Credit Suisse Hires Senior Power Banker From RBC Capital Markets

Credit Suisse has hired a new head of its power and renewables investment banking group from RBC Capital Markets, the firm announced in an internal memorandum on Thursday.

The executive, Frank A. Napolitano, will be based in New York and report to Jim Amine, the global head of the firm’s investment banking department, according to the memo.

He will be joining an investment banking team that has kept busy over the past few years. Among the deals it worked on were the sale of an equity stake in Freeport LNG for $1.3 billion, the sale of New Mexico Gas to Teco Energy, and the initial public offering of the solar power company SolarCity.

Mr. Napolitano, who will start in June, joined RBC in 2010. Previous employers have included Lakeside Energy, an energy-focused investment firm based in Chicago, and Lehman Brothers, where he led commodities sales and origination and co-headed the global power industry group.

Here’s the full memo:

I am pleased to announce that Frank Napolitano will join Credit Suisse as a Managing Director and Global Head of Power and Renewables in the Investment Banking Department. He will be based in New York and will work closely with John Cogan, Ahmad Masud and the other regional heads of the P&R group. Frank will start in June and will report to me.

Frank, a veteran of the energy industry with more than 25 years of experience, will lead our global client coverage strategy in the power and renewables sector, where the bank has historically held a leading market position. His extensive client relationships and knowledge of commodities will broaden our coverage footprint and enhance our ability to provide strategic and tactical advice to our clients. Frank’s expertise spans merger & acquisitions, project finance, capital markets and other areas that are expected to be key drivers of deal activity. His specific area of coverage will include financial sponsors active in the energy sector, independent power producers and a number of utilities.

Frank joins the bank from RBC Capital Markets, where he has served as the Head of the US Power and Utilities Group since 2010. Prior to that, he was the President of Lakeside Energy, a Chicago-based energy investment firm. He also spent 11 years at Lehman Brothers, where he served as the Global Head of Commodities Sales & Origination, a group he co-founded after being the Co-Head of the Global Power industry group.

Please join me in welcoming Frank to Credit Suisse and wishing him every success in his new role.

Jim Amine

Global Head of the Investment Banking Department

Golden Gate Buys Stake in Parent of Ann Taylor

The private equity firm Golden Gate Capital prides itself on its retail expertise, having helped revive companies like Eddie Bauer and Zale. Now it thinks it can aid the parent of Ann Taylor.

The firm disclosed in a regulatory filing on Thursday that it had purchased a roughly 9.5 percent stake in Ann Inc., with the aim of bolstering the retailer’s stock price.

Golden Gate’s approach was unusual: The investment firm revealed its stake in what is known as a 13D filing, a form often used by activist hedge funds to indicate that they plan to shake up a company.

In a letter to Ann Inc.’s management, however, Golden Gate said that it did not plan to seek changes to the retailer’s board or executive team, or to push for a sale. (The deadline to nominate alternative directors passed earlier this month.)

The filing was a legal requirement, since the firm bought over 5 percent of the shares of Ann Inc., a publicly traded company, within the past 10 days.

With $12 billion of assets under management, Golden Gate has long made retailing investments one of its specialties. Among the store chains in which it owns at least a stake are Eddie Bauer, the outdoor gear seller; J. Jill, a clothier for middle-age women; and Payless ShoeSource.

Last fall, the firm agreed to help Jos. A. Bank, the men’s clothier, in its ill-fated effort to buy Men’s Wearhouse. Months later, Golden Gate struck a deal to sell Eddie Bauer to Jos. A. Bank, but that deal was scuttled after Jos. A. Bank instead agreed to merge with Men’s Wearhouse.

Golden Gate has a reputation for helping out distressed companies as well, having lent money to Zale, the jewelry chain, in exchange for warrants convertible into 25 percent of Zale stock at a price of $2 a share. That investment has paid off: Zale agreed last month to sell itself to Signet Jewelers for $21 a share.

Ann Inc., whose Ann Taylor brand is aimed at work wear for women while its Loft label aims for a trendier style, isn’t troubled. The company beat profit expectations all last year. Its shares have risen nearly 21 percent over the last 12 months.

Golden Gate emphasized that it had faith in Ann Inc.’s management, pointing out its investment in Ann Taylor stores and efforts to refresh its brand. The firm added that it supports the company’s strategy to bolster new store growth and productivity at existing stores, and is willing to lend its expertise.

Thursday’s letter did not come out of the blue. Golden Gate executives noted that they had held a discussion with Ann Inc.’s management earlier in the week.

“We have tremendous respect and admiration for you and your company, and we look forward to working with you as a meaningful, constructive, long-term investor,” executives at Golden Gate wrote.

Hedge Fund Uses Hitler Parody in Campaign Against Ocwen Chairman

If you’re looking for a little attention, it’s hard to go wrong with Hitler.

Glaucus Research, a little-known hedge fund in California, has started an attack on the billionaire William C. Erbey, the chairman of Ocwen Financial, and to publicize its efforts, it has posted a video on YouTube based on the widely parodied German film “Downfall.”

The video features a frantic Hitler in a war room during the final days of his reign, with a subtitled conversation about two of Mr. Erbey’s publicly listed companies to convey the firm’s argument that the walls are closing in on his loan and mortgage-servicing empire. It is the latest rendition of a clip that has become an Internet phenomenon, used hundreds of times for political and financial satire. Users insert their own subtitles to illustrate any kind of dispute or conflict.

But it’s the first time the scene has been used as part of a campaign by a short-seller â€" someone who makes a financial bet against a company and reaps the benefits if the share price falls.

