Barclays hit by fresh U.S. investigations

Following investigations in the UK over its dealings withQatari investors, Barclays saidthe Department of Justice and Securities and ExchangeCommission were probing whether its relationships withthird parties who help it win or retain business are compliant with U.S. laws. The bank is under investigation by Britain's financial regulator and fraudprosecutor into payments to Qatari investors after it raisedbillions of pounds from the Gulf state five years ago to save it from taking a taxpayerbailout. Barclays revealed the Financial Services Authority (FSA) investigation in July and confirmed the Serious Fraud Office had launched aprobe the following month. Barclays also said on Wednesday the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could be close to fining it over an investigation into the manipulation of power pricesin the western United States from late 2006 until 2008. FERC could notify the bank of proposed penalties as early as Wednesday, and Barclays said it would"vigorously" defend this matter. The investigation was first announced in April, alleging the bank took substantial electricity market positions to move daily indexsettlements. In March, the agency fined Constellation Energy a record $245 million over power market manipulation activities as part of a fresh crackdown on power market rigging. New Barclays CEO Antony Jenkins, who took over at theend of July when his predecessor Bob Diamond quit after the bank admitted rigging Libor interest rates, isin the midst of a review to change culture and lift profitability, due to be unveiled in February. Investors have made it clear they want a return on equityabove the cost of equity, higher dividends and for pay to be cut, Jenkins said. That is expected to mean theinvestment bank arm will be significantly cut back. "While we have much to do to restore trust among stakeholders, our universal banking franchise remains strong and well positioned," he said. The bank has fired staff, clawed back pay and taken other disciplinary action aftera "very rigorous" internal investigation into the Libor manipulation, Jenkins said. He declined to provide more specific details on how many staff it had taken actionagainst. Barclays was fined $450 million by U.S. and UK regulators for the rate rigging. More than a dozen other banks are expected to be fined.

Disney to buy Lucasfilm for $4 billion

Disney Company agreed Tuesday to buy Lucasfilm in a stock-and-cash deal valued at $4 billion. The deal will make Lucasfilm owner George Lucas a significant shareholder in Disney, which will pay for the film company with $2 billion cash and around 40 million shares of its stock

European Crisís affects GM earnings

GM on Wednesday posted net income of $1.8 billion, down from $2.1 billion it earned a year earlier. But the result soundly beat forecasts of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. And the company said that its pretaxoperating earnings in the fourth quarter should be similar or slightly better than the final quarter of lastyearlosses in Europe soaredto $478 million from $292 million a year earlier. The company warned that its full-year losses in Europe will be between $1.5 billionand $1.8 billion, and said it won't be profitable there until the middle of the decade. But Europe wasn't the only drag on results. Operating profits in North America fell17% to $1.8 billion. That was partly balanced by improved results in its international unit, which includes operations in China. GM once again sold more cars and trucks in China than in the United States in the period. "While we still have a lot of work to do, especially in Europe, it is encouraging to see our results begin to reflect the discipline we arebringing to bear on the overall business," said Dan Ammann, the company's chief financial officer.

Forstall, a senior vice president in charge of Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, will act as an adviser to CEO Tim Cook until departing some time next year, according to a news release from the company. As the man behind the system that ran Apple's industry-changing iPhone and iPad, Forstall had beenconsidered a favorite to replace Jobs as CEO after Jobs' death last October. More recently, Apple observers pegged Forstall, 43, as the next in line behind Cook. Along with marketing chiefPhil Schiller and design guru Jonathan Ive, Forstallanchored the company's top tier of executives, frequently speaking at Apple's heralded product unveilings to showcase the ins and outs of operating-system upgrades. Many felt he was the most logical choice to continue Jobs' legacy of innovation at Apple, where 70% of revenue now comes from the mobile devices that iOSpowers. "He was as close to Steve asanybody at the company," Andy Miller, former head of Apple's iAd group, told Businessweek last year."When he says stuff, people listen." The Apple press release did not say what Forstall plans to do when he leavesthe company. Apple did not immediately respond to a message seeking further details

