Archive for March, 2010
Citigroup (NYSE: C) Hires Bloomberg Deputy as New PR Executive
Posted by: | CommentsCitigroup (NYSE: C) has hired a top deputy to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in hopes of boosting the company’s public image and to mend the company’s relations with state and federal regulators.
Edward Skyler, a 36-yaer old deputy mayor of operations in New York, will become Citigroup’s new executive vice president of global public affairs and will be in charge of all internal and external communications. Skyler will report directly to company CEO Vikram S. Pandit and be serving on the bank’s 18-member executive committee.
The choice to hire Skyler was driven by the need to demonstrate Pandit’s process in turning around the New York-based financial giant and to develop better relationships with regulators at all levels of government, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Skyler has been one of Mayor Bloomberg’s closest advisors since his first mayoral campaign in 2001. Skyler was just 28 years old when the New York City mayor made him his press secretary. In that position, he aggressively defended Bloomberg’s image to the point of cursing at reporters. During Bloomberg’s second term, Skyler rose to the rank of deputy mayor and oversaw a major portion of the city’s government.
During an interview, Skyler said he would call on his “experience navigating difficult environments,” adding the bank was “looking for somebody battle-tested who understood how the media works and how governments work.”
This article (Citigroup (NYSE: C) Hires Bloomberg Deputy as New PR Executive) was originally developed by and is property of American Banking News. Checkout American Banking News for up-to-date banking news and peer to peer lending news.
Analysts Cut Earnings Outlook for Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS)
Posted by: | CommentsAnalysts from different camps seem to be in agreement about Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) concerning earnings in the first quarter, and that is that they aren’t going to be that good for either company.
Most of this is the result of concerns by clients of the two companies over the Greek sovereign debt crisis, which caused them to hold back on spending money and making big decisions on major changes.
There are a number of weak areas as a consequence of these concerns at the many clients and companies served by Morgan Stanley and Goldman, and they include declining IPOs, activity in the equity markets and mergers and acquisitions.
While some of these sectors were expected and not a surprise, what was unexpected was the lower amount of equity business generated by the companies.
It wouldn’t do much good to include the numbers the analysts gave in their revised outlooks, as they were all different, with some of them downgrading their outlooks in relationship to the consensus of the street.
I didn’t find any that didn’t drop their outlook by at least 25 percent for each company, although there could be some out there that dropped them by less, I just couldn’t find any.
Either way, the point is business really dropped in the first quarter for the two financial institutions, and it underscore how far we have to go before a real, sustainable recovery emerges, and the strong risks still out there that can crush the earnings of a company based on worries and fears.
Companies and institutions are still in a defensive mode as these observations reveal, and just a mention of potential high risk sends them back to holding their money and waiting it out to see which way the economic winds blow.
It seems we’re going to go through that for several years before the wariness leaves executives and they begin to see a more steady marketplace.
This article (Analysts Cut Earnings Outlook for Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS)) was originally developed by and is property of American Banking News. Checkout American Banking News for up-to-date banking news and peer to peer lending news.
Five Greek Banks Downgraded by Moody’s (NYSE:MCO)
Posted by: | CommentsIn a reminder of the fragility of the Greek credit crisis, and the sovereign debt challenges they still face, Moody’s (NYSE:MCO) downgraded five Greek banks today, citing the debt challenges will eat into the earnings of the companies for a long time to come, while the company will have to endure a long recession.
Moody’s added things will get worse for the banks before they get better, with the macroeconomic situation in Greece heightening over the next year.
They said in a statement, “Today’s rating actions were prompted by the country’s weakening macroeconomic outlook and its expected impact on these banks’ asset quality and earnings-generating capacity. Pressures on the macroeconomic fundamentals have been evident for the past year and are expected to intensify as the year unfolds.”
Just like anyone with bad credit, this enters into a catch-22 type of situation, where the bad credit raises the cost of debt, and so borrowing by Greece will be much more expensive than most, if not all, of their European Union counterparts. Of course that’s the purpose of higher costs, to rein in the excesses and make it harder to continue on doing what brought them to the crisis in the first place.
The legitimate concerns of the European Union is if the Greek crisis is only the tip of the iceberg of countries close to defaulting on their sovereign debt, as Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain are high risk nations as well, and much more dangerous to the survival of the EU and the euro if one of them were to collapse, which is a real possibility. This is why there was so much debate and controversy surrounding giving Greek aid and how to do it, as it would be setting a precedent which could be dangerous if other countries started to look for handouts as well.
The five Greek banks downgraded by Moody’s are National Bank of Greece, EFG Eurobank Ergasias, Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank and Emporiki Bank of Greece. Moody’s signaled there could be more downgrades for them in the future.
This article (Five Greek Banks Downgraded by Moody’s (NYSE:MCO)) was originally developed by and is property of American Banking News. Checkout American Banking News for up-to-date banking news and peer to peer lending news.