U.S. judge OKs JPMorgan $218 mln Madoff class-action settlement

NEW YORK, March 21 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday gave final approval to JPMorgan Chase & Co's $218 million settlement to resolve class-action litigation accusing the largest U.S. bank of playing a central role in the huge Ponzi scheme of former client Bernard Madoff. U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan said the accord "easily meets the standards" for final approval, and provides "substantial and immediate" benefits to the swindler's former customers. She also awarded $18 million of fees to law firms that represented the customers: Entwistle & Cappucci, and Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro. The settlement was part of a $2.24 billion global resolution of Madoff-related matters by JPMorgan, which was Madoff's main bank for more than 20 years. JPMorgan also agreed to pay $1.7 billion to settle civil claims by the U.S. government, and $325 million to settle claims by Irving Picard, the trustee liquidating Madoff's firm. Picard has estimated that Madoff customers lost $17.3 billion of principal. Madoff is serving a 150-year prison term. The cases are Hill et al v. JPMorgan Chase & Co, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-07961; and Shapiro et al v. JPMorgan Chase & Co et al, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 11-08331. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Tom Brown)

Canada sanctions Russia Bank Rossiya

Canada echoed the United States on Friday in imposing sanctions on Russia's Bank Rossiya because of Moscow's actions in Ukraine, and it added economic sanctions against 14 more Russian officials. "Together with our international allies, our Government is taking a strong stance in our support for Ukraine," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement. "We continue to take additional actions to limit the capabilities of specific individuals and Bank Rossiya, which are responsible for undermining Ukraine's sovereignty. "The so-called referendum that was held has no legitimacy, and any additional escalations by Russia will lead to further isolation from the international community," added Harper, who is en route to a visit in Ukraine.

premier league standing

1	Chelsea	20					66
2.	Liverpool	29					62
3.	Arsenal	29					62
4.	Manchester City	27					60
5.	Tottenham	30					53
6.	Everton	28					51
7.	Manchester United	29					48
8.	Southampton	30					45
9.	Newcastle Utd	29					43
10.	Aston Villa	29					34
11.	Stoke City	30					34
12.	West Ham	29					31
13.	Hull City	29					30
14.	Swansea	29					29
15.	Norwich	30					29
16.	West Brom	29					28
17.	Crystal Palace	29					28
18.	Sunderland	27					25
19.	Cardiff	30					25
20.	Fulham	30					24

candidate Credit Bank of Moscow eyes higher retail lending

 Credit Bank of Moscow, which is contemplating a possible London initial public offering, is aiming to increase the proportion of retail loans in its portfolio betting on the capital's resilience to Russia's spluttering growth.
Russia's economic growth slowed to 1.3 percent last year and events in Ukraine - where Russian forces have seized Crimea prompting Western calls for sanctions - could knock it further, causing lasting damage and pushing it into recession.
Credit Bank of Moscow, No. 13 in Russia by assets according to Interfax data, has a loan portfolio made up of 70 percent corporate loans and 30 percent retail. The retail loans part has grown 5 percentage points from a year ago and the bank aims for it to increase to 40 percent in the coming three-to-four years.
"The retail portion is growing, which is part of the strategy," Vladimir Chubar, chairman of the management board, told Reuters. "Next year we want to spend more time on the retail side."
The bank is considering several options to raise capital to grow the business, including a direct injection from existing shareholders, raising debt or conducting an IPO, he said. In the case of an IPO, the majority of shares sold would be in the form of primary shares, or new shares, for the company.
Preparations for an IPO are already advanced with Citi, Morgan Stanley and Sberbank organising the potential $500 million offering, a source familiar with the situation previously said.
However, the Ukraine crisis has meant transactions such as IPOs are on hold. A source familiar with the deal said the company was still considering an IPO this year but it would be difficult to get anything done in the current environment or second quarter.
German retailer Metro's plan for an imminent stock market listing of a stake in its Russian wholesale business is under threat, sources previously said. Shares in recently listed Russian hypermarket chain Lenta have fallen around 10 percent since their recent IPO

