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After putting Middle East and North Africa (MENA) business development on hold last year amid Wall Street's credit crisis, investment banks are resuming efforts to capture more market share in the region. Dealmakers say that expected...

Little more than two years ago the market for mergers sponsored by special-purpose acquisition companies couldn't have looked brighter. But with liquidation deadlines fast approaching this month and early next year, a large number of...

FORECAST LESS OMINOUS FOR CRE For going on a year now, bankers have been characterizing commercial real estate as the next shoe to drop. Certainly for some institutions, such as the recently failed Corus Bank, it has felt more like...

Next Week's Big Deal: Existing Home Sales Investors next week are sure to pay attention to earnings reports, but at the top of their list of concerns is the state of the housing market. So, more than casual attention will be paid to...

SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER D-W. VA "The insurance industry does not know how to stop itself. They are a train which just gathers speed, and with no impediments." MOHAMED EL-ERIAN CEO, PIMCO "Certain countries are going to over-appreciate...

Investor sentiment is a fickle thing, not unlike October weather and New York Jets fans. We know where the average investor stands on the stock market. The broader equity market, of course, has its own barometers. The Dow crossing ##,###...

According to the newly appointed co-heads of PrinceRidge's corporate finance group, sometimes being part of a less-recognized firm can pay off. But not always, as the firm recently discovered. "We had an investor meeting on the same...

In ####, the Department of Justice sent inquiries to many of the most recognizable names in private equity. The letters merely asked for more information about club deals. For weeks and months later, observers speculated about the potential...

Legendary Wall Street dealmaker and Lazard CEO Bruce Wasserstein died on Wednesday. He was ##. Wasserstein was hospitalized over the weekend for an irregular heartbeat. According to a statement issued by the banking firm on Sunday evening:...

All The Bond Buyer's weekly yield indexes for long-term debt climbed this week, as muni yields continued to push higher, even increasing by as much as ## basis points in spots Wednesday, prior to finally stabilizing yesterday. "It's...

Assured/FSA is the only player in the game. The rest of the bond insurance industry is either insolvent, politicking for ratings from the rating agencies, or taking their ball and going home. Assured Guaranty and Financial Security...

The municipal market somewhat stabilized yesterday, as yields remain unchanged following a sell-off of up to ## basis points in spots Wednesday that continued a week-long pattern of rising yields. "We're pretty flat right now," a trader...

Sept. CPI Climbs #.#%; Core Rate Rises #.#% WASHINGTON - The consumer price index rose #.#% in September, in line with economists' estimates, the Labor Department reported yesterday. Core consumer prices, which exclude food and energy...

WASHINGTON - State tax collections suffered from a record-setting decline in the second quarter of ####, with almost all states reporting a drop in total tax revenue during the quarter, the Rockefeller Institute of Government said in...

SAN FRANCISCO - A bond deal expected to approach $# billion is heading for the November calendar, after a California Senate vote this week. The California Statewide Communities Development Authority deal will securitize the repayment...

SAN FRANCISCO - The recent bankruptcies of two community hospitals in California show how difficult the current economic environment is for health care providers - and how much effort is required to actually bankrupt a hospital. The...

Las Vegas - Emerging slowly from the financial crisis, hard-hit nonprofit health care borrowers are gaining ground in market access and on credit spreads. However, they face tougher disclosure demands and must rethink strategies to...

A specialized market that has for decades served as Wall Street's laboratory where new structures and issuers are introduced, private placements have become an important source of funding for companies looking to pay down debt, or what's...

Eddie Bauer, the iconic outdoor goods retailer long popular in the U.S. and Canada, avoided a fatal fall down the mountain this year when it filed for bankruptcy and was subsequently purchased at a "###" auction by private-equity firm...

With Western Union and MoneyGram International, a portfolio company of private-equity firms Thomas H. Lee Partners and GS Capital Partners, expected to release their third-quarter results in the next two weeks, the companies will be...

