Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

Another rogue Wall Streeter is on the lam: "Ex-Credit Suisse trader and Bulgarian national Julian Tzolov was declared a fugitive by the U.S. government on Friday, three weeks before his trial for fraud related to subprime mortgages and auction rate securities. A document filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn said Tzolov, who was under house arrest and electronic monitoring, left his home on May 9 without permission of authorities."More

• Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis testified under oath that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson pressured him to keep quiet about BofA's plans to buy Merrill Lynch. [WSJ, CNN]
• Credit Suisse reported a profit of $1.7 billion for the first quarter. [BN]
• Executives from a bunch of credit card companies will face off against President Obama today over possible limits on fees and interest rates. [BN] More

• UBS is cutting another 7,500 jobs after posting a $1.8 billion quarterly loss and clients pulled more than $20 billion out of the firm. [BN, NYT]
• Andrew Cuomo strikes again: Carlyle Group is now under investigation by the attorney general and the SEC over whether it illegally paid third parties to secure $1.3 billion in investments from New York's pension fund. [BN]
• BlackRock plans to raise $5-$7 billion to scoop up toxic assets. [Reuters]
• Scandal du jour: Danny Pang, who heads up the $4 billion fund Private Equity Management Group, has a few questions to answer, it would seem. [WSJ]
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• Eight bank CEOs will appear in front of the House this morning to defend their use of billions in bailout money. Expect serious fireworks. [Reuters, BN, WSJ]
• Four top execs at Merrill Lynch took home $121 million in bonuses just before the firm was sold to Bank of America. [WSJ, BN, NYDN]
• More on the lukewarm reception to Tim Geithner yesterday. [NYT, BN]
• Credit Suisse reported a fourth-quarter loss of $5.2 billion. [BN]
• Both Goldman and Morgan Stanley have suggested that they want to give the government back the billions they took in bailout funds. [NYT]
• RBS is cutting 2,300 jobs. [Reuters]

• Bank of America went ahead with the purchase of Merrill Lynch—even after having last-minute doubts—because Washington pushed it to do so. [WSJ]
• Yesterday's testimony by Harry Markopolos before a House subcommittee looking into the Madoff affair was eye-opening, to say the least. [NYT, Reuters]
• One damning accusation by Markopolos: Walter Noel's Fairfield Greenwich Group went on a "three-year auditing shopping spree." [Fortune]
• Another Markopolos revelation: The Wall Street Journal missed numerous chances to break the Madoff story open. [Clusterstock]
• Reaction to Obama's plan to cap Wall Street pay—and opinions as to whether it could even work or not—has been all over the map. [WSJ, BN, NYT] 
• Erin Callan took a leave from Credit Suisse because she's been summoned to testify before a grand jury about the collapse of Lehman Brothers. [NYP]
• The number of new claims for jobless benefits reached its highest level since the 1982 recession last week. [WSJ]

Erin Callan Takes Leave | Erin Callan, the rising Wall Street star who became the chief financial officer of Lehman Brothers only to be ousted a few months before the firm filed for bankruptcy, is leaving the new job she started just five months ago. Callan is taking a "personal leave" from her job as head of Credit Suisse's hedge fund division; Dealbreaker is now suggesting she could have had a nervous breakdown this morning. [Bloomberg]

• The chief executives of nine Wall Street banks have been "summoned" to Washington to testify before Congress next week. [BN]
• UBS has held talks with Wachovia about combining their wealth management units; this comes amid the news UBS tried to sell its brokerage unit to Morgan Stanley late last year. [NYP, Reuters]
• After repeatedly saying it wasn't a possibility, Citigroup is now contemplating backing out of the $400 million deal to name the Mets' new stadium. [WSJ]
• Under pressure to boost lending, Citigroup says it will spend $36.5 billion to issue new mortgages and make credit card loans. [AP]
• Credit Suisse is cutting bonuses by 55%. [BN]
• What's BofA been doing with its bailout cash? Hosting parties. [ABC News]

