Bad Day at...
BlackRock, Inc.
Sightings from The Catbird Seat
~ o ~
COMPANY PROFILE:
BlackRock, Inc.
40 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022
United States
Phone: 212-810-5300
Fax: 212-409-3123
Web Site: http://www.blackrock.com
BUSINESS SUMMARY
BlackRock, Inc. is a publicly owned investment manager. The firm also provides risk management and advisory services. It provides its services to corporate, public, and Taft-Hartley pension plans, insurance companies, mutual funds, endowments, foundations, nuclear decommissioning trusts, banks, charities, corporations, official institutions, and individuals worldwide.
The firm manages separate client-focused equity, fixed income, and balanced portfolios; open-end and closed-end funds; offshore funds; unit trusts; and alternative investment vehicles including hedge funds and structured funds. It invests in the public equity, fixed income, real estate, and alternative markets across the globe. The firm employs a fundamental analysis with a bottom-up approach to make its portfolio for investments. It employs liquidity, asset allocation, balanced, real estate, and alternative strategies to make its investments.
BlackRock was founded in 1988 and is based in New York, New York.
~ ~ ~
REPRESENTATIVE WORLDWIDE CLIENTS:
Aon Corp.
Attorneys’ Liability Assurance Society
The Boeing Co.
California Public Employees Retirement System
California State Teachers Retirement System
Cisco Systems
State of Connecticut Trust Funds
FreddieMac
General Electric Co.
Kamehameha Schools/Bishop Estate
Los Angeles County Employee Retirement Association
New York City Retirement System
Public Retirement Systems of Nevada
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=BLK
April 8, 2009
Treasury says some insurers
qualify for TARP
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury said on Wednesday some life insurers have met requirements for government capital investments under an existing rescue plan, and their applications for funds are now being considered.
"There are a number of life insurers that have met requirements for the Capital Purchase Program because of their bank holding company status," said Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams. "These are among the hundreds of financial institutions in the CPP pipeline that will be reviewed and funded as appropriate on a rolling basis."
The statement was made in response to a Wall Street Journal story published late on Tuesday saying the Treasury would extend its $700 billion financial bailout program to certain life insurers and would make an announcement in coming days.
Williams said any capital investments in insurers that have bank holding company status would not constitute a new rescue program for the insurance sector.
The Treasury clarification caused stocks to pare gains, particularly the major insurers who were viewed as the likely benefactors of a widening of the Treasury's financial bailouts. Prudential Financial Inc shares had climbed more than 12 percent at one point in early trade, but by mid-morning were up 6.3 percent at $23.50, while MetLife's earlier 10 percent gain was chopped back to about 3.4 percent at $24.98.
In recent months, some insurance companies have received approval to acquire banks, paving the way for them to participate in the Capital Purchase Program, which the Treasury has estimated will top out at $218 billion.
As of Tuesday, the program had $198.5 billion invested, leaving $19.5 billion in available funds, according to Treasury documents. A Treasury official said only a small number of life insurers have met the qualifications for the program.
Reuters reported in February that the Treasury was actively considering applications for capital injections from about a dozen insurance companies.
In addition to Met Life and Prudential, other insurers that now have bank holding company status include the Hartford Financial Services Group Inc and Lincoln Financial....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090408/bs_nm/us_financial_bailout_insurers
March 30, 2009
Lincoln Financial Group Enters Into Reinsurance Agreement With Commonwealth Annuity and Life Insurance Company
PHILADELPHIA, March 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Lincoln Financial Group (NYSE: LNC) today announced that it has entered into a reinsurance agreement with Commonwealth Annuity and Life Insurance Company on an in-force block of universal life (UL) and variable universal life (VUL) insurance policies written by The Lincoln National Life Insurance Company and its predecessors.
Commonwealth Annuity is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. The transaction will be effective as of March 31, 2009.
WANT TO SPOT SOME OF THE BILLIONAIRES GETTING BAILED OUT OF LINCOLN FINANCIAL WITH U.S. TAXPAYERS’ DOLLARS???
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=LNC
~ o ~
AND, YOU MAY WANT TO CHECK OUT SOME OF THESE GIGANTIC, TAX-DODGING, INTERNATIONAL VULTURE NESTS ON THE LIST ALSO GETTING BAILED OUT WITH YOUR TAX DOLLARS...
Barclay’s Global Investors, UK
~ o ~
For more, GO TO > > > Nests of the Insurance Vampires
January 17, 2008
Merrill posts worst quarter
in its history
By Tim McLaughlin
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch & Co Inc (NYSE:MER - News) reported about $16 billion in mortgage-related write-downs and adjustments on Thursday in the worst quarter of the company's history.
Shares of the world's largest brokerage fell more than 8 percent as investors worried about more write-downs and exposure to capital-strapped bond insurers.
The stock's 48 percent decline over the past year has slashed nearly $42 billion from Merrill's peak market capitalization of $84.7 billion in late January 2007.
The start of a booming year for investment banking fees and big bets on subprime mortgages ended in dismal fashion. Merrill's fourth-quarter net loss was $9.8 billion, or $12.01 a share, compared with year-earlier profit of $2.3 billion, or $2.41 a share....
For 2007, Merrill lost about $8 billion on second-half write-downs and adjustments of about $24 billion. Lax risk management led to the ouster of Stan O'Neal as chief executive in late October.
Recently named CEO John Thain said in a conference call that Merrill would ease risk-taking, but has enough capital to move forward after $12.8 billion in infusions from U.S. and foreign investors....
