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JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) London Unit Hit With Record Fine
Posted by: | CommentsBritish financial regulators hit the London unit of JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) with a record 33.3 million pound ($48.8 million) fine for comingling a portion of client money with firm capital. According to the Financial Services Authority (FSA), JP Morgan Securities Ltd (JPMSL) failed to separate all funds between November 2002 and July 2009.
During that time frame JPMSL held funds ranging from $1.9 billion to $23 billion. If the firm had run into financial trouble at any point in that period, client money would have been at risk of loss, according to the FSA.
“JPMSL committed a serious breach of our client money rules by failing to segregate billions of dollars of its clients’ money for nearly seven years. The penalty reflects the amount of client money involved in this breach,” said FSA Director Margaret Cole.
“The FSA has repeatedly emphasised the importance of ensuring that client money is adequately protected. Despite being one of the largest holders of client money in the UK, JPMSL failed to do so,” added Cole.
JP Morgan avoided a larger fine from the FSA by being proactive about the issue, first stating last August that 8.5 billion pounds of client money may had been mixed with its own funds. An auditor was hired at the time to review accounts of JPMSL.
The issue of keeping client funds and company funds separate flared up after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
This article (JP Morgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) London Unit Hit With Record Fine) 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.
With as much as $300 million in underwriting fees at stake, one of the largest paydays many years for investment bankers, Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) are reportedly among the leading candidates to land the underwriting job for the initial public offering of General Motors.
Citing one person with knowledge of the matter, a Fox Business report said, “All the signs coming out of Washington are that JPMorgan and BofA will win the deal.”
Even so, the process of selecting the underwriters isn’t over, and it’s not a surety the two companies will end up getting the account.
Some sources say whoever does end up getting the job should be announced sometime next week.
What seems to be most important about this report isn’t who may be getting it, but who isn’t, which in this case is Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS).
Goldman CEO and chairman Lloyd Blankfein was out traveling, which was given as the reason behind his not showing up to be interviewed by Treasury and GM officials. That’s significant because almost all major banks has either their chairman or CEO at the procedure, implying Blankfein may have been considered a liability or distraction to the process for Goldman.
A person familiar with the matter said the Treasury and GM are looking for a head underwriter which would focus on the smaller investors, and another one that would target the larger institutional clients; the reason two companies were evidently named.
It’s doubtful that Goldman or competitor Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) will simply accept this, and will undoubtedly strongly pursue landing the underwriting job.
This article (Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) Leading Candidates for Underwriting General Motors’ IPO) 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.
The Dow has given up its gains for the week, and financial stocks like Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) Citigroup (NYSE:C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) are all down on the downgrade of Spain’s debt by Fitch Ratings from its prior AAA rating to AA+. Spain had had a AAA rating since 2003.
This signaled to the market that the European sovereign debt crisis isn’t going to go away any time soon, and it’ll probably get worse.
At 2:00 p.m. EDT, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was down by 139.59 to 10,119.40, or 1.36 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index stood at about 1,085 near the same time, a drop of 17.92, or 1.62 percent. The S&P is down 8 percent so far in May, the worst since February 2009.
According to David Kovacs, head of quantitative strategies at Turner Investment Partners, “The credit issues are not going away in Europe — it’s a simple fact that everyone has to accept. Credit markets are seizing up because investors are concerned. So when they see further downgrades by the credit agencies it reminds them that these issues are not going away and on a Friday before a long weekend you can expect selling off of equities.”
Spain is one of the more important countries in the European Union in the debt crisis, when measured against Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Greece (PIGS). If Spain were to default, most watching the situation don’t believe the EU could save them. If they had to offer close to $1 trillion in response to the Greece crisis, it would be extraordinary what they would have to offer to shore up Spain along with them. And if Spain were to default, the others would assuredly follow.
The approximate $1 trillion would be targeted at all of the EU, with $146 billion for Greece, but it’s unlikely that amount would come close to handling the situation if the crisis continues, and growing opposition to the socialist/welfare countries living beyond their means is growing.
People are getting tired of being productive and having to bail out those who take their wealth and redistribute it to those who are unproductive and lazy.
Limited government is the answer to this, as people would be forced to work harder and create something useful when the misguided props are removed and they have to work for what they want and the lifestyle they want to live.
This isn’t limited to the so-called PIIGS though, as other nations, even Britain are in debt far beyond the guidelines implemented by the EU, and even though these nations are farther above them than others, like Greece with its 13.6 deficit and Spain with its 11.2 deficit, as measured against its GDP.
No country in the EU is adhering to the guidelines, making them all risks going forward.
Unless Europe is willing to follow their own rules, there isn’t a real Europe operationally, and that will remain the same until it is followed.
The EU may need to cut back to the more economically healthy countries until they’re able and willing to adhere to and enforce the debt guidelines in place.
This article (Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) Citigroup (NYSE:C), Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) Slammed After Spain’s Debt Dowgraded) 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.