Credit Suisse

ZURICH, Switzerland - Credit Suisse Group plans to merge its Credit Suisse First Boston securities unit with the rest of the company's banking operations, ending 72 years of independence for an investment bank whose profit trails those of competing Wall Street firms. "It's the end of a separate entity called Credit Suisse First Boston," said Simon Adamson, an analyst at CreditSights Inc. in London, an independent credit research firm. "It's not going to be the all-encompassing investment bank it used to be."

Legg Mason Capital Management's chief investment strategist, Michael J. Mauboussin, resigned as of Jan. 2, said Mary Athridge, Legg Mason Inc.'s spokeswoman. Mauboussin's resignation is not a surprise, and he's expected to announce his plans in the next couple of weeks, she said. Right now, Athridge said, he is focused on promoting his newest book, "The Success Equation: Untangling Skill and Luck in Business, Sports, and Investing. " Before joining the Capital Management subsidiary of Baltimore-based Legg Mason in 2004, Mauboussin was the managing director and chief U.S. investment strategist at Credit Suisse.

JERSEY CITY, N.J. - CSFBdirect, the Internet brokerage unit of Credit Suisse First Boston, said yesterday that it will fire 180 employees in its second round of job reductions since March, as investors shun online stock trading. CSFBdirect, which fired 150 employees in March and closed a call center in New Jersey, expects the latest job cuts, 14 percent of its U.S. work force, to save $22 million a year. The company will also reduce the amount of space it leases in Jersey City and Charlotte, N.C., to lower expenses.

(AP) — Constellation Energy will buy five power plants from Boston Generating for about $1.1 billion, the company said Monday. The power plants — four natural gas fired plants and a fuel oil plant — generate about 2,950 megawatts in all. The purchase price works out to $372 per kilowatt. The deal is expected to be worked out as part of Boston Generating's bankruptcy proceedings. The company took on large sums of debt which became unwieldy during the economic downturn, when industrial customers pared back on energy use. If approved, Constellation's bid will be considered the price to be beat in an asset auction to be held later this year.

NEW YORK - Frank P. Quattrone, former head of Credit Suisse First Boston's technology-banking unit, pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal court yesterday to charges that he obstructed an investigation into how the bank doled out new stock offerings. Federal prosecutors say that Quattrone forwarded a subordinate's memo encouraging employees to "catch up on file cleaning" and added his own endorsement. The original memo, reminding employees of the company's document retention policy, was meant as a directive to destroy evidence, prosecutors allege.

The chairman of a House committee that oversees health care charged yesterday that a financial adviser to CareFirst BlueCross Blue- Shield had a conflict of interest when it recommended a $1.3 billion price for the insurer's proposed sale to Well- Point Health Networks. The statement by Del. Michael E. Busch, chairman of the Economic Matters Committee, came as sentiment was growing in the General Assembly for passage of a flat-out prohibition on CareFirst's conversion to for-profit status and sale.

NEW YORK - Credit Suisse First Boston is in talks with the Securities and Exchange Commission on a possible $100 million settlement of a probe into how the firm allocated shares in initial public offerings, according to people familiar with the situation. The settlement, which would be the fifth-largest in a securities case, would end an 18-month investigation into the firm that brought more technology companies public than any other in 1999 and 2000. Regulators are investigating allegations that Credit Suisse and other U.S. securities firms offered clients sought-after IPO shares in exchange for kickbacks and promises to buy more shares.

NEW YORK - Credit Suisse First Boston said yesterday that Frank Quattrone, whose Silicon Valley office managed the most computer-related share sales at the height of the Internet boom, has resigned as he faces government probes of allegations he destroyed documents to obstruct an investigation. Quattrone was suspended last month after the unit of Switzerland's second-largest bank discovered evidence he knew the firm was under investigation when he told his staff to "clean up" its files.

NEW YORK - Credit Suisse First Boston fired three San Francisco brokers yesterday who had been on administrative leave amid allegations that they had violated U.S. securities laws in the allocation of shares in initial public offerings. The brokers were John Schmidt, head of the company's Technology Private Client Services department in San Francisco, and two of his subordinates, Michael Grunwald and Scott Bushley. The three, placed on leave in March, were the first securities industry employees known to have lost their jobs in connection with the investigation.

NEW YORK - A federal judge declared a mistrial yesterday in the obstruction of justice trial of Frank P. Quattrone, the Wall Street banker who was one of the most prominent figures in the 1990s technology boom. The decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Owen came after the jury reported that it remained deadlocked on all three counts after six days of deliberations. The 11 jurors had notified the judge late Thursday that they could not reach agreement, but he asked them to try again for "a couple of hours" yesterday, without success.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Five years after walking away from his successful investment banking career to defend himself against criminal charges stemming from the collapse of Internet stocks, Frank P. Quattrone is returning to the role he most relishes: as a counselor to high-tech companies. The news came about seven months after a federal judge approved a request by prosecutors to dismiss all remaining charges against Quattrone, formally clearing the way for his return to Wall Street. "The opera is over," he said at the time, referring to the travails of his conviction - later reversed - on charges of hindering a government investigation into initial public offerings at Credit Suisse.