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's parliamentary budget office on Monday maintained its forecast of 1.9 percent economic growth this year but cut its outlook for 2013 and 2014 and said it sees the Bank of Canada holding interest rates steady through the first quarter of 2015. The PBO said it sees the federal government eliminating its budget deficit and returning to surplus in the 2015-16 fiscal year, which the government also expects. It forecast that Canada's real gross domestic product will expand by 1.5 percent next year, down from its April forecast of 1.6 percent growth. It cut its 2014 forecast to 2.0 percent growth from 2.2 percent. "The weakness in near-term growth pushes the economy further below its potential, resulting in an increase in the unemployment rate," the PBO said in a report. "With inflationary pressures well contained and Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation remaining below its 2 percent target, PBO expects the Bank of Canada to maintain its policy interest rate at 1 percent through the first quarter of 2015," it said. The PBO released its fiscaloutlook just before the federal government was due to release its own forecasts, which are based on the average of a groupof private sector economists. The PBO's view on centralbank interest rates, now at1.0 percent, is more dovish than most. Most of Canada's primary dealers expect the Bank of Canada to hold off raising interest rates until late 2013 or 2014. The median forecast in a recent Reuters poll of these dealers was for a rate hike in the fourth quarter of 2013.

UBS plans to cut up to 10,000 jobs

Switzerland's biggest bank by assets will bringlarge parts of its fixed income trading business into a non-core unit leaving a reduced investment bank with equities trading, foreign exchange and advisory roles.
The non-core operation will be headed by Carsten Kengeter, current co-head of the investment bank, and will be wound down over time, two people close to the situation said.
The split will lead to another reduction in risk-weighted assets of up to SFr100bn ($107bn) and will trigger the loss of thousands of jobs in the group's back office over the next few years.
The job cuts will amountto almost a sixth of the bank's workforce of 63,500 at the end of June. They will not happen all at once and the precise number is still unclear as the exact impact on back-office functions has not yet been determined.
It comes on top of another -- still ongoing -- program announced last year to cut 3,500 jobs.
The move highlights how banks around the world are trying to adapt to a radically changed regulatory andmarket environment thathas left them with lower returns and much higher capital needs for certain business areas and national subsidiaries.
The strategy, hammered out in several executive board meetings in New York this week and set tobe announced next Tuesday, will trigger a large reduction of complexity and costs in the bank's support functions such as its information technology department.
"There were several options on the table but UBS has decided on the most radical one," one person familiar with the plan said.
The plan was devised bySergio Ermotti, who came in a chief executivelast year in the wake of an alleged rogue trading scandal that left UBS with a $2.3bn loss in the investment bank

More misery in Spain as uneployment Exceeds 25%,

Though hardly a surprise, Friday's report that Spain's unemploymentrate had surpassed 25 percent was bad news for agovernment that recently trumpeted a streamlining ofits labor market rules. The ranks of the unemployed swelled to 5.78 million people at the end of the third quarter, compared with 5.69 milliona quarter earlier and 2.6 million four years ago, when Spain's property bubble burst, the report said. The jobs data signaled a deepening recession and raised the likelihood that Spain would again miss budget targets agreed to with other euro zone countries. There was, however, one perversely positive elementto the report: the labor picture is so bleak that it could help Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy make the case that Germany and other lenders cannot risk imposing further austerity measures on Spain's economy in return for providing more European rescue fundingThe dire jobs report"gives Rajoy more leverage in his European negotiations and is good ammunition to ask for more time to adapt," said Federico Steinberg, an economist at the Elcano Royal Institute, a research organization in Madrid. Mr. Rajoy, however, is alsofighting the crisis at home.Unions have called a general strike for Nov. 14, and elections in Catalonia on Nov. 25 could accelerate that region's drive toward independence. Luis Garicano, a professor at the London School of Economics, said the government's cost of paying unemployment benefits, now almost 4 percent of gross domestic product, was unsustainable. After 20 consecutive quarters of job destruction, he said,"people see very little light at the end of the tunnel, and Spaniards are losing hope."

Fiscal year

Fiscal year – A corporation's accounting year. Due to the nature of their particular business, some companies donot use the calendar year fortheir bookkeeping. A typical example is the department store that finds December 31too early a date to close its books after the Christmas rush. For that reason many stores wind up their accounting year January 31. Their fiscal year, therefore, runs from February 1 of one year through January 31 of the next. The fiscal year of other companies may run from July 1 through the following June 30. Most companies, though, operate on a calendar year basis.

Ex-rights

Ex-rights – Without the rights. Corporations raising additional money may do so by offering their stockholders the right to subscribe to new or additional stock, usually at a discount from the prevailing market price. The buyer of a stock selling ex-rights is not entitled to the rights.

Flat income bond (FiB)

Flat income bond – This termmeans that the price at whicha bond is traded includes consideration for all unpaid accruals of interest. Bonds that are in default of interest or principal are traded flat. Income bonds that pay interest only to the extent earned are usually traded flat. All other bonds are usually dealt in "and interest," which means that the buyer pays to the seller the market price plus interestaccrued since the last payment date.