Law and regulation

Citigroup has hired Thomas Flexner as global head of real estate. Flexner comes to Citi from Bear Stearns, where he recently served as vice chairman overseeing commercial real estate and the financial buyers group.

John Paulson, founder of the hedge fund Paulson & Company, made an unprecedented $3.7 billion last year by betting against subprime mortgages and the financial products that held them.

Standard & Poor’s said the potential bill to U.S. taxpayers for bailing out Wall Street firms could grow to $400 billion, reports The Washington Times.

Samuel Israel III, the former Stamford, Conn., Bayou hedge fund manager who authorities found to have cheated investors out of $400 million, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by a federal judge, the Associated Press reported Monday.

Mike Henkel, the former president of Ibbotson Associates, has joined Envestnet as managing director of the firm’s new retirement services group.

Former Fed Vice Chair Joins TIAA-CREF

In times of market volatility, many people call their fund manager, their broker or their banker to find out what's going on and how they should adjust their portfolios. But fund executives say that the subprime crisis, so far, has not led to knee-jerk decisions.

Hedge Fund Managers Have Rough Month

NEW YORK - Equity mutual funds were hit with "drastic declines" across-the-board in just about every sector and style in the first quarter of 2008.

Consumer confidence in the economy, including stocks, bonds, mortgages, credit cards and structured products, is dropping, but experts say consumers need to stay invested in a fully diversified portfolio of mutual funds for their own good and for the good of the economy.

NEW YORK - The Transamerica Small/Mid Cap Value Fund was recognized as the best small-cap core fund at the annual Lipper Fund Awards dinner here last Wednesday.

NEW YORK – The financial sector took a beating in the first quarter, but financial “bottom feeders” will speed its recovery, possibly ahead of the rest of the market, experts said here at a gathering of researchers and data providers on Thursday night.

A U.K.-based hedge fund that was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday said the lawsuit is “utterly misguided,” and vowed to fight the charges.

Chinese regulators are becoming increasingly skeptical of financial advice from the U.S. to sacrifice the country’s stability for the greater good of stabilizing the global economy, Reuters reports.

The global credit crisis remains a significant threat to economic growth, despite recent improvement, according to the International Monetary Fund.

BOSTON-The worldwide, far-reaching ramifications of questionable subprime mortgages in the United States should have been foreseen and could have been prevented, separately managed account and mutual fund executives concurred at the Money Management Institute's annual conference here earlier this month.

Albany District Attorney David Soares has done an about-face and has told New York Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno that ex-governor Eliot Spitzer’s alleged involvement in an investigation into Bruno’s whereabouts was absolutely, positively Spitzer’s orders, according to reports over the weekend.

NEW YORK—FTSE is ramping up its partnership with the Conflict Securities Advisory Group, which has been focusing on Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria since 2001, through the new FTSE CSAG Terror-Free Index Series, launched here Wednesday at a press conference at the Women’s National Republican Club.

Eliot Spitzer, former Wall Street crusader, New York State Attorney General and New York Governor in a first term that ended with his abrupt resignation on March 17, may be forced to release thousands of incriminating e-mails with regards to his alleged smear campaign against Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

Shareholders in a number of large Fidelity mutual funds, most notably the $73 billion Contrafund, succeeded in forcing a proxy vote at press time on whether the company should institute a "genocide-free" investment policy. Insiders did not expect, however, the unbinding measure to pass.