While health care reform may be on the front burner for Congress, an overhaul of the U.S. financial system - including a portion earmarked for hedge funds - still waits on deck. The topic is one that evokes emotion from all sides, particularly...

First Data Corp. Thursday announced an agreement with PayPal Inc. that enables consumers to link Star-branded debit cards to a PayPal account online. First Data owns the Star electronic funds transfer network. Participating financial...

Anticipating consolidation of the corporate credit-union system, the Iowa Credit Union League has applied to federal banking regulators to buy an Arizona bank that would help it expand into payment processing, reports Credit Union Journal,...

Century Payments Inc., a Frisco, Texas-based independent sales organization, pledges annual donations of at least $###,### to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure for breast cancer research over the next three years, Century Payments says....

Three men were charged last week in Philadelphia with providing waiters and waitresses at Ruby Tuesday's restaurants with credit card skimmers, which resulted in the creation of counterfeit cards used to make tens of thousands of dollars...

AITE: NCR Corp. is the world's largest ATM manufacturer and Diebold Inc. the third largest, but in the U.S. their roles are reversed, according to a recent survey by Aite Group LLC, a Boston-based consulting firm. Aite surveyed ## of...

Total System Services Inc., or TSYS, today introduced a service that enables merchants to accept card payments via smartphones, Ashim Banerjee, chief information officer for TSYS Acquiring Solutions, tells CardLine. Called "MobilePASS,"...

Credit card issuers should be careful about how they introduce any fees to customers in the current economic climate, suggests GfK Financial Services. The New York-based market-research firm based its recommendation on the results of...

An increasingly loud interchange debate long dominated by merchants has Visa Inc. finally resorting to one of its most trusted weapons: a glossy, feel-good advertising campaign, reports American Banker, a CardLine sister publication....

Credit scores improved in September for many consumers, according to a report released last week by Credit Karma Inc., a San Francisco-based company whose Web site tracks credit scores. Nationally, ##% of consumer credit scores increased...

Jack Henry & Associates Inc. has completed its acquisition of payment-software vendor Goldleaf Financial Solutions Inc., reports American Banker, a CardLine sister publication. The Monett, Mo.-based banking-technology provider said...

VeriFone Holdings Inc. says its PayWare payment software designed to process payments when integrated into another software program will be part of the Vermont Systems RecTrac facilities management system that Vermont Systems will deploy...

Card-fraud losses on credit and debit cards in the United Kingdom dropped ##.#% during the first half of this year, to ###.# million pounds (US$### million) from ###.# million pounds (US$###.# million) during the same period in ####,...

With consumers already changing their spending patterns to cope with an oppressive recession, the arrival of mobile payments could disrupt long-standing relationships among merchants, card processors and the major payment networks,...

Citing rising losses and lower charge volume and warning investors to expect further losses next year, JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Card Services unit today posted a $### million loss for the third quarter ended Sept. ##. It was the highest...

MasterCard Worldwide is parting ways with TowerGroup Inc., the Needham, Mass.-based research and advisory firm it acquired in ####. The Corporate Executive Board Co., an Arlington, Va.-based firm providing research and consulting services,...

Total System Services Inc., known as TSYS, announced today it has formed a division to provide credit card support for regional and community financial institutions. TSYS Program Solutions will provide smaller banks and credit unions...

Mobile person-to-person payment systems could be the elusive key to reaching Generation Y consumers, once the emerging networks manage to bridge a few significant gaps, reports American Banker, a CardLine sister publication. Several...

FixYa Ltd., a product-support community Web site that features freelance technical-support experts, Tuesday announced it is offering a prepaid debit card as a payment option. FixYa's technical experts can choose to receive payments...

Wincor Nixdorf AG has signed a contract to sell point-of-sale terminals to Shell International Petroleum service stations, Pia-Maria Goerner, a spokesperson for the Germany-based company, tells ATM&Debit News, a CardLine sister publication....

Citing its efforts to reduce credit losses, Citigroup Inc. today reported a $# million profit for its branded credit card business for the third quarter ended Sept. ##. The business lost $### million during the same period last year....

