Life's Great Expectations!

Citi gives up control of brokerage to Morgan Stanley, 1 step toward ending supermarket model Madlen Read and Sara Lepro, AP Business Writers Wednesday January 14, 2009, 10:41 am EST NEW YORK (AP) -- The original financial supermarket is dead. Citigroup signaled the end of a decade-long experiment to create one-stop shopping for financial services -- everything from consumer loans to investment banking -- with Tuesday's announcement that it was putting its Smith Barney brokerage into a joint venture with Morgan Stanley. The deal, which will give Citigroup $2.7 billion in badly needed cash as it gives up control of Smith Barney, comes as the company still struggles in the aftermath of the mortgage and credit crisis. There is speculation that CEO Vikram Pandit, who for months supported Citigroup as a "universal bank," will be tak...

Citigroup, trying to slim down, will combine brokerage business with Morgan Stanley's Madlen Read, AP Business Writer Tuesday January 13, 2009, 5:28 pm EST NEW YORK (AP) -- Citigroup Inc. and Morgan Stanley agreed Tuesday to combine their brokerages in a deal that shows how much Citigroup wants to slim down and build up cash. Morgan Stanley is paying Citigroup $2.7 billion for a 51 percent stake in the joint venture. Citigroup will have a 49 percent stake. Citigroup's retail brokerage, Smith Barney, was once the crown jewel in its wealth management business. The new unit, to be called Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, will have more than 20,000 advisors, $1.7 trillion in client assets; and serve 6.8 million households around the world, the companies said. Citigroup will recognize a pretax gain of about $9.5 billion because of the deal, or about $5.8 billion after taxes, the companies said. The joint venture is expected to achieve total cost savings for the two companies of around $...

Green Power Partnership: National Top 50 As of January 6, 2009 source: http://www.epa.gov/greenpower/toplists/top50.htm The Green Power Partnership works with a wide variety of leading organizations — from Fortune 500 companies to local, state and federal governments, and a growing number of colleges and universities. The following Top Partner Rankings highlight the annual green power purchases of leading organizations within the United States and across individual industry sectors. These green power purchases help reduce the environmental impacts of electricity use and support the development of new renewable generation capacity nationwide. Purchase amounts reflect U.S. operations only and are sourced from U.S.-based green power resources. Organizations can meet EPA purchase requirements using any combination of three different product options (1) Renewable Energy Certificates, (2) On-site generation, and (3) Utility green power products. Purchase figures are based on annualized P...