“It’s really just a starting point for a discussion,” says Soren Aandahl, head of research at Glaucus, which is named after the Greek god of the sea “blessed with the power of prophecy,” according to its website.

Glaucus is focusing on two publicly traded companies controlled by Mr. Erbey: the Altisource Residential Corporation, which owns a collection of foreclosed single-family homes and nonperforming loans, and Altisource Asset Management, its asset manager.

In a headache-inducing investment, Glaucus has shorted Altisource Asset Management while buying shares in Altisource Residential. Even though its stake in Altisource residential is tiny, Glaucus has threatened to sue the company’s independent directors, contending they are violating their fiduciary duty to shareholders.

They argue that there is a conflict of interest between the management of both companies because Altisource Asset Management’s only revenue stream comes from the so-called incentive fee paid by Altisource Residential. Glaucus contends that Altisource Residential is paying as much as seven times the market average for these fees and has called on the four directors â€" Michael A. Eruzione, Robert J Fitzpatrick, James H. Mullen Jr. and David B. Reiner â€" to renegotiate the terms of fees.

Representatives for Mr. Erbey and his various companies could not be reached for comment.

Glaucus is capitalizing on enhanced regulatory scrutiny of Mr. Erbey’s flagship company, Ocwen Financial. In a letter to Ocwen released on Feb. 26, Benjamin M. Lawsky, New York State’s top banking regulator, outlined a “number of potential conflicts of interest between Ocwen and other public companies with which it is closely affiliated,” referring to, among other things, the fact that Ocwen’s chief risk officer was also the chief risk officer at Altisource Portfolio Solutions, another company controlled by Mr. Erbey.

Glaucus is a tiny shareholder in Mr. Erbey’s collection of companies, whose investors include big name hedge funds like Omega Advisors, SAC Capital Advisors and Hayman Capital, but its decision to release a controversial video shows it is willing to punch above its weight.

“Traditionally on Wall Street, there is this framework of talking about your investments, which has been around for a long period of time,” said Mr. Aandahl, referring to the public campaigns of famous activists like Daniel S. Loeb and Carl C. Icahn

“We don’t have that luxury,” Mr. Aandahl said. “We’re younger and have to be more nimble and use the social media at our disposal.”

Former Aide to S.E.C. Leaders Joins Consulting Firm

Myron Marlin, a former top aide to the chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, has joined a prominent consulting firm in Washington.

FTI Consulting â€" which advises businesses undergoing litigation, regulatory problems and other events â€" announced on Thursday that Mr. Marlin had become a managing director focused on financial issues and public affairs.

His return to the private sector follows a five-year stint at the S.E.C., where Mr. Marlin acted as the director of communications and as a senior strategist. Mr. Marlin joined the S.E.C. with Mary L. Schapiro, its former chairwoman, in the aftermath of the financial crisis. He remained in the role under the leadership of Elisse B. Walter and the agency’s current chairwoman, Mary Jo White.

Before joining the S.E.C., Mr. Marlin, a lawyer by trade, worked as the spokesman for the former Attorney General Janet Reno.

“Having worked at the highest levels of the S.E.C. and D.O.J., Myron has incredible insight and a great sense of how things are done,” Ms. Schapiro said in a statement.

Mr. Marlin has previously worked at a public relations firm in Washington and as an associate at a law firm in New York. At FTI, which also runs a forensic investigations business that examined Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, Mr. Marlin is likely to handle communications for corporations and nonprofit organizations.

“Myron will play a key role in further developing our crisis and issues management offering to protect and advance our clients’ reputations when facing regulatory-driven events,” Edward Reilly, global chief executive of FTI’s strategic communications group, said in the firm’s statement.

Fed Finds That Nearly All Big U.S. Banks Have Sufficient Capital Buffers

Nearly all of the nation’s largest banks have enough capital to withstand a severe recession and market turmoil, the Federal Reserve found in its latest stress test of the United States financial system.

The results, which were released on Thursday, paint a picture of a banking system that has substantially healed since the financial crisis of 2008.

They pave the way for the healthiest banks to begin buying back shares and increasing their dividends, which could further bolster their already soaring stock prices. It could also fuel the debate about whether banks, which have become increasingly better capitalized, should be loosening the reins on credit so more consumers and businesses can obtain loans.

In this year’s test, the Federal Reserve expanded the number of banks under review to 30 from 18, and included for the first time the United States units of several large European banks, Santander and Royal Bank of Scotland among them. By expanding the other firms with assets of greater than $50 billion, the stress test is capturing a wider swath of banks that regulators consider systemically significant.

Large banks that required substantial government support following the financial crisis, including Citigroup and Bank of America, had minimum capital ratio of 7 percent and 6 percent, respectively. JP Morgan Chase had a minimum capital ratio â€" technically called the Tier One Common Ratio - of 6.3 percent.

On the other end of the spectrum, Zions Bancorp had a Tier One Common Ratio of a 3.5 percent. Regulators require a minimum of roughly 5 percent.

Those that meet the minimum are likely to be emboldened to ask for larger dividend increases and more aggressive share buybacks. In some cases, many investors have been driving up the banks share prices in anticipation that they would get green light from the Fed. The regulators will release their decisions on the banks’ capital plans next week.

Thursday’s stress test results come by calculating potential bank losses on loans and other securities in a “severely adverse scenario” â€" a hypothetical world of high unemployment, market turmoil and a collapse of the banks’ major trading partners collapse.

The Federal Reserve also ran a separate test that scrutinized the banks’ ability to withstand a rapid rise in interest rates. While interest rates may not increase in reality by as much as they do in the Fed’s stress test, the results of this test - which were released for the first time this year â€" could give regulators and investors a sense of potential risks.