Banks and credit unions collected $##.# billion in overdraft fees in ####, up ##.#% from $##.# billion in ####., according to a study published by the Center For Responsible Lending. The most-common triggers of overdraft fees in ####...

MasterCard Worldwide today introduced an online, interactive financial-management tool that enables debit cardholders to track their spending. San Antonio-based Security Service Federal Credit Union is the first financial institution...

Hoping to encourage more consumers to receive bills electronically, Fiserv Inc. Tuesday introduced a service that enables billers to send invoices by e-mail and use text-message alerts to send billing notices to mobile phones, reports...

Financial institutions should connect with customers in as many ways possible, including through payment card products, contends Wayne Johnson, managing director of TSYS Program Solutions at Total System Services Inc., known as TSYS....

Innovative Card Technologies Inc. has completed a financial restructuring that gives the Los Angeles-based company $#.# million in capital to expand sales of its DisplayCard, which generates a one-time-use numeric code on a screen in...

State Bank of India is issuing debit cards at its U.S. branches after joining First Data Corp.'s Star electronic funds transfer network, Amitabh Kumar, general manager of the bank's Alternate Channels and Payment Systems Group, writes...

* Online payment gateway Ezic Inc. has named Angela Stamison vice president of channel sales and Valeria Salgado chief financial officer. * Merchant e-Solutions Inc. says Motorcycle Superstore Inc. will use its online payment gateway...

Investment in banks' ATM networks generally will be near the bottom of chief information officers' information-technology budgets for the next two years, according to survey results released by Aite Group LLC. Purchases of new ATMs...

U.S. revolving credit, ##% of which is credit card debt, decreased #.##% in August, to $###.# billion from $###.# billion the previous month, according to a Federal Reserve G.## report on consumer credit released yesterday. Total seasonally...

State Bank of India is issuing debit cards through its U.S. branches after joining the Star EFT Network, Amitabh Kumar, general manager of Alternate Channels and Payment Systems Group, writes in an e-mail message to ATM&Debit News....

ATM manufacturer Wincor Nixdorf AG has signed a contract to sell point-of-sale terminals to Shell International Petroleum Co. service stations, Pia-Maria Goerner, a Wincor Nixdorf spokesperson, tells ATM&Debit News. Wincor Nixdorf,...

When Ukash began selling its prepaid vouchers in Ontario, Canada, in early October, the British firm's first push into North America, the move signaled a deepening battle with its main competitor, Austria-based Paysafecard Group. The...

PayPal Inc., already viewed as an established payments brand in the industry, may be positioning itself as a more-serious contender in the space by adding more funding options such as cash and debit cards for its online accounts. PayPal,...

Open-loop prepaid cards are invading market segments once solely controlled by closed-loop cards, and this is helping slow the rate of growth in funds deposited into closed-loop card accounts, according to a study by Mercator Advisory...

Investments in banks' ATM networks will be at the very bottom of chief information officers' information-technology budgets for the next two years, according to survey data from Aite Group LLC, a Boston-based consulting firm. Purchases...

M-Dot Network M-Dot Network has named Steven Goforth executive vice president of business development. Erie, Pa.-based M-Dot enables retailers to immediately issue and redeem digital coupons....

Federal Reserve Bank Of Kansas City The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City will host an international conference on the changing landscape of retail payments Nov. # and ##. The title of the two-day conference is "The Changing Retail...

What a difference a year has made. The leveraged loan market appears to have turned a corner, and a big part of that has been the willingness of banks to turn on the faucet and fund new deals. This was especially true during the third...

TA Associates has completed its $### million investment in Netherlands-based computer security software developer AVG Technologies, marking the Boston private equity firm's largest software investment to date. TA will join Enterprise...

Moelis & Co. hired Benoit Renon as a London-based managing director to lead its European consumer sector practice and build its French investment banking franchise. Renon was previously head of European consumer investment banking at...