MOSCOW CONCENTRATION
The bank, majority owned by Russian businessman Roman Avdeev who is worth $1.4 billion according to Forbes magazine, relies mainly on its corporate client base to gain retail clients such as the clients' employees.
"The Moscow concentration is helping us because of the low unemployment rate," said Chubar, who added that he was not concerned about a credit bubble or a slowdown.
"We are only focused on Moscow (and the Moscow region). We see enough growth in (and around) Moscow."
Credit Bank of Moscow is also aiming to double its 5,000-strong payment terminals business, which allow people to pay bills via stand-alone machines, to around 10,000 in the next two-to-three years.
"For us, payment terminals have three (advantages) - service for clients, risk management ... and fees," said Chubar. "The transactional data (can be used to) protect our retail loan book from NPLs (as we use them to gather) data about the customer."
Non-performing loans (NPLs) amounted to 1.3 percent of its loans in 2013 versus 1 percent the prior year, reflecting the higher portion of retail loans held by the bank.
The company on Wednesday reported net income for 2013 which increased 54 percent to 8.9 billion roubles ($244 million), driven by higher net interest income which was helped by a 54 percent growth in its gross loan portfolio.

Reserve Bank of India's new PIN rule boosts sales of payment solution companies

Companies that help in processing card paymentslook set to benefit from rising demand for portable card swipe machines after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) adopted new rules to prevent fraud and enhance security.
Merchants in India usually swipe cards through a reader to generate receipts that customers sign, but the new rule, effective December 1, adds another layer of security by making debit card holders enter their personal identification numbers (PIN)to validate transactions via these machines, also referred to as point-of-sale (POS) terminals.
Businesses such as fuel stations, hotels and restaurants that normally keep their card machines out of the customer's reach will have to buy the portable, GPRS-enabled devices to offer convenience to clients.
Sunith Menon, India's managing director for France-based Ingenico SA, which manufactures such devices and supplies them to various banks, expects revenue to rise by 20 per cent as demand for the wireless POS terminals rises after the new RBI mandate.
"We are seeing an increased requirement coming in from banks," he said, adding that ICICI-First Data, Bank of Baroda and Axis Bank were among those who have placed orders for GPRS-enabled POS terminals.
Of the 20,000 POS terminals sold every month by Ingenico in the country, 10 per cent were GPRS-enabled models. Menon now expects such devices to account for a 30 per cent share in his near-term sales.
The new PIN mandate would affect more than 350 million debit card holders in the country. A recent study by industry body ASSOCHAM showed that the debit card users, growing at an annual rate of 18 per cent, were clocking sales of 69 billion rupees using POS terminals every month.
The number of POS terminals in the market has grown significantly in the recent years. As of the end of September, there were 965,000 terminals in use across the country, 46 per cent higher than the 661,000 devices in March 2012, according to data provided by e-payment services provider Worldline India.
Pine Labs India, which counts Starbucks, Future Group and Pantaloon Retail among its clients, has installed about 4,000 GPRS swipe machines since November, higher than the monthly average of 200 to 300. In the next month, the company expects to install another 2,000 such machines.
"Somebody like a premium restaurant chain will never like to call the customer, neither would the customer like to go behind the counter," said Kush Mehra, vice president of payment solutions at Pine Labs. "They have become the newest recipients of this technology along with a very large network of fuel stations."
One of their clients, Speciality Restaurants, which operates brands such as Mainland China and Oh! Calcutta, have placed orders for 50 GPRS machines and plan to buy at least one machine for each of their 74 restaurants in India.
Over the years, Indians have increasingly started using plastic as their payment method. But fraudulent transactions on credit and debit cards have also become common. The central bank earlier this year directed banks to put in place certain security and risk control measures to safeguard customers' interest.

Octomom pleads not guilty to welfare fraud

"Octomom" Nadya Suleman, the California single mother of 14 children including octuplets, pleaded not guilty in Los Angeles on Friday to charges that she lied about her income when filing for public assistance.
Suleman, who became a media sensation five years ago after giving birth to octuplets conceived through in-vitro fertilization, is accused of failing to report nearly $30,000 in earnings after applying for welfare in January 2013.
Wearing a dark blazer and with her black hair in a bun, the 38-year-old Suleman stood beside her attorney in Los Angeles County Superior Court as she entered her plea.
She has been charged with a single count of aid by misrepresentation and two counts of perjury by false application for aid.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office has said Suleman did not report earnings from personal appearances and residuals from videos for the first six months of 2013.
She faces up to five years and eight months in prison if convicted.
In 2009, Suleman initially received an outpouring of public support as a single mother of newborn octuplets but was later derided in the media when it was revealed she had undergone fertility treatments when she already had six children.
Her children were only the second set of octuplets known to have survived in the United States.
Since their birth, Suleman has struggled to make ends meet, attempting a singing career and releasing a pornographic video. In 2012, she entered rehab to treat anxiety and filed for bankruptcy.

