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Wall
Street cash bonuses highest since 2008 crash: report - (www.reuters.com) The average bonus on Wall Street jumped 15
percent last year to the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis and was
the third largest on record, New York State's budget watchdog said on
Wednesday. The cash bonus pool swelled to $26.7 billion in 2013, pushing the
average cash bonus to $164,530, a post-2008 high in a industry shrunk by the
financial crisis, according to the New York state comptroller's annual
estimate. The increased payouts came as Wall Street posted a fifth consecutive
year of profits after record losses during the crisis. Profits for
broker-dealer operations of New York Stock Exchange member firms, however, fell
30 percent to $16.7 billion in 2013, the report said. "Wall Street
navigated through some rough patches last year and had a profitable year in
2013. Securities industry employees took home significantly higher bonuses on
average," Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement.
Quiznos
files for bankruptcy - (money.cnn.com)
Quiznos has filed for
bankruptcy protection, five days after the Sbarro pizza chain did the same. Executives
at the restaurant chain, known for its toasted sandwiches, agreed to a
restructuring plan that will reduce its debt by more than $400 million, the
company said in a statement Friday. All but seven of Quizno's 2,100 restaurants
in the United States and 30 other countries are independently owned franchises,
and will remain open and operating as usual. CEO Stuart Mathis said the company
will take action to help increase sales and profits for its franchise owners
going forward. It will look to reduce food costs, invest in local advertising
and, in some circumstances, make loans available for restaurant improvements.
Bankers
Face Six-Year Bonus Clawback Rule (UK) - (uk.news.yahoo.com) Bank bonuses would be able to be clawed back up
to six years after they were paid under plans to tackle the excessive
risk-taking blamed for the financial crisis. The proposal, which the Bank
of England has put out to consultation, was announced as the
industry continues to get to grips with pending new EU rules on limiting
bonuses. The payments remain the focus of public anger following the taxpayer
bailouts of Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), while Barclays, which got
no public money, is facing the prospect of a pay revolt in April after it
proposed a rise in bonuses for 2013 despite profits sliding. Since the
near-collapse of the banking system in 2008, customers of all major UK banks
have struggled to secure loans amid a recession which hit jobs, pay and
investment. The industry has also come under fire over a series of
mis-selling scandals and faced fines for rate-rigging.
Fannie
Mae-Freddie Mac dismantlement plan is outlined by Sens. Tim Johnson, Mike Crapo
- (www.washingtonpost.com) The Senate banking committee’s top leaders on
Tuesday released the broad outlines of a plan that would dismantle mortgage
giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, advancing
what many observers expect will be a multi-year effort to revamp the nation’s
housing finance system. For months, Sens. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Mike Crapo
(R-Idaho) have worked to hammer out a plan they could agree on and sell to
their respective parties. In a joint statement, the lawmakers said they would
unveil their legislation in “the coming days.” But the bill is expected to face
many hurdles, in part because leaders of both parties are not eager to take on
a complex and politically fraught issue in the lead-up to this year’s midterm
elections. The legislation builds on a plan by Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and
Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) that would replace Fannie and Freddie with a new entity
— the Federal Mortgage Insurance Corp. — and shift more of the risks of
mortgage lending to the private sector.
George
Foreman Enterprises gets knocked out - (money.cnn.com)
It went down without a
rumble. Earlier this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission suspended
trading in shares of George Foreman Enterprises. It was the final knockout for
a company that went public (through a reverse merger) in August 2005 "to
leverage the assets of one of the most powerful celebrity athlete brands of all
time." The company never owned the rights of the most famous product
associated with the boxing legend, the George Foreman Lean Mean Fat-Reducing
Grilling Machine -- its full name. That was made by Salton Inc., which licensed
the right to Foreman's name. In 2003, Seymour Holtzman, the head of a
big-and-tall clothing chain that Foreman was endorsing, came up with the idea
of creating a company that would try to repeat the grill's success. Holtzman
was chairman. Foreman got 35% of the new company. And with that, a terrible
idea for a stock was born. Foreman put his name on a line of poultry --
Foreman's Lean Mean Grillers. There was also the George Foreman Knockout Cleaning
System. Do you need to know more?
One
dead in Ukraine clash in eastern city- (www.reuters.com)
Russia holds war games near Ukraine; Merkel warns of catastrophe - (www.reuters.com)
Russia holds war games near Ukraine; Merkel warns of catastrophe - (www.reuters.com)
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