Target - Acquirer - Description Albertelli Sellers-Businesses -- American Processing Co. LLC American Processing Company LLC agreed to acquire the mortgage processing business and related assets of Albertelli Sellers, a provider of...

Private equity firm Actis will lead a $### million investment fund into developing economies to support power generation and transport deals. Its previous infrastructure fund, launched in ####, was fully realized in #### and generated...

New York-based buyout firm Castle Harlan, Inc. and its Sydney, Australia-based affiliate CHAMP Private Equity, will sell its malt portfolio company United Malt Holdings (UMH) to GrainCorp, Ltd. for about $### million. The transaction...

Westport, Connecticut-based energy buyout firm Lime Rock Partners invested $## million into ITS Group, acquiring a minority stake in the UK-based oilfield equipment and services provider. ITS Group saw a ##% increase in its financial...

Aquiline Capital Partners, the New York-based private equity firm, has invested in TigerRisk Partners, a privately-held reinsurance broker and risk advisor that is based in Connecticut. Financial services and insurance companies have...

KPMG Corporate Finance has seen its second significant departure in under a month. Following on the heels of last month's exit of Stephen Gaines, the firm's former head of US corporate finance, Lorie Beers, a managing director in the...

Thane Ritchie wants to buy the newspaper James C. Tyree has already submitted a bid for, but on its auction date, the private equity manager says the publications union refuses to acknowledge him. Tyree led last month a stalking horse...

Resilience Capital Partners, a Cleveland, Ohio-based private equity firm launched North Coast Minerals, Inc., a mining and natural resources platform company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The platform will be headed...

Harvest Partners, a New York-headquartered buyout firm, has launched a partnership with Steve Riordan, a former president and chief executive officer of Carol Stream, Illinois-based Communications Supply Corporation. The partnership...

Clayton Dubilier & Rice, a New York private equity firm, said Wednesday that it has sponsored the $#.# billion recapitalization of JohnsonDiversey Inc. Terms call for CD&R to invest $### million in the commercial cleaning business for...

British regulators are challenging the Live Nation-Ticketmaster deal that emerged earlier this year, and their merger's approval could hinge on a UK divestiture. This would not be Ticketmaster's first beef with regulators; in the ##s,...

True Temper Sports, the privately-held Tennessee maker of golf and other sports equipment, has found itself in the sand trap of a Chapter ## filing. The company, in its Delaware bankruptcy court filing, lists estimated assets of $###.#...

A pair of private equity transactions sponsored by New York's Blackstone Group and Clayton Dubilier & Rice marks the possible return of the mega private equity deal in the US, even if the idea of "mega" has assumed a more moderate meaning....

SecondMarket, the privately-held New York-based marketplace for illiquid assets, bought California-based InsideVenture, which acts to introduce late-stage private companies to potential financiers. New Enterprise Associates and SVB...

Livingston International, the customs brokerage firm, was bought by a US private equity fund and the CPP Investment Board for $### million Sterling Partners, a $# billion fund focusing on service business holdings, made a bid for Livingston...

Berkshire Partners, a Boston, Massachusetts-based buyout firm, has invested $### million in United BioSource Corporation, acquiring an undisclosed stake in the life science data analysis company. Additional terms of the transaction...

Dallas, Texas-based paper products company Kimberly-Clark Corporation has made clear its intention to continue to expand outside of the paper and paper and cardboard sector with its $### million acquisition of I-Flow Corporation. I-Flow,...

Morristown, New Jersey-based private equity firm Olympus Capital Investments recapitalized St. Paul, Minnesota-based leather accessories manufacturer J.W. Hulme Company, LLC. In speaking with MergersUnleashed, Olympus chairman Dean...

Perhaps the only thing that stretches longer than the Golden Gate Bridge is Golden Gate Capital's cash: the private equity firm made another buy, bringing Devcon International Corp., a Pink Sheets-traded monitoring and security company....

Black Diamond Capital Management LLC, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based private equity firm, was approved as the stalking horse bidder for auto parts manufacturer PTC Alliance. Stephen H. Deckoff, a managing principal at the firm said...