Trial Lawyer Nominated to Lead Delaware Chancery Court

Andre G. Bouchard, an experienced trial lawyer who has represented both plaintiffs and defendants in corporate battles, was nominated on Thursday to lead Delaware’s Chancery Court, the nation’s leading court for business disputes.

If confirmed by the Delaware Senate, Mr. Bouchard would succeed Leo E. Strine Jr., who was sworn in last month as chief justice of the state’s Supreme Court. Gov. Jack Markell announced Mr. Bouchard’s nomination on Thursday.

“In nearly 30 years practicing law in Delaware, Andy Bouchard has demonstrated a remarkable ability to dissect complex legal issues and vigorously represent his clients,” Mr. Markell said in a statement. “He is well recognized for his professionalism and ability to think quickly on his feet in the courtroom.”

Mr. Bouchard, the managing partner of Bouchard, Margules & Friedlander, a small firm he co-founded in 1996, has appeared before the Chancery Court numerous times. His firm represented shareholders of the Rural/Metro Corporation, an ambulance services company, in a recent lawsuit against the company’s directors and bankers.

The previous chancellor, who served in that role for two years and on the court since 1998, displayed a willingness to defer to companies’ boards when deciding cases. But it is not certain that Mr. Bouchard â€" a litigator who has worked on both sides of the fence â€" will have such a pro-business disposition.

In any event, he is unlikely to be as colorful as Chancellor Strine, who would often pepper his remarks with quips and references to popular culture.

Before starting his own firm, Mr. Bouchard practiced for 10 years at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1986. He is a Democrat.

“I am grateful and deeply honored to be nominated by Governor Markell for the position of chancellor,” Mr. Bouchard said in a statement. “I look forward to the opportunity to serve the citizens of Delaware in this capacity if I am fortunate enough to be confirmed by the Senate.”

Not Giving Up, Bouygues Raises Bid for Vivendi’s Mobile Unit

LONDON - Bouygues said Thursday that it had sweetened its offer for SFR, Vivendi’s mobile phone unit, despite Vivendi’s decision last week to enter into exclusive negotiations with Altice for three weeks.

Bouygues said it had not given up hope of acquiring SFR and submitted a revised bid to Vivendi. Bouygues said it had increased the cash portion of its offer by 1.85 billion euros, or about $2.55 billion, to €13.15 billion. The new offer, if accepted, would give Bouygues a 67 percent stake in SFR.

The cable and mobile phone provider Altice has been locked in a bidding war with Bouygues, the owner of Bouygues Telecom, France’s third-largest mobile operator, for SFR. Both companies sweetened their offers for SFR last week ahead of a meeting by Vivendi’s board.

Vivendi’s board decided last Friday to enter into an exclusive negotiating period with Altice, finding its offer “to be the most pertinent for the group’s shareholders and employees.”

Bouygues had previously contemplated taking a 52 percent stake and initiating an initial public offering soon after the sale so that Vivendi could monetize its remaining stake in the mobile unit. Bouygues said Thursday that it still contemplated a public float of SFR if its offer was accepted.

As part of its bid, Bouygues said that the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, a Bouygues shareholder; the family of the French businessman François Pinault; and JCDecaux, a minority shareholder in Bouygues Telecom, would acquire an interest or strengthen their existing interest in a combined Bouygues Telecom-SFR.

“This contributes to significantly increasing the cash part of the offer for Vivendi,” Bouygues said. “Other investors may also participate in order to buy out all of Vivendi’s remaining interest.”

Last week, Vivendi said that Altice offered to pay €11.75 billion and give Vivendi a 32 percent stake in Altice’s Numéricâble, which will be combined with SFR. It also provided Vivendi with predetermined exit conditions, Vivendi said.

The bidding war has pitted Martin Bouygues, the billionaire who runs the diversified industrial group that bears his name, against the French entrepreneur Patrick Drahi, who since 2002 has built Altice into a global operation with cable and cellphone assets in Europe and the Caribbean.

The potential sale of SFR is part of Vivendi’s efforts to increase its capital reserves and expand its existing media assets, like the pay-television provider Canal Plus. Vivendi had previously considered its own I.P.O. of SFR.

The choice of Altice came over the objections of Arnaud Montebourg, the French industry minister, who made it clear last week that he would have preferred SFR to be sold to Bouygues.

“I understand that the directors of Vivendi have decided to sell SFR to Numéricâble whatever the cost,” Mr. Montebourg said in an interview with Europe1 radio before the board’s decision was announced last week.

WeChat Valuation Is Still Just a Hunch

Putting a value on WeChat remains an act of faith. Its parent, the Internet giant Tencent, has shed some light on the popular messaging and social media service, but sparse details about costs and regulatory risks make future growth and earnings potential hard to pin down. Valuations are still largely based on hope.

For the first time, Tencent has disclosed user metrics and revenue for WeChat, which combines mobile messaging, social media, games and payments. The platform had 355 million monthly active users at the end of 2013 and generated $32 million to $49 million in revenue in the fourth quarter. While this is tiny compared with the $1.9 billion in revenue that Tencent made from games and selling stickers and other services to its users in the same quarter, it is encouraging for an app that only started to generate income in the final three months of last year.

The figures suggest that WeChat is becoming more than a clone of WhatsApp, the messaging service that Facebook bought for $19 billion in February. Though WhatsApp has more users, its only source of revenue to date is the $1 a year it charges established users. Details on costs, meanwhile, remain equally scant for both services. Tencent reported selling and marketing expenses of $920 million in 2013, up 90 percent from the previous year. Though it’s not clear how much of that is associated with WeChat, the company previously said it was spending $200 million for an overseas marketing campaign featuring the soccer star Lionel Messi.

