Thomas Solomon has decided to step down as head of insurance investment banking in the Americas at Bank of America Corp, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. Bank of America declined to comment.

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- China’s decision to impose a national security law on Hong Kong has spurred speculation of capital flight and an erosion of the city’s status as an international financial center. As a venue for share offerings, at least, the near-term future is looking bright. For that, the territory can thank worsening U.S.-China relations.U.S.-listed Chinese technology companies are lining up to sell stock in Hong Kong, seeking refuge from an environment that has become increasingly less hospitable. Nasdaq-traded JD.com Inc. and NetEase Inc. are planning secondary listings in the city next month, following a trail blazed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. in November. Optimism that more companies will join them drove shares of Hong Kong’s exchange operator up more than 6% on Monday.There’s every reason to expect these stock offerings to do well, and push Hong Kong back up the rankings of the world’s largest fundraising centers. So far this year, the city is the sixth-largest market by capital raised. It topped the table for the whole of 2019 when New York-listed Alibaba sold $13 billion of stock, underscoring the existence of a strong local investor base for China’s most successful companies.The reception for Alibaba suggests that Asian institutional investors want to be able to trade China’s leading enterprises in their own time zone. JD and NetEase are also among the nation’s technology champions. Beijing-based JD competes with Alibaba in e-commerce, while Hangzhou-based NetEase is behind some of the most popular mobile games in China. Beyond these two, search-engine operator Baidu Inc. is considering delisting from Nasdaq and moving to an exchange nearer home, Reuters reported last week. The coronavirus has exacerbated tensions between Washington and Beijing, while scandals such as fabricated sales at Luckin Coffee Inc. have spurred politicians to push for tighter regulation, giving Chinese companies an incentive to list elsewhere.Hong Kong is an obvious choice. The city burnished its appeal for U.S.-traded companies last week when the compiler of the city’s benchmark Hang Seng Index said it would change its rules to admit secondary listings and companies with dual-class share structures. Stocks that join the benchmark can expect inflows from passive investors such as exchange-traded funds that track the index.Citigroup Inc. reckons that 23 of the 249 Chinese stocks traded in the U.S. meet Hong Kong’s criteria for a secondary listing, which require companies to have a market value of $5.2 billion or, alternatively, a combination of $129 million in annual sales and a $1.3 billion market cap. JD tops the group with a value of $73 billion.An even more alluring prize would be inclusion of secondary listings in Hong Kong’s stock-trading links with the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, which would enable mainland Chinese investors to buy these shares. Alibaba wasn’t included in the stock connect, to the disappointment of some investors. China’s government could yet decide to make this happen.It’s a reminder that Beijing has levers at its disposal to help shore up Hong Kong’s economy and financial industry, which accounts for a fifth of the city’s gross domestic product — as it did after the SARS epidemic in 2003, when half a million people demonstrated against the Hong Kong government’s first, aborted attempt to introduce national security legislation. Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd. surged the most in 18 months Monday even as unrest returned to the city. Listing of American depositary receipts may double the exchange operator’s revenue, Morgan Stanley said. The Hang Seng Index, meanwhile, stabilized after slumping 5.6% on Friday.An exodus of businesses, people and capital may yet imperil Hong Kong’s role as an international financial center. The IPO outlook suggests that, rather than a sudden demise, that’s likely to be a long drawn-out process.  This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Nisha Gopalan is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering deals and banking. She previously worked for the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones as an editor and a reporter.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Banks might not be ordered to halt dividends but that doesn’t mean investors can rest easy. Bank dividends have been under pressure over the past two months as profits have been constrained by low interest rates and increasing loan losses. As banks have been working to conserve capital to serve struggling clients—namely by halting buybacks—there have been calls by regulators to also suspend dividends.

Cooper-Standard Holdings Inc. (NYSE: CPS) ("Cooper Standard," "Company" or "we") today announced the pricing of the private offering by its wholly-owned subsidiary, Cooper-Standard Automotive Inc. (the "Issuer"), of $250.0 million in aggregate principal amount of 13.000% senior secured notes due 2024 (the "Notes"). The Notes will be senior secured obligations of, and will be guaranteed on a senior secured basis by, CS Intermediate HoldCo 1 LLC and each of the Issuer's subsidiaries that are guarantors under the Issuer's senior secured term loan facility. The Notes will also be guaranteed on a senior unsecured basis by Cooper-Standard Latin America B.V., which will also guarantee the Issuer's senior secured term loan facility. The Notes offering is expected to close on May 29, 2020, subject to customary closing conditions.

Dow Jones gains 2.17% Continue reading...

Occidental Petroleum Corp has been sued by investors who claim they suffered billions of dollars of losses because the heavily indebted company concealed its inability to weather plunging oil prices, after paying $35.7 billion to acquire Anadarko Petroleum Corp. The proposed securities class action was filed late Tuesday in a New York state court in Manhattan on behalf of former Anadarko shareholders who swapped their stock for Occidental shares, and investors who acquired $24.5 billion of Occidental bonds that helped fund the August 2019 merger. Investors said Occidental should have disclosed in its stock and bond registration statements how quadrupling its debt load to $40 billion would leave it "precariously exposed" to falling oil prices, and undermine its ability to boost shale oil production and its common stock dividend.

