Week in Review: Waiting to Be King of Goldman

In the glow of television, many messages. | The stimulus comment that agitated traders. | To billionaire’s failed deal, add rebuke from S.E.C. | Trader covets Goldman office where a friend is sitting tight. | In a shift, interest rates are rising. | Insurers inflating books, New York regulator says. | Andrew Ross Sorkin says tech companies tread lightly in statements on U.S. spying. | A rise in broker requests to wipe the slate clean.

A look back on our reporting of the past week’s highs and lows in finance.

Gannett to Buy Belo TV Stations, Continuing to Diversify Holdings | The addition is the latest step in a yearlong strategy to diversify Gannett’s media operations amid continued struggles in the print industry. DealBook »

Vodafone Approaches German Cable Operator | Amid growing interest in European cable and telecommunications by investors, the British wireless firm started acquisition talks with Kabel Deutschland. DealBook »

Chief Offers to Buy the Part of Dole Food He Doesn’t Already Own | David H. Murdock made an unsolicited bid for the fruit and vegetable producer, hoping to take the company private after years of middling performance. DealBook »

SoftBank Raises Offer for Takeover of Sprint | All told, the new offer is valued at about $7.48 a share, up almost 19 percent from the original bid. SoftBank would own about 78 percent of Sprint if the deal is approved. DealBook »

• Sprint and SoftBank Weigh Alternatives to a Deal | Charles W. Ergen, the chairman of Dish, has managed to upend the carefully laid out plans of Sprint and SoftBank. DealBook »

Doubts Raised About Direction of Royal Bank of Scotland | Lawmakers and investors expressed their displeasure after the announcement that the chief executive was leaving. DealBook »

• Royal Bank of Scotland Chief Will Step Down | New questions are being raised about the future privatization of the part-nationalized bank after Stephen Hester said he was leaving. DealBook »

Trader Covets Goldman Office Where a Friend Is Sitting Tight | Gary D. Cohn has long been considered the man who will be the next C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs; the problem is the current chief isn’t ready to leave. DealBook »

Goldman Sachs to Finance Early Education Program | Through an experimental method of financing social services, the bank is lending up to $4.6 million for a preschool program in Salt Lake City. DealBook »

In a Shift, Interest Rates Are Rising | The interest rate charged by lenders has been going down for most of the time since the early 1980s, but there are signs that will not last. DealBook »

A Rise in Requests From Brokers to Wipe the Slate Clean | As investors rely increasingly on Finra’s database to vet Wall Street professionals, some brokers and executives are trying to remove complaints. DealBook »

Public Debut for Coty Raises About $1 Billion | The cosmetics maker’s selling shareholders sought to take advantage of a growing market for stock offerings amid a healthy rise in equity market valuations this year. DealBook »

News Analysis: The Stimulus Comment That Agitated Traders | Just what was Ben S. Bernanke thinking three weeks ago when he said that the Federal Reserve might soon cut back its stimulus efforts? DealBook »

To Billionaire’s Failed Deal, Add Rebuke From S.E.C. | Revlon agreed to pay an $850,000 penalty for deceiving shareholders in connection with Ronald O. Perelman’s attempt to take the company private in 2009. DealBook »

The Trade: Overhaul Efforts Reflect Few Lessons of Housing Crisis | Congress is working gingerly toward a solution to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a process dominated by emotional battles and financial interests, says Jesse Eisinger. DealBook »

Insurers Inflating Books, New York Regulator Says | New York regulators say life insurers are putting policyholders at risk and could cause another taxpayer bailout. DealBook »

Deal Professor: A Year Later, the Missed Opportunity of the JOBS Act | The recent I.P.O. of the upscale grocer Fairway is an illustration of the real forces that drive the market for offerings, says Steven M. Davidoff. DealBook »

DealBook Column: Tech Companies Tread Lightly In Statements On U.S. Spying | Andrew Ross Sorkin questions how publicly traded companies can, and should, react to news when pressed about involvement in confidential government programs. DealBook »

Criminal Defense Lawyer Closes Office to Join a Firm | After representing Mafia bosses and corrupt politicians, 68-year-old criminal defense lawyer, Gerald Shargel, will close his offices to join Winston & Strawn. DealBook »

‘Get Lucky’ | Gary Cohn, the Prince Charles of Wall Street, is said to be restless. Next step: take the summer off and follow Daft Punk. YouTube »

Defining Real Estate Broadly to Avoid Corporate Taxes

Shares of the information storage company Iron Mountain dropped about 15 percent last week on the news that the I.R.S. was “tentatively adverse” toward at least one aspect of its plan to convert into a Real Estate Investment Trust, or REIT. The primary legal issue appears to be whether Iron Mountain’s racking storage units qualify as real estate assets.

