Frank J. Bisignano, co-chief operating officer of JPMorgan Chase, is leaving the bank to become chief executive of the payment processing firm First Data Corporation, according to a statement on Sunday by the bank’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon. Matthew E. Zames, who shared the chief operating officer role with Mr. Bisignano, will take over all aspects of the job, effective immediately, Jessica Silver-Greenberg reports in DealBook.
Mr. Bisignano’s move, the latest executive departure since JPMorgan reported a multibillion-dollar trading loss last year, is voluntary, according to two people close to the bank, who added that the First Data post would be a perfect role for him. “His departure is less fraught than others during more tumultuous periods, these people say. Ina R. Drew, who ran the chief investment office, the unit at the center of the huge trading loss, resigned under pressure in May last year, for example,†Ms. Silver-Greenberg writes. “With Mr. Bisignano’s departure, the ranks of executives who once surrounded Mr. Dimon as he helped steer the bank through the 2008 financial crisis will be even thinner.â€
SANTANDER CHIEF RESIGNS  | The chief executive of Banco Santander, Alfredo Sáenz, resigned on Monday, days after the Spanish bank reported that first-quarter net profit fell 26 percent. Mr. Sáenz, 70, who joined Santander in 1994, will be succeeded by Javier MarÃn Romano, currently head of the firm’s insurance, asset management and private banking operations. Mr. Sáenz resigned after a long-running series of legal problems, DealBook’s Mark Scott writes.
HIGH COSTS FOR PENSION LOANS  | Companies offering so-called pension advances to retirees are drawing scrutiny from Congress and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Ms. Silver-Greenberg reports. “The advances, federal and state authorities say, are not advances at all, but carefully disguised loans that require borrowers to sign over all or part of their monthly pension checks. They carry interest rates that are often many times higher than those on credit cards.â€
“A review by The New York Times of more than two dozen contracts for pension-based loans found that after factoring in various fees, the effective interest rates ranged from 27 percent to 106 percent â€" information not disclosed in the ads or in the contracts themselves. Furthermore, to qualify for one of the loans, borrowers are sometimes required to take out a life insurance policy that names the lender as the sole beneficiary.â€
A BULLISH CASE FOR DELL  | The proposed buyout of Dell, which faces opposition from investors like Southeastern Asset Management and Carl C. Icahn, may not be the most lucrative option for investors, Barron’s writes. With Dell’s stock trading below the $13.65-a-share buyout offer from Michael S. Dell and Silver Lake, “the view on the Street seems to be that if the deal dies, Dell shares will head lower, perhaps as low as $10 or $11,†the magazine writes. “Dell shares now look appealing because investors stand to make a small profit if the Michael Dell-led offer gets approved. And the alternatives to that offer â€" which would allow Dell to remain a public company â€" could provide significant value to shareholders, since Icahn and Southeastern value Dell at more than $20 per share.â€
“Given the opposition, there’s a good chance the deal dies even if an Icahn proposal doesn’t materialize. That would be welcome news for Dell investors, who could then benefit from alternatives that offer immediate and long-term benefits that probably far exceed $13.65 a share.â€
ON THE AGENDA Â |Â Herbalife, a company at the center of a battle among Wall Street titans, reports earnings after the market closes. A report on personal income and outlays in March is out at 8:30 a.m. Data on pending home sales in March is out at 10 a.m. The investor Peter Thiel is on CNBC at 3:10 p.m. Peter Weinberg, co-founder of Perella Weinberg Partners, is on CNBC at 4:30 p.m.
CLASH OVER EMPIRE STATE BUILDING GOES TO COURT  | A fight over the future of the Empire State Building will play out in court starting on Monday, when the New York real estate barons Peter L. Malkin and his son Anthony E. Malkin, who control the tower but are minority owners, argue that it should be taken public. “They are within a whisker of landing the deal of a lifetime, valued at $5.2 billion, that would offer to the public shares in 19 properties in the New York area that they oversee, including the crown jewel, the Empire State Building,†The New York Times writes. “The offering would catapult the Malkin family into the elite of Manhattan real estate, valuing their stake at an estimated $730 million and installing Anthony Malkin as chairman of a major new company, Empire State Realty Trust.â€
“But standing in their way is an eclectic group of dissenters led by the California businessman Richard Edelman and Andrew S. Penson, a speculative investor who owns Grand Central Terminal.†The hostility has surprised even some longtime observers of the industry. “I’m amazed at the level of enmity,†said Barry Vinocur, the editor at a trade publisher, REIT Zone Publications. “I can’t recall ever seeing anything like it.â€
Valeant and Actavis Talks Fall Through, for Now  | The two companies had been in talks for some time, and under the most recent terms of the proposed deal, Valeant would have paid more than $13 billion in stock to acquire Actavis, this person said. DealBook »
Bayer to Buy Conceptus for $1.1 billion  | Bayer of Germany plans to buy the American birth control company Conceptus for about $1.1 billion. Bayer said it would offer Conceptus shareholders $31 for each of their shares in the company, or 20 percent more than the closing share price on Friday. DealBook »
Lloyds Banking Group to Sell Spanish Units  | The Lloyds Banking Group of Britain agreed on Monday to sell its Spanish retail and private banking and investment management operations to a local lender, Banco Sabadell. DealBook »
