Salomon

Beware of Salomon Brothers spokesmen who dismiss their firm's failure to report manipulations of the U.S. government securities market as "dumb" and "inexplicable." It was part and parcel of a larger scheme and a flawed corporate culture.By buying more bonds at Treasury auctions than the 35 percent legal limit allowed, sometimes through the use of clients' names without their permission, Salomon was following a procedure that "smacks of a possible attempt to corner the market," according to Business Week magazine.

He thought it might take one, maybe two months to land a new job. When Guy Salomon was laid off in February from a Hewlett Packard job paying more than $70,000, he had more than two decades of experience in technical support and instruction at major computer companies. At HP in Greenbelt, he handled technical support for Veterans Affairs hospitals, often fielding emergency calls in the middle of the night. He had worked before that for Wang Laboratories and Sysorex Corp. He was stunned to find his job gone, one of a number of positions eliminated under changes to a long-running contract with the VA. Even with 10 years, Salomon, 55, simply had less seniority than others.

NEW YORK -- Salomon Inc. said yesterday it created a new AAA-rated subsidiary to trade complex financial instruments called derivatives.Salomon officials first announced plans to create the new unit, Salomon-Swapco Inc., last October, but couldn't start trading until the credit rating was issued. Swapco will trade derivatives like swaps, which represent payments based on underlying interest rates, currencies, indexes or commodities.Moody's Investors Service Inc., Fitch Investors Service Inc. and Standard & Poor's Corp.

NEW YORK -Citigroup, the world's largest financial company, will pay client Linda Nash more than $1.5 million for improperly handling her WorldCom Inc. investment, the NASD said yesterday. It is the largest amount awarded to a claimant against Citigroup this year, according to the NASD's Web site. A three-member NASD hearing panel found that Mark Clayton Callaway, a Salomon Smith Barney broker based in Atlanta, and Salomon Smith Barney Inc. were liable for Nash's "claims of breach of contract and negligence and for violations of federal and state laws," the NASD said.

Only two years ago, Rouse Co. Chairman Mathias J. DeVito would go to stock analysts' meetings and listen to questions that were really lectures from people telling him malls were dead and Rouse, which owns all or part of more than 50 regional malls, was, if possible, deader than dead.But Wall Street is ever fickle. The 2.5 million shares of Columbia-based Rouse that were sold short in early 1992 -- the third-biggest short position of any Nasdaq stock and a sign that bears believed Rouse's stock would fall even more than the 35 percent it slipped in late 1991 and early 1992 -- are history.

NEW YORK -- In an announcement that caught Wall Street by surprise, Salomon Inc. said yesterday that its third-quarter earnings plunged.Salomon said its earnings plunged 93 percent, to $6 million from $85 million in the corresponding period in 1991.There was a per-share loss for the most recent quarter after preferred dividends were paid. Revenues, after interest expenses, totaled $636 million, down from $880 million in last year's third quarter.By the close of trading yesterday, Salomon's stock was down $4.25 a share, to $33.75, on the New York Stock Exchange.

NEW YORK -- The disclosure that Salomon Bros.' three top officials had known for several months about illegal bidding by the firm in the government securities market has moved an unfolding scandal from an embarrassment to a serious threat to the future direction of the investment house.The view of traders and analysts on Wall Street seemed to turn markedly against Salomon after the firm's disclosure Wednesday that John H. Gutfreund, chairman and chief executive, as well as Thomas W. Strauss, the firm's president, and John W. Meriwether, a vice chairman, knew in April about an illegal bid made by the firm.

NEW YORK -- Salomon Brothers, the nation's leading trader of government securities, admitted yesterday that its wrongdoing in Treasury auctions was much wider than previously disclosed and said that the company's chief executive and other top executives knew of violations but failed to inform regulators.The Wall Street brokerage, investment bank and primary dealer of government securities also said in a press release that it could face criminal prosecution and possibly be suspended or barred as a securities dealer.

THE SALOMON Brothers' misconduct in the Treasuries market -- coming after such scandals as the fall and bailout of hundreds of savings and loans, the drug and money-laundering and bribing activities of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, the junk bond debacle of Drexel Burnham Lambert and the assorted frauds in the Japanese stock market -- has further stirred anxieties about the integrity of financial markets. Unless they are quelled, such anxieties could hurt saving and investment all around the world.

NEW YORK -- Warren E. Buffett, the interim chairman of Salomon Brothers, has laid out a set of guidelines for behavior at the troubled firm. His message: Losses will be tolerated; anything that damages the reputation of the firm will not be.At the same time, Salomon's stock rallied more than $2 on reports that Laurence A. Tisch, the chairman of the Loews Corporation and CBS Inc., had bought a big block of the firm's stock last week. Traders involved in the purchase confirmed the reports yesterday.