The land grab may make sense given Tencent’s plans to turn WeChat into a conduit for e-commerce and financial services. But this expansion also brings regulatory risks. China’s central bank recently suspended a mobile payment system, indefinitely delaying Tencent’s planned introduction of digital credit cards. The authorities are now also considering limiting the size of mobile payment transactions.

The messaging hype has helped push Tencent’s market value to $136 billion. But comparisons with WhatsApp rest on the questionable assumption that Facebook’s offer was based on some sort of financial logic. For investors trying to guess at WeChat’s potential, only a leap of faith will do.

Robyn Mak is a research assistant for Reuters Breakingviews. For more independent commentary and analysis, visit breakingviews.com.

For Time Warner Cable Executives, Billowing Golden Parachutes

Rob Marcus didn’t want to sell Time Warner Cable when he took over as chief executive in January. Better, he told shareholders, to continue as a standalone company rather than merge with a competitor. But he must be glad that he managed to strike a $45 billion deal with Comcast.

Mr. Marcus will receive nearly $80 million if the deal closes, a severance payment that amounts to more than $1 million a day in compensation for the less than two months he ran the company before agreeing to sell.

Huge golden parachutes are common in big mergers and acquisitions. But the payment to Mr. Marcus, 48, which was disclosed in a regulatory filing on Thursday, is all the more spectacular because he had been chief executive for such a short period.

Should the deal close, Mr. Marcus will receive $56.5 million in stock, $20.5 million in cash and a $2.5 million bonus if Time Warner Cable meets its performance targets by the time of the deal’s completion.

Charter Communications began pursuing Time Warner Cable last year, when Mr. Marcus was the chief operating officer of the company, a role for which he earned $10.1 million in 2012. But in a rapid series of developments in January and February, Mr. Marcus negotiated to sell Time Warner Cable to Comcast, the largest cable operator in the country.

Other Time Warner Cable executives are also in line for big paydays. Arthur T. Minson, Jr., the chief financial officer, will receive severance pay totalling $27 million. Michael LaJoie, the chief technology officer, will receive $16.3 million. And Philip G. Meeks, who replaced Mr. Marcus as chief operating officer, will take home $11.7 million.

Left off the list of golden parachute recipients is Glen Britt, who ran Time Warner Cable after its spin-off from Time Warner in 2009. Mr. Britt stepped down at the end of 2013, partly because of health issues, but not before he told Brian Roberts, chief executive of Comcast, that combining their companies one day would be a “dream deal.”

That dream is now on the way to becoming reality.

Former Head of Piper Jaffray Asset Management Switches to Consulting Role

The investment firm Piper Jaffray has hired its own former head of asset management as a consultant.

Brien M. O’Brien, who ran the asset manager Advisory Research, which Piper Jaffray purchased in 2010, will now serve as a consultant to that unit. Under the terms of his new agreement, Mr. O’Brien will earn $60,000 a month, according to a filing on Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“It’s time for me to start to transition to new activities,” Mr. O’Brien said in a telephone interview on Thursday, adding that it was always his intention to remain at the company for three or four years after the sale in 2010.

The Advisory Research unit serves both wealthy individuals and institutions, and Mr. O’Brien will focus on client relationships in his new role. The term of his new appointment runs from April 1 to March 31, 2016.

Piper announced in October that Mr. O’Brien’s employment agreement would be terminated at the end of March. The announcement also mentioned the possibility of a consulting position.

Switching to a consulting job from a full-time executive position is “not unusual,” according to Richard Stein, a senior partner at Caldwell Partners, a headhunting firm that specializes in financial services. Mr. Stein added that it can sometimes be more financially advantageous to work as a consultant than as an employee.

According to Piper Jaffray’s website, Advisory Research had more than $11 billion in assets under management as of the end of last year.

A representative for Piper Jaffray could not be reached for comment.

Former Head of Piper Jaffray Asset Management Switches to Consulting Role

The investment firm Piper Jaffray has hired its own former head of asset management as a consultant.

Brien M. O’Brien, who ran the asset manager Advisory Research, which Piper Jaffray purchased in 2010, will now serve as a consultant to that unit. Under the terms of his new agreement, Mr. O’Brien will earn $60,000 a month, according to a filing on Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“It’s time for me to start to transition to new activities,” Mr. O’Brien said in a telephone interview on Thursday, adding that it was always his intention to remain at the company for three or four years after the sale in 2010.

The Advisory Research unit serves both wealthy individuals and institutions, and Mr. O’Brien will focus on client relationships in his new role. The term of his new appointment runs from April 1 to March 31, 2016.

Piper announced in October that Mr. O’Brien’s employment agreement would be terminated at the end of March. The announcement also mentioned the possibility of a consulting position.

Switching to a consulting job from a full-time executive position is “not unusual,” according to Richard Stein, a senior partner at Caldwell Partners, a headhunting firm that specializes in financial services. Mr. Stein added that it can sometimes be more financially advantageous to work as a consultant than as an employee.

According to Piper Jaffray’s website, Advisory Research had more than $11 billion in assets under management as of the end of last year.

A representative for Piper Jaffray could not be reached for comment.

For Time Warner Cable Executives, Billowing Golden Parachutes

Rob Marcus didn’t want to sell Time Warner Cable when he took over as chief executive in January. Better, he told shareholders, to continue as a standalone company rather than merge with a competitor. But he must be glad that he managed to strike a $45 billion deal with Comcast.

Mr. Marcus will receive nearly $80 million if the deal closes, a severance payment that amounts to more than $1 million a day in compensation for the less than two months he ran the company before agreeing to sell.