BROADBAND

Broadband
Broadband is a type of communication where a single wire can carry more than one type of signal at once, from audio to video frequencies. Cable TV (eg. Foxtel) is one technology that uses broadband data transmission.

BROWSER

Browser
A software program that allows you to surf the Web. The most popular web browsers are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Mitsubishi Motors Corp plans to raise around $2 billion in a public share offering

Mitsubishi Motors Corp plans to raise around $2 billion in a public share offering as early as January to pay back top shareholders for a 2004 bailout that enabled its decade-long turnaround, sources familiar with the matter said on Saturday.
The capital raising will also allow the second-tier Japanese automaker to pay dividends for the first time in nearly a decade and a half. And it will maintain close equity ties to the Mitsubishi group to meet the challenges of tightening environmental standards and other technological advances while it lacks a strategic automotive partner.
It is also a milestone in the company's recovery from a defect cover-up scandal early in the last decade and a retreat from European production to focus on fast-growing Southeast Asia, under the guidance of President Osamu Masuko who arrived from Mitsubishi Corp in 2005.
Group companies including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd , Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc and Mitsubishi Corp rescued the troubled carmaker in 2004 by taking the bulk of a preferred share offering after a failed tie-up with DaimlerChrysler AG.
Mitsubishi Motors will use the roughly 200 billion yen ($2 billion) it hopes to raise to buy back the majority of those preferred shares at a discounted price and retire them, said the sources, who declined to be named as they were not authorised to speak to the media.
"It was difficult for them to find an alliance partner while the preference shares were hanging over them, but this will let them be a normal company," one of the sources said.
Remaining preferred shares will be converted to ordinary stock.
The 380 billion yen of preferred shares in the hands of Mitsubishi group companies has made it prohibitively costly for Mitsubishi Motors to resume dividend payments.
MITSUBISHI GROUP
Mitsubishi Heavy, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and trading house Mitsubishi Corp will retain their combined 34 percent minority controlling stake after the buy back and conversion, the sources said, possibly via a purchase of ordinary shares by Mitsubishi Heavy.
Mitsubishi Motors will announce the move when it makes public its latest multi-year management plan on Nov. 5, one of the sources added. That plan is expected to include expanded production in emerging markets and an expanded lineup of SUVs, which currently include the Outlander Sport.
The company said in a statement to the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Saturday that it was considering various options to deal with its preferred shares but no decisions had been made.
The maker of Triton pickups and i-MiEV electric cars, which sells one-quarter of its vehicles in Southeast Asia, this week raised its net profit outlook for the full year to next March by 40 percent to 70 billion yen, but trimmed its revenue outlook by 6.2 percent to 2.13 trillion yen. It said a boost from a weaker yen and cost cuts offset a drop in vehicle sales.
It will announce its second-quarter earnings on Oct. 29, when Masuko is expected to speak.
Mitsubishi Motors' shares jumped more than 7 percent in intraday trade on Friday in their highest volume in a month and a half, although they pulled back by the close to end with a gain of 1.2 percent at 1,036 yen. They nevertheless outperformed Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei average which sank 2.8 percent.
News that Mitsubishi Motors was considering a share issue and other measures to complete its restructuring first emerged in May. Its shares are up 16 percent so far this year, compared with underperforming shares in other second-tier automakers Mazda Motor Corp and Subaru maker Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, which are two-and-a-half times their value at the start of the year.

Portugal's CGD to sell stake in Portugal Telecom

Portugal's state-owned bank Caixa Geral de Depositos will sell its outstanding 6.11 percent stake in Portugal Telecom in a private sale as part of plans to sell non-core assets, the bank said on Thursday.
The sale of 54.77 million shares will be carried out via an accelerated bookbuilding process aimed at certain investors.
The final terms of the offering are expected to be announced after the process is completed later on Thursday.
The state-owned bank has also been selling off other assets like its healthcare arm under the terms of Portugal's European Union/IMF bailout. It is now in the process of privatising its insurance unit.
Portugal Telecom shares closed at 3.583 euros on Wednesday. The stock was suspended from trading on Thursday, awaiting the terms of the sale.
The stock has jumped from near all-time lows of 2.71 euros in July, partly in response to the group's plan, announced earlier this month, to join forces with Brazil's Grupo Oi SA and form a new company with more than 100 million subscribers.
Credit Suisse and CGD's investment bank Caixa Banco de Investimento are acting as joint bookrunners in the equity sale, CGD said.