To qualify as a REIT, a company must meet certain numerical tests, including a requirement that 75 percent of its assets be “real estate assets.” REIT status is important because it allows a company to avoid paying the corporate tax. REITs instead pay out most of their income as dividends to investors, who are taxed at individual rates.

REITs were intended to be the equivalent of mutual funds for real estate investing. Publicly traded companies are normally taxed as corporations, and in the absence of the REIT provisions, it would be more difficult for small investors build a diverse portfolio of real estate assets.

The problem is that many companies that resemble normal operating businesses now qualify as REITs.

Iron Mountain is a great example. Only on its tax return would one describe it as a real estate business. The value of the business turns on its ability to deliver information management services, including virtual and real document storage. The value of its real estate holdings is almost incidental to the business model.

Even though it seems like a stretch, Iron Mountain’s legal argument is not bad. Iron Mountain argues that the racking units are properly thought of as real estate, as they are affixed to the foundation of the building shell and intended to remain permanently in place.

In a securities filing, Iron Mountain disclosed that it learned that the I.R.S. formed a working group to define real estate for purposes of the REIT provisions. That the I.R.S. was “tentatively adverse” suggests it may not be persuaded by Iron Mountain’s arguments, or perhaps that it may simply be holding off on decisions like this while the working group examines the issue.

Other companies trying REIT conversions that could be affected include Lamar Advertising, an outdoor advertising firm, and Equinix, a data center operator. A front page New York Times article in April described other kinds of companies, like prison and casino operators, that have successfully converted to REITs.

The problem for the taxing authorities is that as the definition of REITs has expanded over time, the corporate tax base has eroded as more companies that look and act like ordinary businesses avoid paying the corporate tax.

The significance of the formation of an I.R.S. working group on the issue is unclear. In a newsletter, a tax expert, Robert Willens, apparently referring to The Times article, suggested that “the I.R.S. is reacting, uncharacteristically I might add, to the articles in the popular press that have questioned whether the Service has been unduly liberal in awarding REIT rulings.” Mr. Willens predicts that the working group will review recent rulings and conclude quickly that that nothing needs to be changed.

The erosion of the corporate tax base is a problem for Congress and the Treasury Department to address through tax legislation, not for the I.R.S. to change through its ruling policy. Congress shares responsibility for the problem thanks to its decision to allow taxable REIT subsidiaries to conduct activities that would otherwise jeopardize the qualifying status of REITs.

REITs often enter into cost-sharing agreements with taxable subsidiaries. One thing we learned from the Senate investigation into Apple’s offshore tax planning was the mischief that can be achieved through innocuous-looking cost-sharing agreements. Allowing the tax status of a parent company to depend on the arm’s length agreements of subsidiaries under common control is a proven recipe for tax avoidance.

Congress should revisit the broad availability of REIT status. Only by stemming the erosion of the corporate tax base will it be able to bring the corporate tax rate down to be more in line with our global trading partners.

For a discussion of how “blocker” entities, including taxable REIT subsidiaries, enable alterations to the tax base, see “ ‘Blockers,’ ‘Stoppers,’ and the Entity Classification Rules,” The Tax Lawyer (2011) by Willard B. Taylor.

Victor Fleischer is a professor at the University of Colorado Law School, where he teaches partnership tax, tax policy and deals. Twitter: @vicfleischer

Talk of Takeover Grows at Health Management Hospital Group

Ever since the chief executive of Health Management Associates, the for-profit hospital system, abruptly announced nearly three weeks two weeks ago that he would be leaving to lead a religious mission in South America two weeks ago, speculation has mounted about whether the for-profit hospital systemcompany could be headed for a takeover.

The company’sIts stock has soared 36TK percent to a six-year high. Its largest shareholder appears eager to play a bigger role in determining the company’s next steps, even if that means taking on the board. And executives from the most -likely potential buyer have -â€" without actually naming names â€"- indicated they could be in the market..

TOn WednesdayThis , This week, the Naples, Fla.-based companyH.M.A., which is based in Naples, Fla., said its board of directors has had hired financial advisoers to help it consider strategic alternatives but also made clear it would n’ot be discussing its plans in any detail.

Pressure is intensifying on HMAthe company and its board, particularly its chairman, William J. Schoen, who is viewed by some analysts as less -than -enthusiastic about selling the company.

A former chief executive who has shaped and reshaped HMAthe company several times over the decades, Mr. Schoen, 77, has been the company’s chairman for 27 years.

“He’s certainly someone who’s played a very strong role in forming the company’s strategy,” said Darren Lehrich, an analyst at Deutsche Bank. “There could be some protecting-the-legacy issues there.”

H.M.A. is the The nation’s third-largestCK public for-profit hospital chain, by number of beds, with 71 locationsfacilities located in some rural areas of the country., HMA It has struggled in recent months with falling inpatient admissions into its hospitals.

