Biggest Dividend

The board of Bank of America Corp. has authorized the payment of $713 million in dividends to the U.S. government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. (BAC)

DALLAS----Celanese Corporation , a leading, global chemical company, today declared quarterly dividends of $0.04 per share on its common stock and $0.265625 per share on its 4.25% convertible perpetual preferred stock, both payable on August 3, 2009.

Boutique investment bank Rothschild appears to be joining others such as Moelis and Greenhill in tapping investment banking talent that’s coming lose amid the financial crisis.

Rothschild, a more than two centuries old family-owned business, is planning to hire financial institutions and other investment bankers in the United States, a source briefed on the matter said. 

A Rothschild official wasn’t available for comment.

In October, the bank snapped up some FIG bankers in Europe, including from Lehman. Antonio Villalon, a Lehman vice chairman, was named as the co-head of its global financial institutions group.

The interest in the financial institutions sector is, of course, due to expectations of even more activity as things begin to look better in the economy. 

Moelis, which has already hired some 15 managing directors this year, is also looking for FIG bankers. Deutsche Bank and Greenhill have also already hired a bunch. 

Other active sectors have seen investment banks across the spectrum bulk up on talent as well, a recent - and remarkable — case being that of an exodus of healthcare bankers from UBS to Jefferies.

Today, the following four Delaware Investments municipal income funds, all closed-end management investment companies, declare their monthly income dividends:

NEW YORK----The Boards of Trustees of PIMCO Floating Rate Income Fund and PIMCO Floating Rate Strategy Fund announced today that they have declared the following dividends on the Funds' common shares: PIMCO Floating Rate Income Fund $0.06566 per common share PIMCO Floating Rate Strategy Fund $0.06149 per common share The dividends will be payable on August 7, 2009 to shareholders of record on ...

Neelie Kroes’ campaign to ensure the European Commission’s rules over state aid are respected has remained in a high gear over the last few weeks. Three times the Competition Commissioner has spoken publicly about how restructuring plans for shaky banks bailed out last Autumn should be agreed with the governments of those countries.

This Tuesday she told the British Banker’s Association the truth. Royal Bank of Scotland made the largest ever corporate loss last year and yet was still saved by the government with a massive £20 billion plus rescue injection. One might ask how such an institution, so fundamentally important for the economy, could not be?

Kroes does not dispute that. What she does insist on is that such aid cannot be effectively propping up the bank indefinitely, allowing the balance sheet, and hence the bank’s business, to remain bigger than it should be, if it were not for that aid.

EC rules state that a restructuring plan to set out how this should be rectified must be made within six months of the aid being administered. After a while there is a danger that smaller banks, without aid, will be disadvantaged by their larger protected brethren.

Kroes is clearly losing her patience with the UK Government. The two camps have yet to resolve how Northern Rock will be restored to independence over 15 months after a draft restructuring plan for the UK’s fifth largest mortgage lender was submitted.

It seems as if a similar delay could happen with RBS. However, that could be disastrous for Kroes as the UK government turns its attention to the forthcoming election. RBS is such a significant bank that there is a danger Kroes’ authority will be damaged irreparably if no agreement can be reached on possible divestments.

With Germany she acted decisively agreeing a dramatic restructuring of Commerzbank and WestLB within the EC timetable.

So the next month, before RBS updates on its internal restructuring plans with interim results in early August, will be critical. An announcement on the sale of various RBS Asian businesses, possibly to Standard Chartered and ANZ, is expected imminently.

However, that is unlikely to be sufficient to satisfy Kroes, who wants to see RBS’s dominant domestic position in UK corporate and smaller business banking broken up. Perhaps we will yet see NatWest and the Royal Bank separated. Bringing those brands together was disgraced former chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin’s key deal.

After that Kroes will aim her sights at Ireland and her homeland of the Netherlands. Both states are propping up key lenders there. Kroes is due to visit Ireland for two days on July 16.

Valuecap Sdn Bhd, set up in 2002 to invest specifically in Malaysian stocks, has given its three shareholders RM250 million dividends over the years.

Top Watson Wyatt executives got generous bonuses for fiscal year 2008, with CEO John Haley getting $1.3 million, which was 148.6 percent of the target bonus. 

Haley also recommended annual bonuses ranging from 112.3 percent to 154.2 percent of the target bonus for the other named executives, according to an SEC filing.

