ADIA, as the sovereign fund is known, filed an arbitration claim alleging “fraudulent misrepresentations,” and is seeking more than $4 billion in damages if the deal is upheld, Citigroup said in a statement yesterday, adding that the claims have no merit. ADIA invested in November 2007, getting equity units that can be swapped into common stock at $31.83 to $37.24 a share from 2010. The shares closed at $3.56 in New York yesterday.
Citigroup, which on Dec. 14 said it would sell stock to repay $20 billion - - - - >

The state-controlled company will ask creditors for a “standstill” agreement as it negotiates to extend maturities, including $3.52 billion of Islamic bonds due Dec. 14 from its property unit Nakheel PJSC, Dubais Department of Finance said in an e-mailed statement. Moodys Investors Service and Standard & Poors cut the ratings on several state companies, saying they may consider the plan a default.
“Extending the maturity of Nakheel debt is feeding the markets uncertainty on which debt Dubai will honor in full,” said Rachel Ziemba, a senior analyst - - - - >

The lawsuit, filed by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, is based on federal and state antitrust claims. It alleges Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America and more than a dozen other banks conspired to pre-select winners of municipal derivative auctions, coordinated their pricing, and accepted kickbacks disguised as fees from co-conspirators.
The allegations resemble those made by a U.S. grand jury in New York last month, according to the lawsuit filed Nov. 12 in federal court in Sacramento. CDR Financial Products Inc. founder David Rubin and two - - - - >

HSBC, Europes largest bank by market value, will remain at 8 Canada Square, a 656-foot (200-meter) tower in the Canary Wharf financial district, following the sale to Seoul-based NPS, according to a statement yesterday. Officials at the South Korean fund were not available for comment.
The South Koreas state pension fund plans to double its international assets to 15 percent of its total holdings by 2015, the fund said in July. This will include property acquisitions in the worlds major cities, the fund said in a Nov. - - - - >

Investment-grade U.S. bonds returned 8.3 percent in the period, following 11 percent in the second quarter, the best gain since 1982, according to Merrill Lynch & Co., and some home-loan bonds reached prices almost double their March lows. Almost 60 percent of AIGs bond portfolio as of June 30 was in corporate debt and securities tied to residential mortgages.
“Theyre going to get a big pop on a mark-to-market basis and have higher earnings,” said Haag Sherman, who helps oversee $7.5 billion as chief investment officer of - - - - >

Corporate America has a habit of low-balling the earnings forecasts used by analysts to determine their estimates. That way, the bar is lower, and companies can easily jump over when the quarters results are announced - even if profits and revenues have fallen off a cliff.
“Over the last decade, theres been a distinctive tendency for companies to underpromise and overdeliver,” says Dirk van Dijk, chief equity strategist of Zacks Investment Research. “Lately companies are being even more cautious. They realize investors can very harshly punish any company that disappoints.”
Beating expectations generally gives share prices a quick lift, but the news - - - - >

The deal announced Friday carries a tradeoff for Citigroup: While the $250 million sale to Occidental Petroleum Corp. means a bit less government scrutiny, it also means the bank is losing hundreds of millions of dollars in annual income that could help repay $49 billion in bailout money.
Phibro, which makes most of its money through oil and natural gas trades, earned an average $371 million annually during the past five years. Citigroup sold it for about $250 million, which means Occidental could recoup its investment in less than a year.
A Citigroup official with knowledge of the deal said the bank - - - - >

The commission would get the power sought by Chairman Gary Gensler to regulate bilateral swaps in commodities such as wheat and natural gas, and may impose position limits on speculation that takes place outside of regulated exchanges, according to a 187-page draft measure released Oct. 2 by House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank.
The legislation advances the commissions efforts to “effect comprehensive oversight of the OTC markets to ensure transparency and accountability to these currently opaque markets,” Commissioner Bart Chilton said in an e-mail. The commission - - - - >

The cash and debt transaction, valued at 776 billion yen ($8.7 billion), involves 7,800 employees through the sale of Nikko Securities Inc. and parts of Nikko Citigroups Japan operations. The new entity is named Nikko Cordial Securities Inc.
Citigroup, which received billions in taxpayer funds to survive the financial crisis, said it will book an immaterial after-tax gain on the deal in the fourth quarter. The sale was first announced in May.
Sumitomo Mitsui is the first Japanese bank to buy a top brokerage in Japan - marking a major realignment in the countrys financial sector.
At - - - - >

A former Moodys employee warned the Securities and Exchange Commission in March about deficiencies in the firms monitoring of municipal bonds after being rebuffed by Moodys executives, a document shows.
Scott McCleskey, who was a senior vice president for compliance at Moodys until he left a year ago, wrote a letter to an official at the SEC alleging a “lack of meaningful surveillance of municipal securities, contrary to statements by Moodys to the public and to Congress.”
McCleskey will testify Wednesday at a hearing by the House Government Oversight Committee, which is examining the role of the Wall Street rating agencies in - - - - >