While other hospitals also reported weaker financials in the first few months of this year, HMAthe company’s revenues may have also been impactedhurt by an investigation by CBS’s “60 Minutes” that ran late last year, highlighting concern over whether patients were being unnecessarily admitted. In the report, several former employees said HMAthe company coerced doctors to admit patients to its hospitals, regardless of medical need, in order to boostincrease company profits.

H.M.A. has denied the allegationsaccusations, saying admissions are “based solely on what is best for patient care.” CK.

Among the myriad of government investigations and civil lawsuits that the company discloses in its regulatory filings, H.M.A. has also indicated that United States attorney’s’ offices in seven states awere investigating its physician referrals, including financial arrangements and the “medical necessity of emergency room tests and patient admissions.”

The inquiry appears to be part of a broader look by federal regulators into whether some of the nation’s hospitals are pressuring emergency physicians and others to admit patients who could be treated without having to stay overnight in the hospital.

H.M.A. says it is said it was cooperating with regulators. RESPONSESo

Some Wall Street analysts say those various investigations and lawsuits could turn off potential buyers.

“Buying H.M.A. means dealing with its troubled operations plus escalating risks from burgeoning legal issues that could prove prohibitively expensive,” wrote Vicki Bryan, an analyst at the bond research firm Gimme Credit, wrote in a note to clients earlier this month.

Others note that since a wave of acquisitions several years ago by private- equity buyers, most of the deal activity among public hospital systems has been for single -hospitals or smaller deals.

“There are a lot of smaller, not-for-profit hospitals that are looking for financial partners,” said Dean Diaz, a senior credit officer at the Moody’s Corporation. “There are a lot of potential targets out there that can be done without necessarily looking for a big transformational deal.”

It was aA series of curious moves that kindledspawned the recent speculation around the company.

In early May, Glenview Capital Management, the hedge fund founded by Lawrence arry M. Robbins, signaled in a regulatory filing that it had increased its stake and now held more than 37 million shares, or 14.6% percentofpercent of H.M.A.’s outstanding , shares.

The company’s stock hardly budged rose slightly on the news. But the filing drew a much sharper, defensive response from the board of directors.

About three More than two weeks later, at a board of directors meeting, the company adopted a so-called “poison pill” that, essentially, prevents to thwart theany hostile takeover by a large investor. The pill goes into effect if any investor tries to buy 15 percent or more of the company.

The company’s stock began climbing, and within a few days, Glenview issued a “clarification” that said it had no interest in acquiring the company.

Investors were further stunnedthen surprised in late May when the company announced that its chief executive, Gary D. Newsome, 55, would retire from the company at the end of July to take over as Ppresident of the Uruguay-Montevideo Mission in South America.

Mr. Newsome, who became chief executive of the company in 2008, earned nearly $22 million in total compensation inover the last three years, according to regulatory filings. Mr. Newsome had been a senior excutiveexecutive at Community Health Systems, another for-profit hospital system..

This week, Glenview raised the stakes when it asked that the board to remove or change the “poison pill” in a way that would allow investors to acquire a bigger stake without triggeractivating it, according to the regulatory filing.

The letter added that Glenview iswas evaluating whether to formulate a proposal to make changes “to all or a portion” of the company’s board of directors.

That’s an unusually aggressive and public stance for Mr. Robbins, who observers say prefers to exert his influence on companies in a more friendly, behind-the-scenes kind of way.

Mr. Robbins has been hot oneager for hospital stocks for many months more than a year, talking them up at a New York investor conference a year ago. Glenview owns stakes in several publicly traded for-profit hospital systems.

The list of potential buyers for H.M.A. isn’t long, with many pointing to the most likely candidate as Community Health Systems as the most likely candidate.

Pointing toCiting the company’s success in its $6.8 billion takeover of Triad Hospitals in 2007, an executive for Community Health told investors at a conference in late May that it was “open to doing that again.”

But the executive emphasized that any potential deal would have to be done on friendly terms. Community Health learned that lesson the hard way in after 2010 when its unsuccessful unsolicited, or hostile, bid for Tenet Healthcare in 2010 blew wound up in an ugly mix of lawsuits and allegationsaccusations of fraud and wrongdoing between the two hospital systems.

Community Health has disclosed it is also under investigation by the Department of Justice Department, which is seeking information “about our relationships with emergency department physicians, including financial arrangements.” Community said it iswas cooperating with government officials. The company declined to comment further on the investigation and its potential interest in H.M.A. Community TK

The question many are asking is whether H.M.A.’s boarddirectors, particularly Mr. Schoen, would welcome even a friendly bid?.

In its statement on Wednesday, the board said it had engaged Morgan Stanley and Weil, Gotshal & Manges to consider “strategic alternatives and opportunities available to H.M.A.”

