Bloomberg reports that Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis has rekindled his love affair with his investment banking unit. Just over 6 months after saying that that he had had just about as much 'fun' with the unit as he could take, Lewis said at The Wall Street Journal conference in New York Wednesday that 'I feel so much better about our investment banking unit than I did (even) a few weeks ago'.

Bank of America's boss said that this quarter could be one of the best his investment bank has ever had, and that the performance was achieved by narrowing 'down our focus on what we're really good at'.

Lewis's current enthusiasm for his investment banking unit didn't, however, stop Bank of America selling its 320-person prime brokerage unit to French bank BNP Paribas in a deal worth around $300m.

Bloomberg also reports that Deutsche Bank may sell its New York office buildings at Park Avenue Tower and 850 Third Avenue to two US property companies in deal worth around $2.45bn.

Reuters reports that Fidelity investor Alan Zametkin has filed a lawsuit against the firm, accusing it of making misleading statements and selling risky investments. He claims that Fidelity marketed its Ultra-Short Bond Fund as a safe investment, yet invested almost two-thirds of the fund in mortgage-related securities. The firm called the lawsuit 'without merit' and said that it would defend it 'vigorously'.

The news agency also reports that Merrill Lynch boss John Thain has said that he would like to see access to the US Federal Reserve's discount window available to broker / dealers through September, when the current emergency measure is due to expire. Thain said that although he was open the introduction of regulation in consideration for the window remaining permanently open, the regulations had to be different than those that related to commercial banks. 'You can't take rules created for one type of financial institution and apply them to another', he said. 'There have to be rules appropriate for the type of business'.

Separately, The Wall Street Journal reports that Merrill Lynch has won at least the first round its its $3.1bn derivatives insurance spat with credit insurer Security Capital Assurance (SCA). A New York judge has issued a judgement which found that SCA improperly issued notices to terminate cover on seven credit-default swaps 'without any basis and under a pretext based entirely on rank speculation'.

Finally, The Financial Times reports that, according to Thomson Reuters data, investment banks have raked in an estimated $4.3bn in fees in the first five months of the year from activities in the Asia-Pac region. Although the figure is down some 12% on last year, the region is holding up well compared to the Americas ($16bn - down 38% and Europe ($9.4bn - down 46%).

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