Friday December 11 Housing and Economic stories

TOP STORIES:

Puerto Rico's governor says default 'looms large' - (www.reuters.com)  Puerto Rico Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla said that default "looms large" and that starting on Tuesday, the commonwealth would "claw back revenues" pledged to certain bonds issued in order to maintain public services. The commonwealth has been speculated to default on all or part of its $355 million notes issued by the U.S. territory's Government Development Bank, due Dec. 1. "The imminence of a default when presented with the alternative between paying creditors and providing essential government services looms large," Garcia Padilla told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

Chinese banks miss out on the party as Asian M&As pass $1 trillion mark - (www.reuters.com) A surge in Chinese cross-border technology and telecoms deals has helped mergers and acquisitions in Asia Pacific cross $1 trillion for the first time but mainland banks are missing out on the payoffs as they badly trail global rivals in advisory work. While low fees have helped Chinese banks to win market share from U.S. and European counterparts in stock offerings and loans, they figure nowhere among the 10 biggest M&A advisers by value of deals, Thomson Reuters data up to the end of November showed. China's biggest investment bank, CITIC Securities, ranked 11th, advising on $68.7 billion worth of deals. The number of Chinese banks among the top 20 M&A advisers in the region fell to seven from eight and their market share slumped to 13.8 percent from 33.7 percent last year.

In Chicago shooting Rahm Emanuel should be charged as accomplice - (www.al.com)  But what has happened since this shooting last year — a coverup involving everyone up to and including the mayor of Chicago — should never happen. That coverup appears to have begun almost immediately. A regional manager for Burger King in Chicago says that after the shooting police asked to view the restaurant's surveillance video of the incident. The next day, it was discovered the video of the incident had been deleted. The Burger King manager told reporters there that he believes police deleted it. Regardless of whether that manager is right, there was still the dash cam video. The city agreed to settle with McDonald's family for $5 million, even before the family filed a lawsuit. However, the city refused to release the video until forced to do so by the courts after a freelance journalist sued for it.

BTG Sees Another $224 Million Flee From Funds Following Arrest - (www.bloomberg.com) Grupo BTG Pactual SA’s clients continued to take money out of some of the bank’s fixed-income funds through the end of last week, pulling a net 866 million reais ($225 million) on Friday. That adds to 4.2 billion reais in net withdrawals on Nov. 25 and Nov. 26, according to data compiled by Bloomberg -- the latest of which was released on Monday. The 5.1 billion-real outflow over three days followed the arrest of the bank’s controlling shareholder and then-chief executive officer, Andre Esteves. It represents about 40 percent of the combined net assets of the 10 fixed-income funds listed on the bank’s website. The drop in assets BTG manages can also be seen in Chile, a market it entered in 2012. The value of assets under management at BTG Pactual’s Chilean mutual funds fell to 805 billion pesos ($1.14 billion) by Nov. 30 from 982 billion pesos on Nov. 24, the day before Esteves’s arrest, according to data from the Chilean mutual funds association.

BlueCrest to Return All Outside Investor Money - (www.bloomberg.com) Michael Platt, who runs the $8 billion BlueCrest Capital Management, will return all client money and instead focus on managing his own wealth and that of his partners and employees. Outside investors, who account for about $7 billion of the firm’s assets, will get 75 percent of their money before the end of January and 90 percent by the end of the first quarter, the firm said in a statement. BlueCrest will become a private investment partnership, according to the statement, which cited declining fees and rising costs as reasons for the move. “Everyone knows the landscape has changed,” Platt said in an interview. “We want to position ourselves to be free to adapt to the environment such as it exists.”

OTHER STORIES:

Citi: The Growth Model of Emerging Markets Is ‘Broken’ - (www.bloomberg.com)
Sydney Home Prices Drop Most in Five Years as Regulation Bites - (www.bloomberg.com)

IMF gives China's currency prized reserve asset status - (www.bloomberg.com)

Asian Shares Fall as Shanghai Brokers Extends Losses; Oil Gains - (www.bloomberg.com)
China Stocks Recover Losses in Late Trading as Volatility Climbs - (www.bloomberg.com)
Emerging Stocks Drop to Two-Week Low as China Selloff Roils Asia - (www.bloomberg.com)
Saudi Borrowing Rate Soars in November as Bank Deposits Drop - (www.bloomberg.com)