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Something strange happened in the U.S. stock market on Tuesday.No, it wasn’t that the S&P 500 crossed 3,000 for the first time in almost three months, generating a yelp of joy from the White House and groans from Wall Street veterans who remain perplexed at the seeming disconnect between financial markets and the American economy.Rather, the most unusual part of the latest rally is that bank shares clearly led the advance. As of last week, Bloomberg’s 18-company S&P 500 Banks Index was down more than 40% in 2020, trailing the broader stock market by an almost unprecedented degree since the coronavirus pandemic shut down the world’s largest economy. However, the index soared 9% on Tuesday, far and away a bigger gain than any of the other 23 industry groups. A simple ratio of this bank index to the broad S&P 500 shows the extent to which financials have been beaten down so far in 2020 relative to other segments of the stock market. The gauge fell on May 13 to a level seen only twice before in data going back three decades, both in March 2009. The banks swiftly rebounded in the following months as the U.S. recession officially drew to a close in June of that year.As investors weigh the drastic gains on Wall Street against the backdrop of widespread unemployment and shuttered small businesses on Main Street, the performance of bank stocks may prove to be a crucial barometer of whether markets can sustain their exuberance. Few analysts dispute that shares of financial companies are cheap on a relative basis — but sometimes prices are depressed for good reasons. Inexpensiveness alone isn’t a compelling enough reason to expect banks to bounce back as they did in 2009. Instead, perhaps more than any other industry, a lasting rally will come down to investors’ conviction in a sharp and sustained economic recovery.Investors have a few obvious reasons to be wary of U.S. banks. For one, long-term interest rates are near record lows while traders have started to wager on negative short-term rates, even as Federal Reserve officials repeatedly question the policy. All this points to lower net interest income, a crucial metric that reflects the spread between what a company earns on its loans and what it pays on its deposits. Meanwhile, large banks have already halted share buybacks, and minutes from April’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting revealed that policy makers are debating whether they should also restrict their ability to pay dividends to shareholders during the pandemic.Whether those downsides merit a $1 trillion wipeout, akin to the 2008 financial crisis, is not so clear cut. As Bloomberg News’s Lu Wang and Felice Maranz reported, at that time the financial industry’s earnings worsened for eight consecutive quarters, but analysts only expect profit declines to last half as long this time around. Banks are broadly considered to be well capitalized — certainly much more than they were 12 years ago when they had to be bailed out by the government. JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon expressed confidence in mid-April, when the outlook was even more uncertain than today, that the biggest U.S. bank can handle “really adverse consequences.” He said on Tuesday that the U.S. could see a “fairly rapid recovery.”“The government has been pretty responsive, large companies have the wherewithal, hopefully we’re keeping the small ones alive,” he said at a virtual conference hosted by Deutsche Bank AG.It’s far too soon to declare an “all clear” on the economy, but it’s starting to look as if actions from the Fed and Congress at least helped the U.S. clear the low bar of avoiding the worst-case scenario. The numbers are still awful, especially when it comes to unemployment, but data released Tuesday showed an unexpected increase in new-home sales in April compared with those a month earlier. Broadly, Citigroup Inc.’s economic surprise index is off its lows, indicating that recent figures aren’t quite as bad as analysts expected.“The economic data have been so darn grim lately with job losses in the tens of millions that the green shoots of optimism from better consumer confidence and new home sales are welcome,” Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at MUFG Union Bank NA, wrote on Tuesday. “We still can’t see a V-shaped recovery, but at least this is looking like the shortest recession in history which will be measured in months not years.”If that’s the case, investors will likely look back on the past few weeks as a time when bank stocks became far too cheap compared with other parts of the market. Yet Tuesday’s seemingly huge rally still leaves financial companies worth far less than before the pandemic, and it seems reasonable to expect they’ll remain that way for a while. After all, it’s anyone’s guess just how many loans will end up going bad and saddle banks with losses. There are far more moving parts to JPMorgan’s bottom line than that of, say, Netflix Inc., which fell 3% on Tuesday, the most in almost a month.It’s never a good idea to read too much into one optimistic trading day, especially coming out of a U.S. holiday weekend in which many Americans probably got a taste of “normal” pre-pandemic activities. But on its face, Tuesday looks as if it could be something of a turning point for bank shares. The follow-through will indicate if they were just too cheap to pass up, or if the economy truly is on the mend.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Brian Chappatta is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering debt markets. He previously covered bonds for Bloomberg News. He is also a CFA charterholder.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

The benefits to banks of having their staff work from home will “erode over time”, Citigroup’s investment banking boss Paco Ybarra warned as he made the case for offices hollowed out by the coronavirus pandemic. “I am very cautious about this,” Mr Ybarra said in an interview.

The annual stress tests will be different this year, as the Fed incorporates fallout from the coronavirus crisis in its analysis.