Sanford I. Weill, one of the most storied figures in modern finance, announced yesterday that he would be stepping down at the end of the year as chief executive of Citigroup Inc., the world's largest financial services company. Named to succeed him was Charles O. Prince, 53, head of Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney investment banking and securities operations. Robert B. Willumstad, 57, who is currently president of Citigroup, was named chief operating officer. Although Weill will remain as chairman until the spring of 2006, the announcement ends months of speculation about when Weill, who is 70, would set up a line of succession.

NEW YORK - Salomon Smith Barney, the securities underwriting arm of Citigroup Inc., earned more money arranging U.S. stock sales in 2002 than any other firm, including the previous year's leader Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Salomon's fees from initial public offerings and secondary sales totaled $622 million in the past 12 months, a third more than the $471 million generated by Goldman Sachs, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Without a $171 million fee for managing a $4.27 billion IPO of another Citigroup unit, Travelers Property Casualty Corp.

NEW YORK, - Citigroup Inc. will fire more than 1,200 of the 60,000 employees in its investment and corporate banking units to help counter a slump in revenue from merger advice, stock sales and securities trading, company executives said yesterday. For the past month, top managers at Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney division have been lengthening their lists of people to be dismissed on orders from Salomon Chairman Charles O. Prince III to cut more expenses, they said. The expected cuts - which will follow the dismissal of 3,600 bankers this year - helped boost the bank's shares 3 percent, or $1.03, to $35.70 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.

NEW YORK - Citigroup Inc. has promoted Charles Prince to lead its Salomon Smith Barney Inc. investment bank as the company tries to restore confidence amid investigations into how it handed out shares of initial public offerings while stocks surged. Prince, who has reported to Chief Executive Officer Sanford I. Weill as Citigroup's general counsel and chief operating officer, replaces Michael Carpenter at the helm of the No. 1 bond underwriter and second-biggest manager of stock sales.

AUSTIN -- A new wrinkle in the annals of corporate scandal: Salomon Smith Barney, the stock brokerage/investment banking firm, allocated almost a million shares of hot IPO (initial public offerings) shares in 21 different companies to Bernard Ebbers, CEO of WorldCom, and that is just the tip of the Everest, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. Salomon also gave IPO shares to about two dozen other top telecom executives. According to The Journal, "The linking of investment banking business to IPO allocations has been a controversial, yet pervasive, practice on Wall Street."

Bernard J. Ebbers, World-Com Inc.'s former chief executive, made more than $11 million in four years on 21 hot stock offerings he received from Salomon Smith Barney, according to new documents released yesterday by the House Financial Services Committee. Ebbers lost money on five trades, the documents said, and would have made far more had he sold his stakes in some of the companies before he did. The losses that Ebbers incurred in his Salomon account seem to confirm that he was one of the telecommunications industry's true believers.

NEW YORK -- Salomon Bros. Inc. said yesterday that its profits from improper bids in eight Treasury bond auctions amounted to between $3.3 million and $4.6 million, far less than had been speculated.The announcement came after a three-month internal investigation by Salomon as part of a report on its improper actions to various federal agencies investigating the activities.Because of the complexity involved, Salomon had not been able to determine the economic impact of its misconduct or the profitability of its government bond operations.

NEW YORK -- Salomon Brothers plans to announce in mid-October the amount of money it will hold in reserve for government fines and the costs of lawsuits that the firm expects from the Treasuries market scandal, Salomon told customers yesterday.Wall Street executives also said the firm would determine bonuses for employees within 30 days and that payments would be far more discriminating than in the past.One executive said he had heard Salomon planned to pay its best people more money than they expected, while cutting back significantly on pay to junior executives.

Baltimore-based Warschawski Public Relations has landed the job as guard and shaper of the corporate reputation for adidas-Salomon AG, the world's second-largest sports apparel and equipment manufacturer. The eight-person agency will be responsible for counseling adidas' German headquarters on how to strengthen its internal public relations structure and for strategic planning and implementation of initiatives for the sporting goods company. Warschawski also will be responsible for handling all U.S. corporate reputation activities.

NEW YORK -- Travelers Group Inc., the No. 2 U.S. financial services company, said yesterday that its first-quarter earnings rose a bigger-than-expected 25 percent, led by gains in its Salomon Smith Barney Inc. securities unit.Travelers, which agreed two weeks ago to a $70 billion merger with Citicorp to form the world's biggest financial company, said profit excluding gains from investment sales rose to a record $1.01 billion, or 84 cents a diluted share, from $806.2 million, or 66 cents, a year ago.Profit exceeded the 76 cents that analysts expected, according to First Call Corp.