The chief of Standard & Poor’s will step down next month, to be replaced by a senior Citibank executive, in a move announced a few weeks after the credit rating agency downgraded U.S. government debt and sparked a row with Washington.
Australian brewer Foster’s Group put pressure on SABMiller to raise its $10 billion hostile takeover offer on Tuesday, unveiling a $521 million capital return to shareholders.
Deutsche Bank AG knew in 2006 that a mortgage company it was preparing to buy lied to the U.S. government about its mortgages, yet went ahead with the purchase and should be held financially responsible, the Justice Department said on Monday.
Mortgage-backed securities are also at the center of another investigation of a prominent bank, as Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein has hired high-profile Washington defense attorney Reid Weingarten to represent him as the Justice Department looks further into Goldman’s role in the financial crisis.
NYT’s DealBook contributor Peter Henning called the Goldman investigation an “overreaction,” adding that until subpoenas are issued, the news that “Mr. Blankfein has hired his own lawyer does not tell us much, other than that he did what every other corporate executive involved in an investigation would do.”
French drinks group Castel denied SABMiller was in talks to buy its African beer business, although analysts say a deal would make strategic sense. *
Hewlett-Packard launched a $1.6 billion bid for data storage company 3PAR, topping an offer by technology rival Dell by about 33 percent. The competing bids for 3PAR come as technology heavyweights have been boosting investment in cloud computing and virtualization technology. *