• President Bush announced a rescue plan for General Motors and Chrysler that will provide $13.4 billion in federal loans. [CNN]
• Jamie Dimon and Bob Rubin will go bonus-less this year. [Reuters]
• Not surprisingly, Credit Suisse's plan to pay out bonuses with "toxic" securities has "elicited livid reactions from senior bankers." [WSJ]
• A former Lehman employee has been charged with insider trading. [CNN]
• One person who will profit from the Madoff mess: Bruce Wasserstein. Lazard has been appointed to sell the trading operations of Madoff's company. [WSJ]
• There are two—yes, two—books already in the works about Madoff. [TBS]

It's ugly out there today, isn't it? Viacom announced this morning that it plans to eliminate 850 positions, cuts that will take place "broadly" across the conglomerate's portfolio of media properties. NBC Universal followed up with the news it's slashing 1,350 positions. Credit Suisse revealed plans to pink-slip 5,300 people. DuPont said it would cut its payrolls by 2,500 people. And AT&T took the cake today with the announcement that some 12,000 employees will be on their own in the near future. If your boss asks to speak with you for "a moment" in the privacy of the conference room today, don't forget to bring tissues with you. [CNN, Dow Jones, WSJ]

♦ Layoff announcements, grim unemployment data, and dismal retail sales figures should lead to another nasty trading session on Wall Street. [CNN]
♦ A group of managers and senior execs from Neuberger Berman won the auction to take over Lehman's money management business. [NYT]
♦ Credit Suisse is laying off 5,300 people. [Reuters]
♦ Citigroup's top execs like Vikram Pandit and Bob Rubin say they're willing to forgo annual bonuses. How generous of them! [FT]
♦ Thomas H. Lee may shut down two hedge funds it launched recently. [WSJ]
♦ Poor Steve Schwarzman is "knocking on more doors and pressing more flesh than ever" to get business done these days. [NYP]
♦ Fortress Investment Group is falling apart fast. [NYT]
♦ Carlyle Group LLC is cutting 10 percent of its staff. [WSJ]

The Swiss Never Pass Up an Excuse to Go Wild | It's not all doom and gloom on Wall Street! You'll be happy to hear that Credit Suisse's annual Christmas party is still taking place next week. [Dealbreaker]

♦  Stocks are poised to move higher today after yesterday's bloodbath. [CNN]
♦  Goldman Sachs may report a loss of as much as $5 billion this quarter, the firm's first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999. [WSJ]
♦  Credit Suisse and HSBC have announced another round of job cuts. [Reuters]
♦  Highbridge Capital, founded by Glenn Dubin and Henry Swieca and owned by JPMorgan, is the latest hedge to suffer a fall. More than a third of its investors are looking to withdraw cash and the flagship fund is down 25%. [WSJ]
♦  One hedge funder doing fine: John Paulson. His firm has already cleared profits of more than $1 billion this year betting that the housing market would crumble and banks would fail. [Bloomberg]
♦  What does the head of a new Congressional panel set up to monitor the bailout have to say about Hank Paulson's strategy? That it does appear Paulson has a strategy. [NYT]

♦  AIG is already running out of the $123 billion in cash it was provided by the Federal Reserve, which means the authorities are slowly waking up to idea that something else might be going on. [NYT]
♦  The U.S. economy shrank at a 0.3 percent annualized rate in the third quarter as consumer spending declined at the fastest rate in 28 years. [MW]
♦  The Fed's half-point rate cut yesterday? It won't do much to prop up the economy. [NYP]
♦  Andrew Cuomo has asked banks to provide his office with bonus data. [NYT]
♦  Some hedge funds are still raking in cash from investors. Steve Cohen's SAC is down 5.5 percent in 2008 (and he's moved most of his funds into cash), but he's accepting new funds beginning in January. [Bloomberg]More

Ax Falls at Credit Suisse | Credit Suisse is laying off another 500 people, adding to the 1,565 people who were canned earlier this year. [Bloomberg]

♦  Yesterday's sell-off is expected to continue today. [WSJ]
♦  Even Goldman Sachs is cutting. The firm plans to cut 10 percent of its 32,000 employees. [WSJ]
♦  The glory days of hedge funds are over, as you're probably aware. [NYT]
♦  Credit Suisse reported a $1.08 billion loss during the third quarter. [DB]
♦  The inquiry into the financial crisis on Capitol Hill continues. Today's guest piñata will be Alan Greenspan. [NYT]More