While Mr. Schoen has spurned attempefforts by others to acquire H.M.A. in recent years, he is certainly no stranger to deal -making. The chairman of a small bank in Naples that he had started, Mr. Schoen joined H.M.A.’s board in 1983. Less than two years later, after setting the company own its course of acquiring rural hospitals, he was named co-chief executive.

Later, in 1988, Mr. Schoen took H.M.A. private and then public again in 1991.

But a few years ago, in 2007, when H.M.A. gotengaged into serious discussions about a potential buyout with a group of private -equity firms, Mr. Schoen thwarted their efforts. He engineered a deal in which HMAthe company borrowed $3.25 billion, loading the company up with debt, in order to pay shareholders a $2.4 billion in dividends.

Overcoming Your Negativity Bias

Does this sound familiar? You’re feeling a bit uneasy - say, a tightness in your chest or a rumbling in your stomach. You search your mind for the cause, and you think of something unsettling that happened in the office yesterday, a difficult conversation you need to have or a deadline you’re facing on a project. Before you know it, worries are mounting in your mind, one feeding on the next.

It’s a phenomenon called “negativity bias.” “Over and over,” Jonathan Haidt, a psychologist, says, “the mind reacts to bad things more quickly, strongly and persistently than to equivalent good things.” Or as Roy Baumeister, a fellow psychologist, puts it, “It’s evolutionarily adaptive for bad to be stronger than good.”

True enough, if there’s a lion chasing you. Not so true sitting at your desk trying to work in a clear, focused way, which was precisely my goal on the recent morning that a succession of negative thoughts began to multiply in my mind.

Rather than follow their lead, I decided to interrupt my snowballing reverie. Saccharine as it may sound, I began to write down everything I was feeling grateful for in that moment. I got on a roll, and after just a couple of minutes, I was not only feeling remarkably better, but also far more able to concentrate on the task at hand.

It’s a simple concept: we construct our internal reality - our experience of the world â€" in large part by where we put our attention. More often than we recognize, we can make that choice consciously and intentionally. Doing so influences not just how we feel, but also how we perform, individually and collaboratively. It turns out that cultivating positive emotions such as joy, contentment, interest, pride and love pays huge dividends.

Norman Vincent Peale published the “The Power of Positive Thinking” more than 60 years ago. More recent is the scientific evidence for how much better the brain and body operate when we’re feeling good, and what the specific costs are when we’re not.

“Positive emotions broaden [our] scope of attention, cognition and action, and build physical, intellectual and social resources,” says Barbara Fredrickson, a leading happiness researcher at the University of North Carolina. Mario Losada, a researcher, studied some 60 business teams and found that the ratio of positive to negative comments in the highest performing teams was 5.6 to 1. In medium performing teams it was 1.9 to 1 and in low performing teams it was .36 to 1, meaning three negative comments for every positive one.

“We need to have teams within organizations that are able to tap into the liberating and creative power of positivity,” Mr. Losada has written. The notion is not to become an uncritical Pollyanna - but instead to practice “realistic optimism.” That means telling yourself the most hopeful and empowering story possible about any given situation without denying or minimizing the facts.

Learning to put your attention where it serves you best requires the same sort of deliberate practice necessary to build any new skill. The problem is that we grow up in a world that doesn’t value the training of attention or the capacity to cultivate specific emotions.

A good starting place is simple self-awareness, because you can’t change what you don’t notice. For example, how are you feeling right now, in this moment? Start checking in with yourself several times a day - especially when you’re under pressure.

If there are negative feelings gnawing at you, do you know the cause, and is there anything you could do right away to solve the problem? If it’s just a negativity bias kicking in, try the exercise that worked so well for me. Get a piece of paper and spend two or three of minutes writing down anything you’re especially grateful for in that moment. See what effect it has on how you’re feeling.

If you’re a manager or a leader, you carry an extra responsibility. By virtue of your authority, your emotions are disproportionately influential. When you’re feeling worried, frustrated or angry, the people around you are going to pick it up - not least because they’ll be wondering whether they’re the cause. Is there someone on your team who is especially triggering you lately? Take a moment to think about the quality you most appreciate in that person - to remember what it was that drew you to that person in the first place.

Here’s the paradox: The more you’re able to move your attention to what makes you feel good, the more capacity you’ll have to manage whatever was making you feel bad in the first place. Emotions are contagious, for better or worse. It’s your choice.

About the Author

Tony Schwartz is the chief executive of the Energy Project and the author, most recently, of “Be Excellent at Anything: The Four Keys to Transforming the Way We Work and Live.” Twitter: @tonyschwartz

JPMorgan to Spin Out its Private Equity Unit

Jamie Dimon has long had a complicated relationship with private equity. Since taking over as chief executive of JPMorgan Chase in 2005, Mr. Dimon has gradually reduced the bank’s exposure to the risky business of buying and selling companies.