Mitsubishi UFJ Said to Be in Talks for Morgan Stanley’s Trust Unit  | The Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group of Japan is in talks to buy Morgan Stanley’s trust unit, which provides trust services for $4 billion of client assets in Morgan Stanley’s wealth management division, Bloomberg News reports, citing three unidentified people with knowledge of the matter. BLOOMBERG NEWS
Verizon Said to Brief Analysts in Pursuit of Wireless Stake  | Verizon Communications has been briefing analysts “on how much it would be willing to pay†for Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless, Bloomberg News reports. BLOOMBERG NEWS
When It Comes to Pay, JPMorgan Is on Top  | JPMorgan Chase paid its senior employees the most among investment banks last year, according to a new report from Emolument, Bloomberg News reports. BLOOMBERG NEWS
Investors Cool on Private Mortgage Securities  |Â
BLOOMBERG NEWS
The Death of a Countess in Exile  | Ilona DeVito di Porriasa, joined Merrill Lynch’s securities research department in the early 1970s and stayed until retiring in 2005, developing a reputation for quick calculations and prescient recommendations â€" as well as a certain reserve. But she never acknowledged her background to most colleagues until they read her mother’s obituary in the 1990s. Some did not find out until her death this month that she had been born a countess, Vivian Yee writes in The New York Times. DealBook »
A Wrinkle in the Workplace  | Low morale at banks and other financial institutions in London is leading some employees to behave at work as if they were still at home wearing pajamas, according to a business coach. DealBook »
Lazard’s Profit Fell 17% in First Quarter  | The investment bank said that its adjusted profit slid 17 percent, to $37 million, from the period a year earlier, as fewer of its advisory assignments closed during the period. DealBook »
Commerzbank Loses Appeal on Paying $68 Million in Banker Bonuses  | Commerzbank of Germany must pay 52 million euros ($68 million) in bonuses to 104 bankers after it failed on Friday in its appeal to overturn a court ruling in London. DealBook »
K.K.R. Said to Consider Bid for Stake in Mine  | K.K.R. may bid for Rio Tinto’s majority stake in an Australian mine, “in a sign that private-equity firms are hunting for bargains among assets no longer wanted by major resources companies,†The Wall Street Journal reports. WALL STREET JOURNAL
Galleon Group Co-Founder Surfaces on Horseback  | Gary Rosenbach, the co-founder and longtime No. 2 to Raj Rajaratnam at the Galleon Group, has surfaced in Texas as an accomplished amateur “cutter,†a sport in which horseback riders separate one calf from the cattle herd. DealBook »
In Britain, a Hedge Fund Gala Calls it Quits  | The Ark gala, “which earned notoriety for scaling the heights in outrageous ostentation and financial largess, has been quietly mothballed by Ark’s trustees,†The Financial Times reports. FINANCIAL TIMES
Odey Asset Management Increases Stake in Man Group  |Â
REUTERS
Netflix Chief Reflects on a Major Misstep  | The New York Times columnist James B. Stewart writes about Netflix’s recovery from its disastrous decision to spin off its DVD-by-mail business. “In the annals of corporate missteps, there are few parallels to such a rebound from what once looked like a death spiral, especially in the momentum-driven world of technology.†NEW YORK TIMES
Russian Lender Secures Investors for $3.3 Billion Offering  |Â
BLOOMBERG NEWS
Venture Capitalists Turn to Food  | “What if the next big thing in tech does not arrive on your smartphone or in the cloud? What if it lands on your plate? That idea is enticing a wide group of venture capitalists in Silicon Valley into making big bets on food,†The New York Times reports. NEW YORK TIMES
Breyer to Leave Boards of Facebook and Walmart  | The venture capitalist James W. Breyer will not run for re-election on the boards of Facebook or Walmart, according to securities filings. PEHUB
Hired by an Algorithm  | An 18-month-old company called Gild uses an algorithm to scour the Internet for people to hire, The New York Times writes. The technology “raises important questions about how people are recruited and hired, and whether great talent is being overlooked along the way.†NEW YORK TIMES
Europe Under More Pressure to Reconsider Austerity  | “After years of insisting that the primary cure for Europe’s malaise is to slash spending, the champions of austerity, most notably Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, find themselves under intensified pressure to back off unpopular remedies and find some way to restore faltering growth to the world’s largest economic bloc,†The New York Times writes. NEW YORK TIMES
Bank of Cyprus Converts Some of Uninsured Deposits to Equity  |Â
REUTERS
Twitter’s Effect on Markets Concerns Regulators  | A Twitter hoax last week that caused stocks to fall briefly has drawn the attention of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which is holding a meeting on Tuesday to discuss whether there should be additional safeguards against the effect of social media on markets, The New York Times reports. NEW YORK TIMES
Trying to Put an End to Bailouts  | A bill introduced by Senators Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat, and David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican, “would create an entirely new, transparent and ungameable set of capital rules for the nation’s banks â€" in other words, a meaningful rainy-day fund,†Gretchen Morgenson writes in The New York Times. NEW YORK TIMES
Should Smaller Banks Really Have Less Capital Protections?  | A new proposal by Senators Brown and Vitter is an unprecedented attempt to unfairly advantage smaller “regional banks†and disadvantage bigger “megabanks,†writes Richard E. Farley, a partner in the leveraged finance group of the law firm Paul Hastings. DealBook »