Haley’s bonus depended on 11 principal factors, including how well the company met its financial goals for the year. 

For fiscal year 2008, the plan was that revenues would increase by 9.3 percent to $1.6 billion and that earnings would increase by 8.9 percent to $2.90 per share. The actual results: revenues of $1.760 billion and earnings of $3.50 per share.

It will be interesting to see what the company’s executives are paid this year. 

The sector faces challenges as clients continue to cut discretionary spending. And so far this year, its shares are down roughly 23 percent, falling more than 10 percent since its deal to buy Towers Perrin on Sunday.  

Executive compensation is drawing intense scrutiny, with activist shareholders urging the government to get more involved in overseeing multimillion-dollar pay packages received by a growing number of American chief executives.

Final, first-half M&A data from Thomson Reuters, released earlier on Thursday, filled out the picture painted by preliminary data last week — deal-making has shrunk dramatically, even as investment bankers find solace in a record flurry of bonds and rights issues.

One interesting wrinkle, compared to the earlier numbers, is the inclusion of Xstrata’s unwanted approach for rival miner Anglo American, valued by the number-crunchers at $42.5 billion. That helped propel Goldman Sachs to the global top spot for M&A advice, and boosted several other banks engaged on the deal.

Some other nuggets:

* Compared to the first half of 2008, announced M&A is down 40.2% to $941 billion, the slowest H1 since 2004.

* Geographically, M&A by dollar value is down 49.2% in the U.S., 42.5% in Europe, 28.4% in Asia-Pacific, and 51.2% in emerging markets. Cross-border M&A totalled $287 billion, down 54.5%.

* Buyouts plunged 78.8% to $32.9 billion , the lowest H1 since 1997. They made up just 3.5% of announced transactions, the lowest percentage since H1 2000.

Among the law firms, who are also having a pretty tough time, Linklaters came top for deal advice, outflanking U.S. rival Skadden, Arps.

As usual for the day before the July 4th weekend, bankers rushed to get deals tied up so they can enjoy the break.

Among the spurt of pre-Independence Day activity was Exelon bumping its bid for rival NRG and Johnson & Johnson buying a stake in Elan. Last night, Flagstone Reinsurance made a competing bid for rival IPC.

It doesn’t yet compare, however, to July 3rd 2007 when KKR announced plans to IPO, HIlton went private and Apollo made a $6 billion approach to chemicals firm Huntsman.

Other deals announced today:

    ** International Assets Holding Corp agreed to buy commodity risk management firm FCStone Group Inc in an all-stock deal valued at about $130 million, as it looks to expand its presence in the commodities market. 

    ** GlaxoSmithKline expanded its emerging markets footprint by buying Bristol-Myers Squibb’s branded generics drugs business in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Libya and Yemen for $23.2 million. 

     ** Lufthansa could still win quick European Union regulatory approval for its planned takeover of Austrian Airlines if it makes concessions within days, the European Commission said. 
 
    ** Opel frontrunner Magna’s consortium partner Sberbank said the race to acquire the carmaker was all but over, though Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co (BAIC) may still lodge a bid in the coming days.  
 
    ** Onex Corp said it acquired a majority stake in the Tropicana Las Vegas Hotel and Casino after the property emerged from bankruptcy protection. 
 
    ** China National Petroleum Corp, the country’s largest oil company, plans to revive a $17 billion bid for the Argentinian unit of Spanish oil major Repsol-YPF, the South China Morning Post reported on Thursday, citing sources.  
 
    ** Rio Tinto Ltd sold virtually all of the UK part of its $15.2 billion rights offer, the world’s fifth-biggest, easing its huge debt burden and putting the world’s top iron ore miner back in growth mode.  
 
    ** Swedish Match said it had agreed to sell its South African operations to Philip Morris International for 1.75 billion rand ($224.7 million). 

    ** Spanish holding company Alba has bought a 10 percent stake in technology firm Indra from utility Union Fenosa at 15 euros per share, Alba and Fenosa said.

    ** Icelandic investment firm Novator sold its 20.11 percent stake in sporting goods firm Amer Sports to institutional investors at roughly a 15 percent discount to Wednesday’s closing price. 

    ** The head of Russia’s Sberbank said he sees no serious competition in its takeover of German carmaker Opel, which it has agreed to buy in partnership with Canadian auto parts group Magna.