On Friday, Mr. Dimon announced that JPMorgan’s last remaining private equity unit, One Equity Partners, would be spun out into a separate company and raise its next fund as an independent firm.

While the move comes as banks are facing regulatory pressure to reduce their exposure to risky businesses, the divestment of One Equity, which manages $4.5 billion of the bank’s money, was not in response to that, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Instead, this person said, the decision is a reflection of JPMorgan’s emphasis on its client businesses rather than making investments off the firm’s balance sheet. Last year, the bank was buffeted by a multibillion-dollar trading loss by its chief investment office in London.

The One Equity business is the legacy private equity arm of Bank One, the Ohio bank that Mr. Dimon ran and sold to JPMorgan in 2004. At that time, JP Morgan had two other private equity divisions â€" JPMorgan Partners, a unit that made a broad range of investments, and Corsair, an arm that invested in financial services.

Mr. Dimon took over a chief executive of the combined company in 2005. That year, the bank surprised Wall Street by keeping the smaller One Equity Partners and splitting off the bigger business, JPMorgan Partners, which is now an independent private equity firm called CCMP. And in 2006, Corsair was also spun out into an independent firm.

One of the bank’s reasons for de-emphasizing its private equity investments â€" especially the one that were made by its largest unit, JPMorgan Partners â€" is that it didn’t want to be in businesses that directly competed with some of its prized private equity clients, like Blackstone Group and K.K.R. JPMorgan’s investment bank has a very lucrative business both advising and making loans to the world’s largest buyout firms.

One Equity was started in 2001 by Dick Cashin, its managing partner and a former Olympic rower. Among the firm’s more successful deals were its buyout of the health care company Quintiles and its acquisition of Polaroid out of bankruptcy. Jacques Nasser, the former chief executive of Ford Motor Company, is a One Equity senior executive. The firm will continue to manage its existing portfolio of investments for JPMorgan.

“I have worked with the team at OEP for the past 12 years and have a lot of respect for all that they have accomplished and the great value they have delivered to the firm,” Mr. Dimon said in a statement.

JPMorgan’s decision to divest itself of One Equity comes as the debate over the Volcker Rule drags on. The passage of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul in 2010 placed restrictions on how much capital banks could invest in hard-to-sell assets like private equity.

A number of banks have jettisoned much of their buyout operations, including Bank of America and Citigroup. But with the continued uncertainty surrounding the Dodd-Frank law, others have maintained their private equity arms, like Goldman Sachs Capital Partners and Morgan Stanley Global Private Equity.

In I.P.O., CDW to Fall Short of Boom-Era Valuation

When the CDW Corporation goes public, it will likely be worth significantly less than what its private equity owners paid in boom times six years ago.

CDW, a technology products retailer that was taken private for $7.3 billion in 2007, disclosed plans on Friday for an initial public offering. The company expects to price its stock from $20 to $23 a share, which would raise nearly $600 million at the midpoint of that range.

At that price, the entire company would be worth about $3.6 billion. The company cautioned that the information in its filing on Friday could change.

The experience of CDW, which is owned by Madison Dearborn Partners and Providence Equity Partners, is another reminder of the excesses of the buyout boom. On Thursday, HD Supply Holdings, an industrial distribution company that three private equity firms bought for $8.5 billion in 2007, disclosed plans for an I.P.O. that could value it at $4.3 billion.

And yet, amid a buoyant stock market, a number of private equity firms have moved recently to offload their holdings. SeaWorld, the theme park operator controlled by the Blackstone Group, and Quintiles Transnational, a pharmaceutical testing company owned by TPG and Bain Capital, were among companies backed by private equity to tap public markets in recent months.

CDW, which was founded in 1984, sells technology products to businesses, offering brands including Apple, Hewlett-Packard, I.B.M., Microsoft and Lenovo. The company, which is based in Vernon Hills, Ill., and first went public in 1993, has increased its focus on information technology in recent years.

The company has reported several years of sales growth under its private equity owners. Sales last year were $10.1 billion, a 5 percent increase from the year before. It has also managed to turn a profit, earning $119 million last year, compared with $17.1 million the year earlier, and years of losses before that.

CDW plans to use proceeds from its I.P.O. to reduce its debt. Most of the stock sold in the offering, 23.3 million shares, is to be offered by the company itself, while stockholders plan to sell 4.7 million shares.

The company hopes to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “CDW.”

JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and Goldman Sachs are leading the offering.

Elan Puts Itself Up for Sale

LONDON - Elan’s battle to fend off a hostile bid by Royalty Pharma of the United States took a new turn on Friday when the Irish drug company decided to put itself up for sale.

