In short

Other finance news in brief

New rules on company director shares

Company directors will in future be forced to disclose if they grant security over shares held in their own company, under new legislation proposed by the Financial Regulator.

The regulator has decided to crack down on company directors’ treatment of their shareholdings. This follows the case of David Ross, the deputy chairman of Carphone Warehouse who was forced to resign in December after he failed to disclose that he had used company shares to secure personal loans.

The financial regulator yesterday published a consultation paper on the disclosure of shares offered as collateral on loans by “persons discharging managerial responsibility” over the company in question.

NTMA raises 1.6bn from treasury bills

The national Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) raised a further €1.6 billion from selling treasury bills, a short-term funding mechanism, to investors yesterday.

The Government’s debt management authority said that it intended to continue to build up the treasury bill programme - under which the State sells debt maturing within months rather than years as under normal bonds - “to further develop it as a deep and liquid market.”

The NTMA’s strong cash reserves of about €25 billion in short and long-term funding allowed it to pay off a €5 billion long-term bond maturing last Monday.

Madoff investors told to return money

The trustee liquidating Bernard Madoff’s defunct money management firm has told 223 investors to return as much as $735 million or face legal action, according to a person familiar with the matter.

“The trustee demands that you immediately return such amounts to the trustee for the benefit of all defrauded creditors” of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, according to a copy of the letter obtained by Bloomberg. – (Bloomberg)

Apple and eBay top analysts’ estimates

Apple and eBay topped analysts’ sales and profit estimates last quarter, a sign that customer spending may have stabilised.

IPhone sales more than doubled from last year, helping Apple to beat analysts’ profit estimates by 25 US cents a share. At eBay, sales of fixed-price products grew 12 per cent, helping the company expand beyond its traditional auction model. – (Bloomberg)

Values of judgments against firms up

The value of court judgments against companies for the recovery of unpaid debt has increased significantly, reaching €8.7 million in the first quarter of 2009. This is an increase in value of 96 per cent on the same period in 2008, despite the fact that the actual number of judgments decreased from 369 to 286.

B of A chief under threat of removal

Bank of America’s chief executive Ken Lewis only agreed to complete the acquisition of Merrill Lynch this year after federal regulators threatened to replace him and his board if BofA balked on the deal, New York’s attorney-general said yesterday in a letter to federal officials.

Andrew Cuomo, New York’s top regulator, quoted Mr Lewis as saying that in December, when mounting losses at Merrill caused him to reconsider the acquisition, Hank Paulson, then US Treasury secretary, warned a busted deal could destabilise the financial system.

In a deposition in February, Mr Lewis said Mr Paulson told him that “we feel so strongly that we would remove the board and management” of BofA if it pulled out of the deal. Mr Cuomo’s letter described Mr Paulson’s remarks as a “threat”. – Copyright The Financial Times Ltd 2009