Firm Staff Said To Be Revolting Over Severance / Bonuses

According to the news channel, certain US staff laid off in the most recent round of redundancies, are mulling over taking legal action, as it is said that they are unhappy with the two weeks severance pay they are thought to have received. More generally, several senior staff still with the firm are said to be miffed that the firm may have changed the way that it pays out year-end bonuses. It remains unclear what the issue is (and Here Is The City was unable to reach anyone in Bank of America's media team for clarification), but a number of firms, including Citi and UBS, are now restricting the cash element paid out to senior bankers in bonuses, making up the package instead with deferred stock, which vests over 12 or 24 months.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Falcon Plus Strategies, a Citi Alternative Investments unit fund, plunged 52% in value in the fourth-quarter, mainly on fixed income investments. The funds were sold to institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals. Citi is also said to have barred investors from redeeming funds from one of its hedge funds, CSO Partners, after receiving requests from clients to pull over 30% of the funds' approximately $500m assets.

Reuters reports that shares in French investment bank Natixis fell as much as 14% in early trading Friday, after the firm announced that it would take $1.5bn in writedowns on subprime lending-related assets and exposures linked to monoline insurers.

Bloomberg reports that UBS analyst Philip Finch has said that banks 'remain at risk' of $203bn in additional writedowns. Finch estimates that writedowns for CDOs and subprime related losses already total $150 billion. He says that that could rise by a further $120 billion for CDOs, $50 billion for structured investment vehicles, $18 billion for commercial mortgage-backed securities and $15 billion for leveraged buyouts.

Finally, The Daily Telegraph reports that Standard Chartered has made two offers to help rescue its now-$7.15bn Whistleblower SIV, which went into liquidation earlier this month. According to the newspaper, Standard Chartered has told receiver Deloitte that 'it is willing to fund the SIV by buying commercial paper as it matures, (and) offered to buy all assets in the SIV and pay off all senior debt holders at a negotiated price'.