Huge golden parachutes are common in big mergers and acquisitions. But the payment to Mr. Marcus, 48, which was disclosed in a regulatory filing on Thursday, is all the more spectacular because he had been chief executive for such a short period.

Should the deal close, Mr. Marcus will receive $56.5 million in stock, $20.5 million in cash and a $2.5 million bonus if Time Warner Cable meets its performance targets by the time of the deal’s completion.

Charter Communications began pursuing Time Warner Cable last year, when Mr. Marcus was the chief operating officer of the company, a role for which he earned $10.1 million in 2012. But in a rapid series of developments in January and February, Mr. Marcus negotiated to sell Time Warner Cable to Comcast, the largest cable operator in the country.

Other Time Warner Cable executives are also in line for big paydays. Arthur T. Minson, Jr., the chief financial officer, will receive severance pay totalling $27 million. Michael LaJoie, the chief technology officer, will receive $16.3 million. And Philip G. Meeks, who replaced Mr. Marcus as chief operating officer, will take home $11.7 million.

Left off the list of golden parachute recipients is Glen Britt, who ran Time Warner Cable after its spin-off from Time Warner in 2009. Mr. Britt stepped down at the end of 2013, partly because of health issues, but not before he told Brian Roberts, chief executive of Comcast, that combining their companies one day would be a “dream deal.”

That dream is now on the way to becoming reality.

Airbnb Said to Pursue Valuation of Over $10 Billion in New Fund-Raising Round

Airbnb is close to joining a rarefied group of start-ups: the 11-digit valuation club.

The couch-surfing company is close to raising more than $400 million in a new round of financing, a person briefed on the matter said on Thursday. The fund-raising effort would value the six-year-old start-up at more than $10 billion.

Leading the round is TPG, the investment firm that has already taken stakes in other Silicon Valley darlings like the car-ride service Uber.

The fund-raising round is the latest sign of exuberance in the technology world, as the new generation of start-ups fetches eye-popping valuations. Companies like the online storage provider Dropbox have been appraised at about $10 billion, while Facebook â€" itself worth more than $172 billion â€" bought the messaging app WhatsApp for $16 billion last month.

Airbnb is among the most talked about companies of the moment. Its services let people rent out their homes, collecting a cut of the payments. But its success has also made the start-up a target of regulators who are looking into whether the business is depriving states of tax revenues.

News of the fund-raising effort was  reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

President of Apollo Global to Step Down

Marc Spilker, the president of Apollo Global Management, plans to leave the giant private equity firm, according to an announcement on Thursday.

Mr. Spilker, 49, joined Apollo as president in December 2010, as the firm was preparing to go public. He was formerly an executive at Goldman Sachs, serving as co-leader of a division that includes Goldman’s asset management and private wealth management businesses.

No explanation was given for his departure, and Mr. Spilker is also leaving his position on Apollo’s executive committee. Apollo says it does not plan to seek a successor.

Mr. Spilker will remain a senior adviser to Apollo for the rest of this year. Apollo said its executive committee would continue to manage the firm.

When he joined Apollo, Mr. Spilker helped the company set up the systems it would need as a publicly traded entity. Apollo went public in 2011.

“The firm has benefited from Marc’s deep understanding of the financial industry,” Leon D. Black, Apollo’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “Marc leaves a firm that has fulfilled the vision it set for itself to become a successful public company and to put in place the infrastructure and resources it requires. I’m confident that Marc will find great success in whatever he chooses to do next and we wish him all the best.”

In addition to Mr. Black, Apollo’s executive committee includes Joshua Harris and Marc Rowan, who are senior managing directors.

“We’ve accomplished a great deal over the past few years and I believe that the firm is well positioned as a public company for continued success,” Mr. Spilker said in a statement. “I am grateful for the unwavering support I’ve received and look forward to remaining close with the firm.”

U.K. Fines Former Credit Suisse Bond Trader

LONDON â€" Another day, another iteration of financial fraud innovation.

Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority on Thursday fined and banned a veteran Credit Suisse bond trader for manipulating the price of United Kingdom bonds in 2011 during one of the
periods of so-called quantitative easing, when the Bank of England bought large swathes of government bonds to stimulate the economy.

The authority fined Mark Stevenson £662,700, or about $1.1 million, and banned him from the industry, it said in a statement. Mr. Stevenson had nearly 30 years’ experience. He left the bank in December 2013. By settling early in the investigation, the authority said, he knocked 30 percent off of his fine.

U.K. government bonds are commonly referred to as gilts. They are widely traded with roughly £7.2 trillion of turnover in 2011 in the inter-dealer broker market. The government authorized the Bank to run two quantitative easing programs, between March 2009 and February 2010 and between October 2011 and May 2012, to stimulate the economy and move inflation toward the 2 percent target.

On Oct. 10, 2011, as QE2 started, Mr. Stevenson attempted to sell £1.2 billion gilt to the Bank of England for an artificially high price. His unusual trading was reported within 40 minutes and the Bank decided not to buy that gilt.

The authority said that Mr. Stevenson’s trading that day “was designed to move the price of the Bond, in an attempt to sell it to the Bank of England at an abnormal and artificial level, thereby increasing the potential profit made from the sale of the Bond.”

Had the bank accepted Stevenson’s offer, the authority said, he would have accounted for 70 percent of the £1.7 billion allocated to quantitative easing on that day, the regulator said. If the bank had accepted his offer any subsequent losses it made would have been borne by the taxpayer.

“Stevenson’s abuse took advantage of a policy designed to boost the economy with no regard for the potential consequences for other market participants and, ultimately, for UK tax payers,” said Tracey McDermott, the FCA’s director of enforcement.