The step comes four months after Royalty Pharma first made an offer for Elan, challenging the company’s stand-alone strategy. Royalty Pharma earlier this month sweetened its hostile takeover offer for Elan for a second time to $13 for each Elan share and an option to receive as much as $2.50 a share extra. Elan rejected the offer as too low.

But on Friday Elan said that it would now put itself up for sale “in light of the expressions of interest received to date” and that “Royalty Pharma will be invited to participate if they so wish.”

“Elan board and management are aligned in maximizing the full value potential of the business on behalf of its shareholders,” Elan said in a statement. “We will update the market as appropriate.”

Royalty Pharma’s current offer for Elan, which Elan said its shareholders should reject, values the company at $6.7 billion, or $8 billion including the options. Royalty Pharma increased its offer after only 7.5 percent of Elan’s shareholders accepted the earlier proposal.

Elan shareholders are scheduled to gather for an extraordinary shareholder meeting on Monday to vote on four acquisitions that Elan negotiated after Royalty Pharma’s initial approach. Royalty Pharma has been critical of the value of the transactions and said its offer for Elan would lapse if Elan shareholders approved the transactions.

Citigroup, Davy Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley and Ondra Partners are advising Elan on the decision. A&L Goodbody and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft are providing legal advice.

Singapore Censures 20 Banks Over Rates

LONDON - Twenty of the world’s largest banks were censored by Singapore authorities on Friday over the attempted manipulation of local benchmark interest rates that are part of a larger rate-rigging scandal still being investigated by global regulators.

The financial institutions, including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, were found to have insufficient risk management and internal controls, which allowed some of their traders to attempt to alter rates including, the Singapore interbank offered rate, or Sibor.

The latest revelations follow a series of multi-million-dollar fines against UBS, Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland for the manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, which underpins trillions of dollars of mortgages, business loans and other global financial products.

As part of its investigation, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said 133 traders at firms like Credit Suisse, Citigroup and ING tried to influence the local benchmark rate for their own financial gain over a five-year period starting in 2007.

Around three-quarters of the implicated traders have left the banks involved, while the other bankers face internal disciplinary procedures, according to a statement from the Singaporean financial regulator.

While none of the 20 global banks were fined, the financial institutions must hold a combined $9.7 billion in extra reserves with Monetary Authority of Singapore at zero percent interest for one year while they carry out internal changes.

Barclays, ING and R.B.S. must each hold up to an additional $960 million with local authorities, while Bank of America will be forced to keep an extra $640 million with the regulator in Singapore. The amount of capital was dependent on the severity of the attempted manipulation.

Like other global regulators, the Singapore authorities also said they planned to make it a criminal offence to manipulate benchmark rates. Under current local legislation, the attempted manipulation does not constitute a criminal offence.

As the rate-rigging investigations enter their fifth year, regulators continue to look into allegations that traders at some of the world’s largest banks altered key benchmark rates for financial gain.

While the Libor inquiries have centered initially on European banks, a number of U.S. financial institutions also remain in the sights of regulators at the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission and at the Financial Conduct Authority of Britain.

What Is Bernanke Thinking?

WHAT IS BERNANKE THINKING?  |  Second-guessing the Federal Reserve may be a Wall Street parlor game, but it is one that has taken on heightened significance in recent years, as markets have become more dependent on central bank support than at any time in recent memory, DealBook’s Peter Eavis writes. Since May 22, when Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman, said the stimulus might diminish, global stock markets have lost $3 trillion in value, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

The question focusing the minds of investors across Wall Street is: Why did Mr. Bernanke say that? The Fed chairman will get another chance to explain his intentions at a scheduled news conference next week and in his semiannual testimony to Congress next month. But in the meantime, four theories are circulating about his comments in May, Mr. Eavis says. Some speculate that Mr. Bernanke may be throwing a bone to hawks within the Fed; others say Mr. Bernanke may be tying to put a damper on some of the frothiest markets. A different theory holds that the Fed was treating that message as a dress rehearsal, and yet another notion is that Mr. Bernanke has indeed shifted his stance.

Jon Hilsenrath, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal whose writings are closely scrutinized by investors, weighed in on Thursday, saying the Fed is not close to ending its stimulus. “An adjustment in the program won’t mean that it will end all at once, officials say, and even more importantly it won’t mean that the Fed is anywhere near raising short-term interest rates,” Mr. Hilsenrath reported. “Investors aren’t listening.”

GANNETT’S TV PLAY  |  “Owning a big-city television station can be a good business bet, even as the sector faces formidable competition from the Internet. But a better bet is owning 30 or 40 of them,” Brian Stelter and Michael J. de la Merced report in DealBook. “That is the thinking behind a surge of consolidation in local television that crested on Thursday when the Gannett Company agreed to buy the Belo Corporation for about $1.5 billion in cash. Analysts said the deal was the biggest deal in local television in more than a decade.”

