. were up 6 percent,
to $70.72, in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange after
Goldman Sachs raised its outlook to buy from neutral. The investment
firm also upped the plane maker’s price target to $90 from $82.
“Our thesis had been that the suppliers would outperform Boeing,” the
broker said. “What we have missed with Boeing, and why we think it will
continue to outperform, is that it spans nearly every positive global
theme that is driving outperformance in stocks today: BRICs exposure,
credit normalization, a product story, the consumer recovery, favorable
industry structure, and favorable company-specific dynamics,” the broker
said.
By Wailin Wong
| Activist investor Carl Icahn has raised his stake in Schaumburg-based
Motorola Inc. to 8.75 percent, according to a Friday filing with the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Icahn and his investment vehicles last disclosed their Motorola holdings
in May 2008, reporting a 7.6 percent stake.
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May 7, 2010 at 11:03 a.m.
Filed under:
Banking,
Exchanges,
Investing
Associated Press | Goldman Sachs’ Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein told shareholders Friday the investment bank is creating a business standards committee to study its practices as it fights civil fraud charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission. “We need a rigorous self-examination,” Blankfein told investors at the company’s annual meeting. “Our firm must review our core principles.”
He noted there is a disconnect between how Goldman Sachs views itself and how outsiders see the company.
Get the full story: Goldman Sachs says it will review ‘core principles.’
May 7, 2010 at 10:45 a.m.
Filed under:
Bankruptcy,
Investing
From The New York Times | Bankrupt mall operator General Growth Properties has chosen to go with an investment plan led by Brookfield Asset Management, spurning a last-minute takeover bid from Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group.
Get the full story: nytimes.com.
May 6, 2010 at 6:56 p.m.
Filed under:
Exchanges,
Investing,
Markets,
Stock activity
Traders in the S&P 500 pit at the Chicago Board Options Exchange on May 6, 2010. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)
By Greg Burns | One of the wildest 20 minutes in Wall Street history spilled into Chicago’s major markets Thursday, prompting one exchange to declare a series of trades “clearly erroneous,” and another to suggest that a hot rumor was wrong.
The CBOE Stock Exchange invoked a government-sanctioned rule to unwind 18 trades made in the stock of Chicago’s Accenture Plc that all took place within a few minutes Thursday afternoon at the price of a penny per share.
Accenture closed down $1.08 at $41.09, and no news from the company would have justified those rock-bottom trades.
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Dow Jones Newswires-Wall Street Journal | Patrik Edsparr has left Citadel Investment Group, making him the Chicago hedge-fund firm’s latest top executive to depart.
Citadel spokeswoman Katie Spring said Edsparr was “let go” from the
firm within the last two weeks. Messages left for Edsparr and his
assistant at Citadel’s London office Tuesday weren’t immediately
returned. He didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. Edsparr had
told associates in London in recent days that he was leaving, says a
person close to the matter.
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May 3, 2010 at 12:49 p.m.
Filed under:
Banking,
Investing
By Becky Yerak | First Chicago Bancorp, the parent of First Chicago Bank & Trust, said it expects to complete a second offering of stock this quarter as it tries to raise needed capital.
The bank lost $7.6 million in the first quarter. While its capital levels are at least adequately capitalized, in March it was ordered by U.S. and state banking regulators to strengthen management, improve lending procedures and reduce its reliance on commercial real estate.
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April 29, 2010 at 11:28 a.m.
Filed under:
Investing,
M&A,
Management,
Personnel moves
Tribune staff report | BMO Capital Markets, the investment and corporate banking arm of BMO Financial Group, has announced five hires for its M&A, financial sponsors, healthcare and industrials groups.
Among the hires, Mike Jones joins the M&A Group in Chicago, where he will work in the food and consumer sector. Jones comes from Wachovia Securities, where he most recently headed consumer and retail M&A.
April 27, 2010 at 5:19 p.m.
Filed under:
Banking,
Chicago executives,
Housing,
Investing
Associated Press | The CEO of Goldman Sachs testily defended his company’s ethics and business practices during the nation’s financial crisis on Tuesday, saying customers who bought securities from the Wall Street giant came looking for risk “and that’s what they got.”
“Unfortunately, the housing market went south very quickly,” Lloyd Blankfein told skeptical senators on an investigatory panel. “So people lost money in it.”
Get the full story: Goldman CEO denies wrongdoing in crisis.
April 27, 2010 at 12:55 p.m.
Filed under:
Investigations,
Investing
From The Swamp: After reading from a Goldman Sachs memo on the quality of certain products, Sen. Carl Levin asked salesman Daniel Sparks how many of the crumby securities he had sold. Only neither the Goldman memo nor Levin used the word crumby. Senate hearings into misconduct at the investment firm continue.
Get the full story: Goldman Sachs: One ’s—-y‘ deal.
From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel | Madison-based Cellular Dynamics, the company created by stem cell pioneer James Thompson, confirmed on Tuesday it has raised $40.6 million of private equity funding. The round was led by Tactics II Stem Cell Ventures, with Sam Zell’s Equity Group Investments LLC and Sixth Floor Investors LP participating in the round. This brings the total amount of money raised by the company to $70 million.
Get the full story: jsonline.com.
April 23, 2010 at 8:48 a.m.
Filed under:
Exchanges,
Investing
California Rep. Darrell Issa, seen here in 2009, called the reports of SEC staffers watching pornography “disturbing.” (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Associated Press | Republicans are stepping up their criticism
of the Securities and Exchange Commission following reports that senior agency staffers spent hours surfing pornographic websites on government-issued computers while they were supposed to be policing the nation’s financial system.
California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said it was “disturbing that high-ranking officials within the SEC were spending more time looking at porn than taking action to help stave off the events that put our nation’s economy on the brink of collapse.”
He said in a statement Thursday that SEC officials “were preoccupied with other distractions” when they should have been overseeing the growing problems in the financial system.
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April 22, 2010 at 3:47 p.m.
Filed under:
Exchanges,
Investing,
Policy,
Politics
By Greg Burns | Speaking in Chicago shortly after President Barack Obama called on leading bankers to get behind Democratic-led financial reform, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said he’s 80 percent on board.
“It’s obvious we need to reform our financial system. JPMorgan has supported most of the things that came out,” said Dimon, as he accepted an award Thursday from the Executives’ Club of Chicago. “We agree with 80 percent. We might be right on the other 20 percent.”
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