As Mr. Stevenson was accumulating the bonds to try and sell back to the Bank of England, he said to one broker: “we’ve been loading up with QE trades for months” adding that “QE’s are … cake..,”. according to the Financial Conduct Authority’s filing. In other words, Mr. Stevenson thought he could profit from selling gilts to the Bank of England.

The authority said the case was its first enforcement action for attempted or actual manipulation of the gilt market. The investigation was isolated, the FCA said, and it has not found evidence of collusion with traders in other banks.

Credit Suisse said in a statement that it cooperated fully with the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority. Credit Suisse said it agreed with the sanction of Mr. Stevenson and was pleased “to note that neither Credit Suisse nor any other employed individuals have been found at fault.”

Morning Agenda: Questioning the Leverage Ratio

Since the financial crisis, William C. Dudley, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, has made significant changes to bolster the bank’s supervision efforts. But now, some regulators are blaming him for holding up a proposed rule to make banks safer, Peter Eavis writes in DealBook. Mr. Dudley is said to have privately expressed his concerns to senior Fed officials in Washington about the rule, known as the supplementary leverage ratio, frustrating other regulators who see it as a centerpiece of a financial system overhaul.

Some said Fed officials ultimately decided that Mr. Dudley’s thinking â€" that the rule could inhibit the Fed’s ability to conduct monetary policy â€" was not serious enough to merit significant changes. But others said his concerns played a role in delaying the final version of the rule, which would put a stricter cap on the amount of borrowing that the biggest banks can do. The rule is now expected to come out in April at the earliest.

It was not clear why Mr. Dudley thought a small increase in the leverage ratio might interfere with monetary policy, but bankers have often argued that it could weigh on two types of assets that play a big role in transmitting changes in monetary policy into the wider economy.

THE MYSTERY OF THE DEWEY SECRET SEVEN  |  Earlier this month, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, unveiled the filing of an indictment against three former top executives and a low-level employee at the once-mighty law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf. What he did not reveal were the names of seven former employees at the law firm who pleaded guilty to taking part in the four-year plan to manipulate the firm’s financial statements, Matthew Goldstein writes in DealBook.

That Mr. Vance had secured the guilty pleas in the first place was unexpected, but even more surprising to some in the legal world was his decision to keep their names under wraps even after the four accused had been arrested and charged. Why, they wondered, were there so many secret pleas in the accounting fraud case?

Some suggest that Mr. Vance may be keeping the identities of the seven secret because some may testify against the defendants at trial. But others contend that he may be trying to keep the pleas under wraps as long as possible to avoid having to reveal whether his office agreed to any sweetheart deals with cooperators who might have avoided prison time, or allowed them to plead to a misdemeanor as opposed to a felony, Mr. Goldstein writes.

FED CUTS BOND BUYING BY $10 BILLION  |  The Federal Reserve continued to taper its economic stimulus on Wednesday, announcing it would reduce its monthly purchases of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities by another $10 billion, to $55 billion, Binyamin Appelbaum writes in The New York Times. The Fed also did away with its threshold for raising interest rates, saying it would keep short-term rates near zero “for a considerable time” after the bond buying ends even if the unemployment rate falls below 6.5 percent.

It was a big day for Janet L. Yellen, who held her first news conference as Fed chairwoman. Investors drew the conclusion that the central bank might begin to raise short-term rates well before the end of 2015, even after Ms. Yellen tried to temper that view by saying that the committee planned to raise these rates gradually. She emphasized that the Fed expected to conclude the process with rates still below the historically normal level of 4 percent. For its part, the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement released after its two-day meeting that the change in forward guidance was not intended to alter the possible timing of the rate increase.

Ms. Yellen’s signal on interest rate increases caused the stock market to slide. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 0.61 percent on the day and interest rates spiked, with the yield on the Treasury’s 10-year note jumping to 2.77 percent.

ON THE AGENDA  |  Weekly jobless claims are out at 8:30 a.m. Existing home sales for February are released at 10 a.m. Robert S. Kapito, the president of BlackRock, and Rick Rieder, a managing director at the firm, are on CNBC at 12:30 p.m. Frank Keating, president and chief executive of the American Bankers Association, is on Bloomberg TV at 5 p.m. Results from the latest supervisory stress tests conducted in accordance with the Dodd-Frank Act are released at 4 p.m.

HAPPY VERNAL EQUINOX  |  It may not feel like it outside, but Thursday is the first day of spring.

JPMORGAN TO SELL COMMODITIES UNIT  |  JPMorgan Chase announced on Wednesday that it had agreed to sell its physical commodities trading unit to the Swiss firm Mercuria Energy Group for $3.5 billion in cash. The move was, in many ways, a response to tighter regulatory scrutiny and limits on commodities trading, a business that already had relatively low margins Michael J. de la Merced writes in DealBook. Mercuria, an independent trading house, is not subject to the same capital limits as a regulated bank

One thing the announcement did not address was whether Blythe Masters, the head of JPMorgan’s commodities business and one of the most prominent women on Wall Street, would depart with her team. Despite her status, Ms. Masters came under scrutiny last year when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission accused JPMorgan of manipulating California’s energy markets.

 

MARCH MADNESS BEGINS TODAY  |  The billionaire Warren E. Buffett is insuring a $1 billion prize for anyone who picks a perfect N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament bracket (don’t forget to fill out yours), and though the odds suggest it is nearly impossible, even President Obama could not resist a bit of speculation.