LONDON -- Terry Mays and his wife, both British retirees, decided during the weekend that a promise by the Bank of England to provide emergency financing for Northern Rock, the troubled British mortgage lender that has most of their savings, was not sufficient to calm their nerves. The couple joined hundreds of other Northern Rock customers yesterday as lines formed for a third day in front of branches where people waited to withdraw their savings. "I don't think the bank will collapse - but we just don't have the nerves," Terry Mays said, surrounded by a group of depositors who had traveled with him to the central London branch from a southern one after being told that the wait there would be at least six hours.

NEW YORK - Frank Quattrone, the former Credit Suisse First Boston executive who was permanently barred from the securities industry by the NASD, appealed the penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday. The ban, which stemmed from Quattrone's refusal to give testimony in an investigation of initial public offerings, violated his Fifth Amendment right to avoid self-incrimination, he argued in a brief filed with the SEC. The NASD said it could compel Quattrone to cooperate because it isn't a governmental body.

ZURICH, Switzerland - Credit Suisse Group plans to merge its Credit Suisse First Boston securities unit with the rest of the company's banking operations, ending 72 years of independence for an investment bank whose profit trails those of competing Wall Street firms. "It's the end of a separate entity called Credit Suisse First Boston," said Simon Adamson, an analyst at CreditSights Inc. in London, an independent credit research firm. "It's not going to be the all-encompassing investment bank it used to be."

WASHINGTON - U.S. securities regulators proposed new rules aimed at stopping Wall Street investment banks from artificially spurring demand for new stock offerings. The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 5-0 yesterday to seek public comment on the rules, which would bar underwriters from inducing customers to buy IPO shares. Underwriters wouldn't be allowed to allot hot IPOs in exchange for investor promises to buy more shares later at higher prices or less-attractive offerings. The proposals aim to correct abuses that surfaced in the Internet stock boom that ended in mid-2000 and were criticized in SEC settlements with JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Credit Suisse Group's Credit Suisse First Boston.

Investment bankers fresh out of school are getting signing bonuses of $45,000, more than twice as much as last year. Third-year bankers may get 25 percent raises to $325,000. Managing directors are back up to $1 million a year. Pay for bankers on Wall Street, the City of London and Tokyo's Marunouchi district is soaring as demand for securities sales and merger advice leads to record profits for companies such as Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and UBS AG. Fees for investment banking worldwide this year may rise 19 percent to $47.3 billion, according to Mercer Oliver Wyman, a New York-based consultancy.

NEW YORK - Credit Suisse First Boston investment banking chief Adebayo Ogunlesi and six other bank executives have been subpoenaed to testify about transactions they performed for Enron Corp., a bankruptcy examiner said yesterday. Examiner Neal Batson asked a bankruptcy judge to force the executives to appear or face contempt-of-court charges. The executives are trying to delay their testimony until they can coordinate evidence requests stemming from investor lawsuits, said Batson, the lawyer named by the Justice Department to investigate Enron's collapse.

Four former managing directors of Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown are being sued by their former employer for allegedly conspiring with competitor Credit Suisse First Boston to form an investment office in Baltimore.Bankers Trust Corp., which bought Alex. Brown in 1997 and was acquired by Deutsche Bank AG last month, alleges the four men disclosed trade secrets and helped Credit Suisse First Boston conduct an "employee raid" on Alex. Brown.A federal judge has denied Bankers Trust's request for a temporary restraining order barring the men from soliciting business from Alex.

WITH NEW charges of wrongdoing being fired at the mutual fund industry virtually every day, it might seem like piling on to pick on the business for its ordinary foibles and buffoonery. That's OK. Let's pile on. It's the eighth annual Lump of Coal Awards, where today and again next week this column will bestow an inky chunk of carbon to the bad boys and girls of the fund world, the ones who deserve nothing more in their Christmas stocking. Lumps of Coal are given to managers, executives, industry watchdogs for attitude, performance, action or behavior that is offensive, disingenuous, reprehensible or just plain stupid.

NEW YORK - A federal judge declared a mistrial yesterday in the obstruction of justice trial of Frank P. Quattrone, the Wall Street banker who was one of the most prominent figures in the 1990s technology boom. The decision by U.S. District Judge Richard Owen came after the jury reported that it remained deadlocked on all three counts after six days of deliberations. The 11 jurors had notified the judge late Thursday that they could not reach agreement, but he asked them to try again for "a couple of hours" yesterday, without success.