“For Gannett, best known for owning USA Today and a batch of smaller newspapers from coast to coast, the addition of Belo will nearly double its number of stations, to 43, from 23. It is the latest step in a yearlong strategy by Gannett to diversify its media operations amid continued struggles in the print industry.” Investors welcomed the news, sending the stock up 34 percent to close at $26.60 on Thursday.

R.B.S. FACES DOUBTS  |  A day after the announcement that Stephen Hester, the chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, was leaving, British lawmakers and international investors registered their displeasure, with the bank’s shares falling as much as 8 percent on Thursday before closing down about 3.3 percent. “Much of the criticism has centered on whether George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, played a role in Mr. Hester’s ouster,” Mark Scott and Julia Werdigier write in DealBook. “Mr. Osborne is to make a speech next week outlining how to privatize the bank and another British rival, the Lloyds Banking Group, though some opposition politicians say they believe he has already decided on how to proceed.”

ON THE AGENDA  |  Thomas Hoenig, vice chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and H. Rodgin Cohen, senior chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell, are discussing “too important to fail” banks at the Brookings Institution. Data on industrial production in May is out at 9:15 a.m. Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund is on Fox Business Network at 12 p.m. Richard Cordray of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is on Bloomberg TV at 4:30 p.m.

WHEN COMPANIES GO DARK  |  Public companies that do not have very many shareholders are increasingly availing themselves of the right to “go dark,” meaning they no longer have to file financial information with the Securities and Exchange Commission but remain publicly traded, Floyd Norris, a columnist for The New York Times, writes. When a company goes dark, “investors are in, but they may or may not be told what is going on. Companies that go dark sometimes make audited financial statements public, and sometimes they do not.”

“There is no better example of the perils of going dark â€" as well as proof that ‘preferred’ can be a misnomer when it comes to stock â€" than the former Equity Inns, an owner of hotels, whose common shares were acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2007.”

Mergers & Acquisitions »

I.S.S. Recommends Against Sprint’s Bid for Clearwire  |  Institutional Shareholder Services, the proxy advisory firm, recommended on Thursday that Clearwire shareholders reject a proposed takeover bid by Sprint Nextel.
DealBook »

News Corp. Financial Officer to Step Down After Company’s Split  |  David F. DeVoe, the chief financial officer of News Corporation for more than two decades, is retiring later this month.
NEW YORK TIMES

Ocwen to Buy Mortgage Servicing Rights for $2.53 Billion  |  The Ocwen Financial Corporation, a mortgage company that has experienced rapid growth recently, is buying the rights from OneWest Bank.
REUTERS

Indian Tire Maker’s Shares Tumble Over Deal for Cooper  |  Shares of Apollo Tyres plunged more than 25 percent in India on news of its proposed $2.5 billion acquisition of Cooper Tire and Rubber over concerns about the amount of debt it was taking on.
DealBook »

Harlem Globetrotters Said to Be for Sale  | 
REUTERS

INVESTMENT BANKING »

For Bloomberg, Reporters’ Practices Are Crucial Issue  |  Bloomberg L.P., which was at the center of a controversy over its reporters’ use of its data terminals to gather information about subscribers, “not only tolerated but encouraged an unusual symbiotic relationship between the company’s news operation and its business interests, including the use of the terminals to break news,” Amy Chozick reports in The New York Times.
NEW YORK TIMES

JPMorgan Executive to Return, But Perhaps Not for Long  |  John Hogan, the chief risk officer of JPMorgan Chase, is returning to the bank in a new role after taking time off, but he subsequently may decide to leave the bank altogether, Bloomberg News reports, citing an internal memo.
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Goldman Said to Offer Clients Automatic Block Trading  |  The technology “is the latest attempt by a Wall Street bank to automate block trading, a small sliver of the equities business that is still handled mostly by humans rather than specialized computer programs,” Reuters reports.
REUTERS

In Real Estate Dispute, Even Printing Fees Are an Issue  |  Apparently, no grievance is too small in a fight between Goldman Sachs and investors in a real estate investment trust, the Unstructured Finance blog of Reuters writes.
REUTERS

At BlackRock, Stock Unit Continues to Pose Challenges  | 
WALL STREET JOURNAL

PRIVATE EQUITY »

Billions Trapped in ‘Zombie’ Funds  |  Reuters reports: “Private equity firms are sitting on $116 billion of assets trapped in so-called zombie funds that lie dormant but still rake in fees from investors, research showed on Thursday.”
REUTERS

TPG and J.C. Flowers Said to Be in Bid for Allstate Unit  |  The private equity firms TPG Capital and J.C. Flowers, along with the British financial firm Resolution Group, are bidding for the Lincoln Benefit Life unit of the Allstate Corporation, Reuters reports, citing two unidentified people familiar with the situation.
REUTERS

