Category: Business & Economy

A Southfield, Michigan-headquartered bank holding company has agreed to plead guilty to securities fraud for filing false securities statements relating to its 2017 initial public offering (IPO) and its 2018 and 2019 annual filings.

According to a signed plea agreement that will be publicly filed in court, Sterling Bancorp, Inc. (the Company) was the holding company for its wholly owned subsidiary, Sterling Bank and Trust F.S.B. (the Bank, or together with the Company, “Sterling”). Sterling – with branches located in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York, and Southfield – completed an IPO in 2017, and the Company’s stock began trading on the NASDAQ exchange under the ticker symbol “SBT.”

The country’s inflation has not surpassed 100 percent in over three decades, as value of Argentina’s currency plummets.

Facebook parent Meta is slashing 10,000 jobs, about as many as the social media company announced late last year in its first round of cuts, as uncertainly about the global economy hits the technology sector particularly hard.

The company announced 11,000 job cuts in November, about 13% of its workforce at the time. In addition to the layoffs, Meta said Tuesday that it would not fill 5,000 open positions.

Meta and other tech companies have been hiring aggressively for at least two years and in recent months have begun to let some of those workers go. Hiring in the U.S. is still strong, but layoffs have hit hard in some sectors.

Syrian President Bashar Assad arrived in Moscow on Tuesday, where he is scheduled to meet top ally Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Russia is a main backer of Assad and has a broad presence in Syria, where a 12-year uprising-turned-civil war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population. Moscow has played a pivotal role in fighting back armed opposition groups trying to topple Assad’s government through its military support, and has also aggressively backed Damascus against opponents at the United Nations.

The Kremlin confirmed Tuesday that Putin will meet with Assad on Wednesday — the anniversary of the conflict — in a statement carried by Russia’s state news agency Tass.

ilicon Valley Bank’s parent company and two senior executives are facing a class-action lawsuit in the United States, where shareholders have accused the financial institution of failing to disclose the risks that anticipated interest rate hikes would have on its business.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in the Northern District of California on Monday, is seeking unspecified damages from SVB Financial Group and its Chief Financial Officer Daniel Beck, as well as the bank’s Chief Executive Officer Greg Becker.

The bank collapsed and its assets were seized by the US government late last week after a mass withdrawal of funds by customers.

Russia has its own financial messaging system, SPFS, which can act as a substitute for SWIFT in the domestic market. While its coverage is still much smaller than that of SWIFT – which boasts 11,000 financial organizations globally – the spread of SPFS has been gaining speed in recent months.

When asked about a spillover effect from the collapse of US lenders, which has led to a global stock rout, Peskov said problems in the American banking system cannot affect Russia in any way. “Our banking system, of course, has, let’s say, certain connections with some segments of the international financial system, but for the most part it is under illegal restrictions,” he said.

However, Peskov added that sanctions have been “a blessing in disguise” because Russia is “to a certain extent immune to the negative impact of the crisis that is now unfolding across the ocean.” 

The agency cited concerns over the lenders’ reliance on uninsured deposit funding and unrealized losses in their asset portfolios. “The review for downgrade reflects the extremely volatile funding conditions for some US banks exposed to the risk of uninsured deposit outflows,” it stated. Moody’s also slashed the debt ratings of collapsed New York-based Signature Bank deep into junk territory, withdrawing future ratings for the insolvent lender. The downgrades come while US bank stocks have continued to plummet despite the government’s measures to support lenders and prevent more bank runs. First Republic Bank has led the sell-off, with its share price nosediving more than 60% on Monday, forcing a brief halt in trading due to volatility. Western Alliance Bancorp lost over 47% while Zions Bancorp declined by about 26%. Dallas-based Comerica dropped 28% and UMB lost more than 15%.

“The problem is the bond market, and my prediction, I called Lehman Brothers years ago, and I think the next bank to go is Credit Suisse,” said the co-author of the best-selling book ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’, “because the bond market is crashing.” Kiyosaki explained on Monday that the bond market, which is bigger than the stock market, is the economy’s “biggest problem” and will put the US in “serious trouble.” “The US dollar is losing its hegemony in the world right now. So, they’re going to print more and more and more of this… trying to keep this thing from sinking,” he explained.

LONDON — Defense spending is getting a £5 billion ($6 billion) boost from the British government, but most of the cash has been earmarked for nuclear programs and rebuilding depleted weapons stocks rather than addressing wider capability gaps in the armed forces.

The funding figures, released Sunday night, will be contained in a refresh of the 2021 integrated defense and security review due to be published later today.

News of the increase came as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak headed off to San Diego, California, for a meeting Mar. 13 with U.S. President Joe Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to announce details of the AUKUS nuclear submarine pact agreed by the three nations.

“In January, Germany imported 3,500 metric tons of Russian oil,” the Office said, adding that such volumes were imported by the EU before January 1, 2023. In January 2022, Germany imported 2.8 mln metric tons of Russian crude oil.

To substitute the Russian oil, Germany scaled up supplies from Norway (plus 44%), the United Kingdom (+42%), and Kazakhstan (+34.6%).

The EU’s embargo on seaborne supplies of Russian oil became effective on December 5 of the last year.

Economists see Lehman Brothers-style crisis as unlikely despite jitters following collapse of California-based lender.

“The day 72 million Japanese go hungry.” That’s the prospect Josei Seven (March 16) unfolds. For shock value? Yes and no. Certainly it’s shocking. But it’s not cheap…

An analysis by Global Affairs Canada argues that Saudi Arabia is the “principal guarantor” of affordable oil for Western countries, as well as an important market for Canadian companies, The Breach reported on Monday, citing the seven-page document. Canadian weapons are crucial to maintaining Riyadh as an “integral and valued security partner,” the report claimed.  The analysis stands in contrast…

The Army’s end strength continues to decrease under its most recent budget request.

The service unveiled its part of President Joe Biden’s overall defense budget request to Congress today.

The Army is asking to fund an Army with 452,000 active duty soldiers, 325,000 soldiers in the Army National Guard and 174,000 soldiers in the Army Reserve.

That’s a drop of 21,000 soldiers from the active rosters as compared to last year’s initial request for 473,000 active troops.

According to Andrew Adams, the group has focused on identifying those who are helping Russians to avoid sanctions and export controls. “I think it can be quite effective to be sanctioning facilitators,” Adams said, calling them “professional sanctions evasion brokers.” A recent report from the Treasury Department showed that more than $58 billion worth of sanctioned Russian assets have been blocked or frozen worldwide so far. Adams pointed out that KleptoCapture aims to sell the frozen yachts and other property of sanctioned Russians, despite the legal difficulties, and use the proceeds for the benefit of Ukraine. He noted, however, that this would be done in accordance with the law.

“What we’re facing right now is really serious,” Pomboy, founder of economic research firm MacroMavens, said on Friday in a Fox News interview. “We are on the brink of a 2008-style financial crisis.”

Pomboy made her assessment in the wake of Friday’s shutdown of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) by federal regulators – the second-largest failure in US banking history. SVB’s collapse came on the heels of this week’s closure of cryptocurrency lender Silvergate Bank, as well as the bankruptcies last fall of crypto firms FTX, BlockFi, and Three Arrows Capital.

President Joe Biden’s administration has responded by trying to allay concerns over a broader crisis. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen issued a statement on Friday declaring that the US banking system “remains resilient, and regulators have effective tools to address this type of event.”