Banking/Financial Institutions

Lincoln Financial Group on Monday announced it will conduct a public offering of equity and debt securities as part of a plan to fully repurchase the $950 million in preferred shares issued to the Treasury under the Department's Capital Purchase Program. 

The offering will consist of $335 million of common stock and up to $750 million of senior notes. 

Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) said that he and Republicans feel new Democratic financial regulatory legislation "institutionalizes" future bailouts.

Treasury's sale of 1.5 billion shares of Citigroup stock helped the Department surpass the outstanding balance.

Vice Chairman Donald Kohn said Friday he will delay his departure from the Federal Reserve Board until the end of the summer.

Kohn will remain at the Fed until no later than Sept. 1 to provide the Senate with more time to confirm his replacement to the seven-member board. 

Janet Yellen, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank, was nominated April 29 by President Barack Obama to take Kohn's spot as a governor. 

In March, Kohn announced his resignation effective June 23 but was asked by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to stay on at the short-staffed agency until Congress can act. 

A new Harris Interactive poll shows strong support (69 percent) for stricter regulations on banks and financial-services firms.

The findings come as Congress looks to complete work on a financial regulation bill by the July 4 recess that is expected to increase regulations on banks and finance firms.

House and Senate conferees will begin to debate four titles of the financial regulatory reform measure in their next meeting. 

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), conference chairman, and Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said Thursday night that conferees would meet again at 11 a.m. Tuesday to discuss several issues, including credit rating agencies. 

Other issues will include Title III, the merger of the Office of Thrift Supervision and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the thrift charter. A proposed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would take over the responsibilities of those two agencies among others under the legislation. 

The conference is expected to stretch out over the next two weeks with the aim to have a finished product ready for President Barack Obama to sign by the July 4 recess. 

Democrats and Republicans launched into sharp attacks Thursday only minutes into conference negotiations.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the conference on the Wall Street bill, said Thursday a controversial provision restricting debit card fees would likely remain in the final legislation.

The provision would clamp down on fees that merchants pay debit card issuers, such as banks and credit unions. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) was the main sponsor of the provision in the Senate, which passed the measure on a bipartisan 64-33 vote.

Banks and credit unions have aggressively lobbied against the provision, which has the strong support of merchant and retail interest groups.

"With that very strong vote in the Senate, I don't think the House would try to resist that. Like everything else, it's going to be subject to some further amendment. But in the reality of trying to get in the bill, when you have 64 senators voting for something like after all the controversy, it's unrealistic to think it will go away."

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said there was strong support for the provision but that there could be "some modification."

The final Wall Street overhaul bill will likely include a tough version of a new rule aimed at ending proprietary trading at big banks, a key lawmaker said Thursday.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said after the opening day of conference negotiations that the final bill would have a tougher version than what passed the House in December. The proprietary trading ban, known as the "Volcker rule," is named after Paul Volcker, the Obama administration adviser who first proposed it.

Frank said there is support for a tougher version that was backed strongly by Democratic Sens. Carl Levin (Mich.) and Jeff Merkley (Ore.) but that did not come up for a vote in the Senate. That version would mandate clearer limits on proprietary trading and bank sponsorship of alternative investment funds.

"The general direction that Sens. Merkley and Levin were moving in is the direction a lot of people are supportive of," Frank told reporters on Thursday. "The final version, we'll see. It will be a tougher version than the House."

BP officials touted the value of the oil company's stock Thursday after large drops in the United States and United Kingdom during the past couple of days. 

"BP notes the fall in its share price in U.S. trading last night," a BP release said Thursday. "The company is not aware of any reason which justifies this price share movement." 

Despite a huge selloff in U.S. markets Wednesday, BP's stock bounced back today, up nearly 9 percent as the Dow Jones industrials showed gains. 

In London today, BP shares dropped to their lowest levels in 13 years behind calls by U.S. lawmakers to stop dividend payments, increase compensation to affected coastal businesses and speed up the claims process. 

BP argued it is a strong company and its cash inflows and outflows in March were balanced at an oil price of around $60 a barrel. The company said "our asset base is strong and valuable" with more than 18 billion barrels of oil in reserve and 63 billion barrels at the end of 2009. 

BP says it has spent nearly $1.3 billion on the spill and paid $84 million in claims to individuals and businesses in four affected states — Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.