America's tribal nations have relied on casinos or royalties from energy companies for years to generate income. But, the future earnings of Native American tribes may well rest in one of Wall Street's more lucrative businesses: private...

Sally Beauty Holdings, a portfolio company of buyout firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice, expanded deeper into the Northeast with its $## million acquisition of Schoeneman Beauty Supply. Beauty Systems Group, a subsidiary of Denton, Texas'...

Jefferies continued its year of expansion when it hired five senior professionals to work in three cities on its healthcare investment banking platform. Henry Elphick, Tommy Erdei and Probir Rao each joined the firm as managing directors...

Warburg Pincus' Bausch & Lomb will tuck Tubilux into its portfolio, expanding its multi-billion dollar investment's capacity to serve European customers. Tubilux is a privately-held ophthalmic pharmaceutical company that sells over-the-counter...

The Dallas, Texas-based distressed retail investor Lone Star Funds has found a buyer for its ill-fated portfolio company BI-LO, LLC. The Belgian international food retailer Delhaize Group, owner of Food Lion, LLC, will buy BI-LO's assets...

As many private equity firms have remained decidedly cautious over the past year, nursing damages from previous years' over-enthusiastic acquisitions, The Riverside Company has taken a decidedly more active approach. The Cleveland,...

Australian dairy products company Murray Goulburn Co-Operative Ltd. got $### million in private funds in an upsized deal priced by National Australia Bank last week, sources confirmed. The NAIC-#, repeat issuer took its funds in five-,...

Land O' Lakes is selling $### million to $### million in high yield bonds in a private placement as part of a potential $### million refinancing package, according to KDP Investment Advisors. The bonds would take the place of a term...

As exchange-traded funds continue to grow in scope and popularity, investment experts warn that some products, such as leveraged and inverse ETFs, may be too dangerous for all but the most experienced hands. "People get lazy and they...

BOSTON-As tax experts at mutual fund companies hurry to prepare their fund accounting systems before newly mandated changes to federal cost-basis reporting rules take effect, they are finding they could use a little help and guidance...

In ####, Philip Moses, a Raymond James adviser at First Federal Bank of Florida in Lake City, had a local physician as a client who wanted to diversify his $#.# million portfolio. Moses, long an advocate of alternative investments,...

U.S. Stock Funds Rose ##.#% in Third Quarter While the average U.S. stock fund rose ##.#% in the third quarter, the average international stock fund rose ##.#%. The two best-performing categories were Latin American funds (up ##%) and...

Crisis Has Not Prompted Mutual Funds, Other Inst'l Investors to Change Portfolios Mutual funds and other institutional investors have remained fundamentally committed to the same investment policies they were adopting prior to the credit...

Edward Bernard to Chair ICI's Board of Governors Edward Bernard, vice chairman of T. Rowe Price, is replacing John Murphy, chairman of Oppenheimer Funds, as chairman of the board of governors at the Investment Company Institute. Bernard...

Workers who had already been investing in their ###(k) for at least five years through #### saw their balances drop an average of ##% last year, compared with the S&P ###'s sharp ##% decline, the Investment Company Institute and the...

The pace at which the Internet continues to affect communications is nothing short of dramatic. Nearly every type of information is now instantaneously accessible, downloadable and hyperlinked. As we adapt to absorbing ever greater...

The Tulare County Employees' Retirement Association (TCERA) will test out the large-cap growth market, just in case. At its August Investment Committee meeting TCERA discussed the portfolio managed by INTECH Investment Management and...

Union Bancaire Privee has created the role of chief risk officer of alternative investment at its fund of funds subsidiary UBP Asset Management (UBPAM). Daniel Kelly, formerly chief risk officer at Harvard Management Company, will fill...

Barclays Global Investors, Credit Suisse Asset Management and PIMCO are all being considered for a mandate at the Fresno County Employees' Retirement Association (FCERA), confirmed fund administrator Roberto Pena. The selected firm...