Hedge fund company Atticus Capital denied market rumors it was liquidating its positions and closing down and said it had a large net capital position and was looking for investment opportunities, The Wall Street Journal reported. "We've heard these rumors as well and they're not true," Tim Barakett, founder of [...]

Bank of America wants to settle state and federal probes into the marketing of auction-rate securities on terms similar to those reached with other major banks, Bloomberg News reported. The second-largest U.S. bank by assets has been negotiating for almost a month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and [...]

Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and three other banks have been hit with a shareholder lawsuit accusing the banks of failing to warn investors about proposed accounting-rule changes that lowered the value of preferred Fannie Mae stock. The suit also names Morgan Stanley, UBS and Wachovia as defendants, Bloomberg reported. Karen Orkin, [...]

Lazard said Thursday that it has hired Spiro Youakim, the former head of Citigroup's European metals and mining banking group, to serve in a similar function in London. Mr. Youakim, 40, was involved in some of the biggest deals in the red-hot sector over the past two years, including Mittal [...]

A.I.G., the troubled insurance giant, is working with JPMorgan Chase as it considers a possible plan to put billions of dollars of its most toxic assets into a separate company, The New York Post reported, citing undisclosed sources. The plan has not been made final, but an unnamed official told [...]

Vibes Media, a mobile marketing company, will announce on Thursday that it has raised $15 million from Fidelity Ventures in its first round of fund-raising, mocoNews reported. Vibes, a 10-year-old company based in Chicago, will use the money for acquisitions and research and development. The company claims clients like Coca-Cola, [...]

From Claire Cain Miller at Bits: The tough exit markets and ongoing credit crisis is hurting the performance of venture capitalists and private equity managers, but their pay has not suffered. Compensation for buyout and venture professionals spiked in 2007 and early 2008, according to the latest Private Equity Analyst-Holt [...]

Shares in Lehman Brothers fell about 6 percent Thursday morning, as another round of speculation continued to cloud the outlook for the troubled investment bank.[...]

Stephen A. Feinberg, one of the country’s most powerful — and secretive — financiers, hoped to make a fortune out of the detritus of the American auto industry. Instead, The New York Times' Michael J. de la Merced and Vikas Bajaj say, he seems to be losing one. Mr. Feinberg’s [...]

Every day seems to bring new speculation - or rumor-mongering - about what Lehman Brothers will do to keep itself afloat. And that may be posing problems for the faltering investment bank. The latest rumor to wash over Lehman comes courtesy of The Times of London, which reported that Mitsubishi [...]

From Claire Cain Miller at Bits: The tough exit markets and ongoing credit crisis is hurting the performance of venture capitalists and private equity managers, but their pay hasn’t suffered. Compensation for buyout and venture professionals spiked in 2007 and early 2008, according to the latest Private Equity Analyst-Holt Compensation [...]

New York's attorney general is issuing subpoenas to several Bank of America executives to gain more information about the firm's marketing of auction-rate securities, Reuters reported citing an unnamed source. It comes amid a series of settlements struck by the attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, and several banks over their role [...]

Raptr, an online social gaming start-up, has received $12 million in its first round of funding, PaidContent.org reported. Accel Partners and the Founders Fund are said to have led the round for the company, which allows users to track real-time game play through various social networks. Go to Article from [...]

AIG, the troubled insurance giant, is working with JPMorgan Chase as it considers a possible plan to put billions of dollars of its most toxic assets into a separate company, The New York Post reported, citing undisclosed sources. The plan hasn't been made final, but an unnamed official told the [...]

The California State Teachers' Retirement System, the nation's second-largest pension fund, isn't feeling as optimistic about its investments in the Blackstone Group, it seems. According to The Wall Street Journal, the fund, known as CalSTRS, is planning to pony up just $250 million into Blackstone's newest private-equity vehicle, a sharp [...]

Real-estate developer Harry Macklowe's woes deepened this week, as the credit squeeze continues to unravel leveraged deals he inked during the credit boom. According to The Wall Street Journal, a group of lenders led by Deutsche Bank filed papers in New York Supreme Court to foreclose on a $510 million [...]

Jefferies Group said Tuesday that it has hired 25 former Bear Stearns executives for its equities division. The British arm of the New York investment said it had snapped up the sales, trading and research professionals to from the former Bear Stearns London office. JPMorgan Chase bought Bear Stearns in [...]

Last month, Citigroup filled the latest in a series of c-suite positions, only this time with a twist: The firm named a senior banker as its chief client officer. Read the full memo on DealBook.[...]