 

Mergers & Acquisitions »

JPMorgan Commodities Sale Shows Trading’s Opacity  |  The lack of financial details makes the price hard to judge, but at $3.5 billion, Mercuria seems to be paying a high one, Kevin Allison and Antony Currie write for Reuters Breakingviews. With commodities under pressure, that’s a bold move. DealBook »

What Is Mercuria?  |  The privately held trading house Mercuria Energy Group, founded by two former oil traders, was already one of the four leading independent commodity traders in the world. And that was before its $3.5 billion purchase of JPMorgan Chase’s physical commodities arm on Wednesday. DealBook »

Spanish Publisher to Sell Units to Penguin Random House  |  Promotora de Informaciones of Spain has agreed to sell the fiction and nonfiction arms of its publishing house Santillana to New York’s Penguin Random House, The Wall Street Journal reports. Prisa said that Penguin Random House agreed to pay $100.3 million for the eight publishing imprints. WALL STREET JOURNAL

Horizon Pharma to Buy Vidara in $660 Million Deal  |  The specialty pharmaceutical company Horizon Pharma agreed to purchase Vidara Therapeutics, which is held privately, in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $660 million, The Wall Street Journal writes. WALL STREET JOURNAL

INVESTMENT BANKING »

Traders of Tips Meet at Grand Central, and Eat the Evidence  |  The government’s case against two Wall Street insiders laid bare an elaborate if somewhat old-fashioned plan, where a middleman would relay tips, written on a Post-it note or napkin, at Grand Central Terminal’s four-faced clock. DealBook »

Former Goldman Chief Walks Among Warriors and Dragons  |  Stephen Friedman, the onetime head of Goldman Sachs, appears in humble garb during a cameo appearance in the upcoming season of the HBO series “Game of Thrones.” DealBook »

Questions Over Goldman Deal as Investors Sit in the Dark  |  In a fight over a hotel company that went “dark,” investors have accused Goldman Sachs of having conflicting interests, Jesse Eisinger writes in The Trade column. The Trade »

Goldman ‘Elevator’ Book Gets a Different Publisher  |  Grove Atlantic, an independent publishing house, said on Wednesday that it had acquired the book based on the Twitter account @GSElevator, The New York Times reports. NEW YORK TIMES

Deutsche Bank to Cut 500 More Jobs  |  Deutsche Bank is preparing to eliminate 500 more jobs in its investment banking division in London and Europe, The Financial Times reports. FINANCIAL TIMES

PRIVATE EQUITY »

Apax to Create $500 Million Israel Fund  |  The private equity firm Apax Partners said on Wednesday that it would create a $500 million mid-market fund to invest in Israeli companies in the technology, telecommunications, health care and consumer sectors, Reuters writes. REUTERS

TreeHouse Foods Weighs Bid for Michael Foods  |  The food manufacturer TreeHouse Foods is considering a bid for the Michael Foods Group, which is owned by Goldman Sachs’s private equity unit, Reuters reports, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation. A deal could be valued at up to $2.5 billion. REUTERS

Owner of Canada’s Telesat Said to Be Preparing Sale  |  Loral Space & Communications, which owns a majority stake in the Canadian satellite communications company Telesat Holdings, has chosen the private equity firm Apax Partners and two Canadian pension funds to negotiate a sale of the company, Reuters writes, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation. REUTERS

HEDGE FUNDS »

Icahn Calls on eBay to Sell 20% of PayPal Unit to the Public  |  Carl C. Icahn’s proposal, a retreat from his previous demand that the payment processor PayPal be spun out completely from eBay, still calls for a separation of the two businesses. DealBook »

SAC Capital Hires Palantir to Monitor Employees  |  Steven A. Cohen, founder of the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, has tapped the data analytics firm Palantir to track his employees, Reuters reports. The move comes just months after SAC pleaded guilty to insider trading charges. REUTERS

Dow Chemical Increases Asset Sale Target  |  Dow Chemical, which is under pressure from the hedge fund manager Daniel S. Loeb to spin off its petrochemical unit, said it aimed to raise up to $6 billion from asset sales, $1.5 billion to $2 billion more than it had said previously, Reuters reports. REUTERS

I.P.O./OFFERINGS »

Banks Compete for $4 Billion Saudi I.P.O.  |  JPMorgan Chase and the British bank HSBC are said to be planning to bid for a role in the largest Saudi Arabian share sale in at least 12 years, Bloomberg News writes, citing unidentified people familiar with the situation. BLOOMBERG NEWS

Alder Biopharmaceuticals Files for I.P.O.  |  Alder Biopharmaceuticals has filed for an initial public offering of up to $115 million as it seeks to commercialize therapeutic antibodies, The Wall Street Journal reports. WALL STREET JOURNAL

Japan Display Slides 15% in Market Debut  |  A high-stakes bid by Japan to breathe life back into its electronics sector got a tepid response from investors on Wednesday. DealBook »

VENTURE CAPITAL »

Alibaba Leads $280 Million Funding Round for Tango  |  The mobile-messaging app maker Tango announced on Wednesday that it had raised $280 million in a new funding round led by the Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group, Reuters writes. The deal highlights the growing competition among Internet companies for mobile communications. REUTERS

Former British Bankers Try Their Hand at Start-Ups  |  As many of the banks in London have shrunk in the wake of the financial crisis, former investment bankers and information technology specialists have turned to start-ups in Britain’s expanding tech community, Mark Scott writes in Bits. DealBook »

After Derivatives, a Bet on Crispy Seaweed  |  Robert Mock, who once sold financial derivatives at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has found new success making seaweed chips. The venture has attracted backers including Jerry Yang, a co-founder of Yahoo. DealBook »

In Hong Kong, Betting Big on Bitcoin  |  A growing field of technology experts, financial players and entrepreneurs believe that mainland China’s unfavorable regulation of Bitcoin has created an opening for Hong Kong. DealBook » | 