But Thain, who called the fourth-quarter results "unacceptable," said he could not promise that the company will avoid further write-downs on subprime mortgage-related positions.
There will be no dramatic job cuts, he said, and the company is not interested in selling its stakes in Bloomberg LP and asset manager BlackRock Inc (Note: (NYSE:BLK - News)....
Merrill shares were down $4.62, or 8.4 percent, at $50.47 in afternoon New York Stock Exchange trade.
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/080117/merrilllynch.html?.v=1
November 27, 2007
Wall Street leads surge in
corporate political giving
By Kevin Drawbaugh
Big business is shoveling more money than ever into U.S. political campaigns, with Wall Street donations way up, a watchdog group said on Tuesday.
The securities and investment industry -- which includes brokerages, hedge funds and private equity firms -- registered the sharpest increase in giving since 2004 among all industry sectors studied by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Record-breaking contributions from the nation's biggest political givers are the result of a wide-open race for the White House and last year's power shift in Congress, said Sheila Krumholz, the nonpartisan center's executive director.
"There is an intensity to the fund raising for 2008 that we've never seen before, which means the candidates and parties will be all the more beholden" to big donors, she said.
The nonprofit center analyzes campaign finance and lobbying records at the Federal Election Commission (FEC), a government agency that enforces U.S. campaign finance law.
The analysis includes contributions to federal candidates and parties from individuals working in an industry and from associated political action committees.
In both presidential and congressional contests, Democrats are benefiting more than Republicans from the surge in business donations, with 57 percent of giving from typical big donors going to Democrats versus 43 percent in 2006 and 2004.
More money is coming in from lawyers than from any other sector, as usual. But the biggest increase in giving since 2004 is coming from financiers, whose donations are up 91 percent.
Steep increases are also coming from the real estate industry, Hollywood, healthcare professionals and insurers....
Wall Street's favorite presidential candidate, based on the latest FEC disclosures from October 29, was Democratic New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. Close behind her in donations from financiers were Republican former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Democratic Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.
Next were Republican former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Republican Sen. John McCain from Arizona, Democratic former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Democratic New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.
The biggest donors in the securities and investment sector, as of October 29, were the brokerage firms Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse.
Also among the sector's top contributors were hedge funds and private equity firms Bain Capital, SAC Capital Advisers, Fortress Investment Group and Blackstone Group.
"There's no question that hedge funds and private equity firms have ramped up their political giving in the last couple of years as Congress looks seriously at raising their taxes," said Massie Ritsch, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics.
Lawmakers are considering proposals to more than double the tax rate on the "carried interest" gains of senior partners at private equity firms that buy and sell businesses.
November 21, 2007
Superfund lines up BlackRock
By David Wighton in New York, Financial Times
BlackRock, the asset manager 49 per cent owned by Merrill Lynch, is set to be signed up as the manager of the $75bn superfund being put together by the top three US banks.
The appointment of BlackRock, one of the world’s leading bond managers, is seen as an important vote of confidence in the plan, which met with initial scepticism from some banks and investors.
Larry Fink, BlackRock’s chief executive, has become a strong advocate of the plan and his team gave by far the best pitch for the business, according to a person close to the process.
The fund, which is backed by the US Treasury, plans to buy assets from cash-strapped structured investment vehicles (SIVs) to head off the threat of firesales.
Some of the SIVs are struggling to renew their main commercial paper funding because investors are concerned about the vehicles’ subprime mortgage exposure.
Forced sales of assets by the SIVs would further depress the prices of asset-backed securities and bank debt.
The plan was leaked five weeks ago, when it was still at a very early stage, leaving it vulnerable to critics who complained that key details had not been worked out. But there has been growing support for the proposal since the banks – Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase – agreed to important changes 10 days ago.
These included raising the fees for selling to the fund to up to 1 per cent of assets. This will allow the fund to pay more to the banks that will provide back-up liquidity and to the managers.
Some critics saw the plan as a bail-out of Citigroup, which manages SIVs with $80bn of assets and is using its stretched balance sheet to help fund them....
The lead banks are expected to start syndicating the bank facilities in the first week of December and the fund could be up and running by early January.
BlackRock declined to comment.
# # #
FOR MORE BAILOUT BUZZARDS OF A FEATHER, GO TO
\/
\/
\/
THE EAGLE HOODED: THE 9-11 COVERUP
~ ~ ~
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING KAMEHAMEHA’S COURT
AIG: THE UN-AMERICAN INSURANCE GROUP
THE BANKRUPTCY BUZZARDS OF ORANGE COUNTY
THE CARLYLE GROUP: BIRDS THAT DRINK FROM CESSPOOLS
CITIGROUP: VAMPIRES IN THE CITY
CONFESSIONS OF A WHISTLEBLOWER
~ ~ ~
DIRTY MONEY, DIRTY POLITICS & BISHOP ESTATE
Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V - Part VI - Part VII
~ ~ ~
MARSH & McLENNAN: THE MARSH BIRDS
MERRILL LYNCH: BEWARE THIS BULL IS FOR THE BIRDS
OFFICE OF U.S. TRUSTEE vs. HARMON
THE EAGLE HOODED: THE 9-11 COVERUP
~ ~ ~
THE BANKRUPTCY BUZZARDS OF ORANGE COUNTY
MORE OF THE CATBIRD’S FAVORITE LINKS
FAIR USE NOTICE. This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Originally posted January 17, 2008
Last Updated on April 9, 2009 by The Catbird