HEDGE FUNDS »

Lampert Uses Stock to Meet Withdrawals From Fund  |  Bloomberg News reports: “Edward Lampert used $393 million of shares in AutoNation Inc. to meet client redemptions from his main hedge fund, whose investment in Sears Holdings Corp. has led to volatile returns.”
BLOOMBERG NEWS

I.P.O./OFFERINGS »

Not a Pretty Start for Coty Shares  |  Shares of the cosmetics and fragrance giant Coty slipped in their trading debut on the New York Stock Exchange, after one of the biggest I.P.O.’s in the United States this year.
DealBook »

With HD Supply I.P.O., a Reminder of the Buyout Boom  |  HD Supply Holdings is planning an initial public offering that would value the entire company at about $4.3 billion, far less than the price paid by three private equity firms six years ago.
DealBook »

Antero Resources Files for I.P.O.  |  Antero Resources, an oil and gas company controlled by Warburg Pincus, is looking to raise up to $1 billion in an I.P.O., Reuters reports.
REUTERS

VENTURE CAPITAL »

Smartphone Makers Pressed to Address Theft Problem  |  E.C. Gogolak writes on the Bits blog: “Seeking to curb a nationwide increase in smartphone thefts, New York’s attorney general and San Francisco’s district attorney on Thursday announced an initiative to push the industry to develop technologies that will discourage theft and dry up the market for stolen devices.”
NEW YORK TIMES BITS

LEGAL/REGULATORY »

Bank of England Official to Leave  |  Paul Tucker, once a leading candidate to take the top job at the central bank, plans to resign as deputy governor of the Bank of England.
DEALBOOK

S.E.C. Charges and Fines Revlon for Misleading Shareholders  |  The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Revlon hid crucial information from its independent board members related to a complex corporate finance transaction.
DealBook »

Currency Rates May Face New Regulation  |  Bloomberg News reports: “Global regulators may start overseeing currency rates in a widening response to benchmark-rate setting scandals that began with revelations on the manipulation of Libor, according to two people familiar with the matter.”
BLOOMBERG NEWS

In Fight Over Bank Rules, Regulator Calls for Compromise  |  Bart Chilton, a Democratic member of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, called on his agency to strike a compromise over plans to rein in risky trading overseas.
DealBook »

In E-Book Trial, Apple Negotiator Defends His Tactics  |  Eddy Cue, a top executive at Apple who was a close associate of Steve Jobs, said he had thrown himself into negotiations with major publishers as Apple entered the e-book market because “Steve was near the end of his life,” Julie Bosman reports in The New York Times.
NEW YORK TIMES

Bank of England Official to Leave

LONDON - The Bank of England said Friday that Paul Tucker would resign as deputy governor. The announcement comes two weeks before Mark Carney takes over as the governor of the central bank.

Mr. Tucker, who has spent 33 years at the Bank of England, was also a candidate for the top job at the central bank. Mr. Tucker said that he planned to stay through the summer to help Mr. Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, settle in to his new role.

“It has been an extraordinary honor to serve at the Bank of England over the past 30 years,” Mr. Tucker said in a statement. “I am very proud that, through the bank and the wider central banking community, I have been able to make a contribution to monetary and financial stability. I am looking forward to supporting Mark Carney as he arrives at the bank.”

Mr. Tucker had been a leading candidate to replace Mervyn A. King as governor of the Bank of England. But his chances dimmed after questions arose after an interest rate manipulation scandal erupted last summer.

British politicians accused Mr. Tucker and the central bank of failing to crack down on efforts by Barclays and other banks to manipulate the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, a benchmark for mortgages, corporate loans and other financial products worldwide. Mr. Tucker had to defend himself against assertions by former Barclays executives that the Bank of England had been aware of attempts to influence rates.

Mr. Tucker joined the Bank of England in 1980 after studying mathematics at Cambridge University. He became executive director for markets in 2002 and a member of the Bank of England’s rate setting committee. Earlier this year he took a seat at the newly-created Financial Policy Committee, which is part of Britain’s financial regulation system. At the central bank he is known for improving communication with large financial organizations and keeping closer ties with chief risk officers.

Mr. Carney, who is due to take the top job at the Bank of England on July 1, said “Paul has contributed immeasurably to a series of critical financial reforms, including policies to end too big to fail and to build more resilient derivative and funding markets.” He added that he would like to continue a “close dialogue on how to build a more resilient financial system that more effectively serves the needs of the real economy.”

In a letter to Mr. Tucker published on the Bank of England’s web site, George Osborne, the chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote that he was grateful to Mr. Tucker for his service and “a tremendous contribution to U.K. monetary and financial policy.”

“I have no doubt that you will continue to make a towering contribution to the international economic community,” Mr. Osborne wrote. “I hope that we stay in touch.”