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- The coronavirus recovery is in trouble before it even begins. As swiftly as the lockdowns across Asia were imposed, the process of lifting them will be slow and uneven. That means the region is months, if not years, away from any semblance of normal.Plans for full and partial reopenings in Australia, Singapore and Thailand sound reasonable in theory, but they won’t deliver the hoped-for economic bounce. These countries, deeply reliant on trade and tourism, remain largely closed to the outside world. Domestic consumers, buffeted by layoffs and wage cuts, are in poor shape to pick up the slack. Bankruptcies in Singapore were climbing even before the most stringent virus-suppression efforts.  In Australia, social engagements can resume and businesses can open their doors. Yet the country is bereft of foreign tourists, new international students and immigrants — and it was workers from abroad who helped drive the 28-year boom that preceded the pandemic. The lockdown has essentially set Australia back four decades, just before Paul Hogan starred in the “Crocodile Dundee” movies, as Bloomberg News's Michael Heath wrote. That era saw a boost in tourism and freer capital markets, with moves to float the local dollar and lower tariffs.Politicians say raising the drawbridge isn't a big deal; domestic spending can make up the difference. Aussies will vacation closer to home. You can simply luxuriate in tropical Queensland resorts instead of the Maldives. But this is a big country with relatively expensive domestic air travel (one of two major carriers just collapsed amid the shutdown). With the jobless rate likely to climb to 10% soon, according to the central bank, any splurge seems frivolous. You can't just plug a labor market back in after cutting the cord.In Singapore, core economic sectors — tourism, lodging and conventions — will be among the last to restart. The government unveiled Tuesday a phased reopening after two months of lockdown. From June 2, schools will gradually welcome back students, limited family visits can occur and many businesses that don't interact with the public can resume. Large corporate gatherings, as well as sporting and cultural events, are on hold. Some activities will be shelved until a vaccine is found, or Covid-19 is no longer deemed a risk.Officials in the city-state say they are prioritizing safety and want to avoid a second wave that will further retard the recovery. While the concern is entirely justified, it comes at a cost: Singapore attracted 19.1 million visitors last year, more than three times its population. Tourism makes up about 4% of GDP, and supports a substantial hotel industry and retail scene. Yet Singapore Airlines Ltd.’s fleet remains mothballed. All this adds up to a grim economic outlook: Gross domestic product will shrink 8.5% this year, Citigroup Inc. predicted.The state of the travel industry makes optimism about Thailand’s prospects all the more puzzling. Wagers on an appreciation of its currency, the baht, appear anchored in the idea of tourists returning. With most borders shut and big economies plagued by historic levels of unemployment, where are these visitors going to come from?While caution is understandable, these awakenings don’t inspire confidence in a long and robust recovery. Global GDP will jump an annualized 37% in July to September after diving in the current quarter, says JPMorgan Chase & Co. Economies are nevertheless unlikely to regain their pre-Covid form anytime soon, and even less likely to do so uniformly. “Along with variation in the peak of containment polices, there has been equally large variation in the degree to which countries are now reversing these measures,” Joseph Lupton, the bank’s global economist in New York, wrote this week. In an effort to crank up the flow of people, countries are exploring green lanes that would prioritize visitors from nations seen to have had success tamping down the virus. That sets a low bar, and would be a step toward restoring tourism and business travel. But it’s a far cry from status-quo ante. Much of Asia rose from agricultural backwaters to urbanized hubs for manufacturing and services because they embraced globalization. An Asia disconnected from the world would be a major step back.  This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Daniel Moss is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian economies. Previously he was executive editor of Bloomberg News for global economics, and has led teams in Asia, Europe and North America.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Dow Jones gains 2.21% Continue reading...

At the end of February we announced the arrival of the first US recession since 2009 and we predicted that the market will decline by at least 20% in (Recession is Imminent: We Need A Travel Ban NOW). In these volatile markets we scrutinize hedge fund filings to get a reading on which direction each […]

By Yasin Ebrahim

Cooper Standard (NYSE: CPS) today issued its 2019 Corporate Responsibility Report (CRR), titled "Delivering Sustained Value for All Our Stakeholders," offering key insight on the topics considered important by the Company's stakeholders.

Poor capital allocation, unsatisfactory growth and narrowing moat are sell signals Continue reading...

Chesapeake Utilities Corporation (NYSE: CPK), announced today the appointment of Danielle Mulligan to Assistant Vice President of Communications and Marketing for Chesapeake Utilities Corporation and Kevin McCrackin to Assistant Vice President of Business Development for Chesapeake Utilities Corporation and Vice President of Marlin Gas Services.

By Yasin Ebrahim

The iconic New York Stock Exchange floor is back open for business. Here is what New York Stock Exchange President Stacey Cunningham told Yahoo Finance.

Pressure has been growing for the financial industry to adopt more environmentally-friendly policies.

Cooper Standard (NYSE: CPS) today announced the appointment of three new members to its board of directors: John G. Boss; Richard J. Freeland; and Adriana E. Macouzet-Flores.