Technology Crossover Ventures Raises $2.23 Billion Fund  |  The late-stage venture capital firm Technology Crossover Ventures said on Wednesday that it had raised a $2.23 billion fund, Reuters writes. The fund is the firm’s eighth and is one of the largest venture funds raised in recent years. REUTERS

LEGAL/REGULATORY »

News Release Distributor to Stop Selling to High-Speed Traders  |  The move by Marketwired is another victory in the effort by the New York State attorney general to curb the advantages enjoyed by the fastest traders on Wall Street. DealBook »

Judge Sides with F.T.C. in Payday Lending Case  |  A federal judge has reinforced the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to go after payday lenders that claim their ties to Native American tribes make them immune to laws restricting high-cost loans. DealBook »

Toyota Settlement Blazes Path for G.M.  |  The parallels between the handling of vehicle defects by Toyota and General Motors are striking, Peter J. Henning writes in the White Collar Watch column, and Toyota’s $1.2 billion settlement establishes a template for G.M. to potentially resolve its own issues. DealBook »

I.M.F. Chief Testifies Again About Role in Payout  |  Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund chief, is appearing before a court to explain her role in a proceeding that led to a payment of over 400 million euros, The New York Times reports. NEW YORK TIMES

French Court Upholds Prison Term for Rogue Société Générale Trader  |  Though France’s highest court upheld his three-year prison term for fraud, Jérôme Kerviel said he was nonetheless delighted that the court had thrown out an order that he pay a record 4.9 billion euros to the bank, The New York Times writes. NEW YORK TIMES

S.E.C. Investigating Gambling Website’s Bitcoin-Denominated Stock  |  The Securities and Exchange Commission is conducting a formal inquiry into the online gambling website SatoshiDice, which listed Bitcoin-denominated shares on MPEx, an online exchange for the virtual currency, Bloomberg News writes. BLOOMBERG NEWS

Strauss-Kahn Seeks to Start $2 Billion Hedge Fund

PARIS - Dominique Strauss-Kahn is seeking to translate his extensive experience at the top levels of global policy-making into a lucrative career as an investment manager, hoping to raise $2 billion for a hedge fund, one of his partners in the venture said on Thursday.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, a former International Monetary Fund chief and French presidential hopeful, is currently in China making the rounds of global investors and seeking to drum up interest in the fund, Mohamad Zeidan, chief operating officer of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s Luxembourg-based investment firm, LSK & Partners, said by telephone from Shanghai.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who fell from grace in 2011 amid accusation of sexual assault, joined last year with a banker, Thierry Leyne, to form LSK, in an effort to capitalize on the former I.M.F. chief’s experience and expertise. The new fund, which represents his first effort to actively manage money on a large scale, is aimed at institutional investors and high net worth individuals around the world.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s abilities “should speak for themselves,” Mr. Zeidan said.

The DSK Global Investment Fund, as it is known, is a “global macro fund,” and will not employ a lot of leverage and complicated derivatives, Mr. Zeidan said. Rather, it will “use the expertise that we have in following economic movements, and translate that into profitable trades.”

The fund is “as plain vanilla as it gets,” Mr. Zeidan added. “We have no leverage whatsoever.”

Hedge funds take aim at sophisticated investors and employ active investing strategies aimed at making money regardless of the direction of market movements. Globally, hedge funds manage about $2.03 trillion, according to Eurekahedge.

JPMorgan Commodities Sale Shows Trading’s Opacity

JPMorgan Chase’s $3.5 billion sale of its physical commodities business is a perfect example of just how opaque trading is.

The bank is selling what is probably a low-return business with regulatory headaches to Mercuria, a privately held company that does not have to make its financials public. The dearth of details does make it hard to judge, but applying some statistics from both the industry and some rivals suggests Mercuria may be paying top price.

The investment bank consultants Coalition recently reported commodity revenue at the top 10 investment banks of $4.5 billion in 2013, down from $5.5 billion in 2012. Assume JPMorgan’s share of that revenue pool was around $1.2 billion and that its net margin ran at around 20 percent, which may be generous. That means the bank run by Jamie Dimon could have made around $240 million of net income on the business last year.

Trading physical commodities accounts for most of the business, but is also less profitable than trading derivatives, for example. So assume the unit for sale brought in $140 million. That would mean Mercuria is paying a hefty 25 times last year’s earnings for JPMorgan’s unwanted traders.

That is a boon for the bank. The commodities business is one of the worst-performing on Wall Street. Last June, Morgan Stanley’s chief executive, James P. Gorman, acknowledged that his bank’s unit was only managing a 5 percent return on equity. That is probably as good as it gets for banks, considering Morgan Stanley has what is considered one of the best operations.

But it is expensive by the standard of Mercuria’s publicly traded rivals. Glencore trades at 14 times trailing earnings and Noble Group at 16 times, for example. Mercuria’s bosses, Marco Dunand and Daniel Jaeggi, should be able to squeeze more out of the business than JPMorgan. Along with other banks, it is facing increased regulatory scrutiny and higher capital requirements for the business.

Nonetheless, Mr. Dunand and Mr. Jaeggi are still handing over a big premium. And they and the fellow stand-alone commodity trading giants are being themselves challenged by new competitors and a broad shift of the business onto exchanges, which is likely to dent revenue per trade. That makes their acquisition look like a bold move. Mr. Dimon, meanwhile, must be breathing a sigh of relief.

Kevin Allison is a columnist and Antony Currie is an associate editor at Reuters Breakingviews. For more independent commentary and analysis, visit breakingviews.com.