Get-rich-quick firm raided

Get-rich-quick firm raided

Saturday July 31, 2010

KUALA LUMPUR: A man in his 40s, believed to be the general manager of a get-rich-quick company, was nabbed at its headquarters here yesterday. The police also seized several documents believed to contain details of the scheme.

The raid at the company’s office in Tengkat Tong Shin followed a raid at premises in Sunway Mentari in Petaling Jaya on Tuesday. Commercial crime investigation department assistant director (operations/intelligence) Asst Comm Rohaimi Md Isa said the man had been running the business on an expired licence. Meanwhile, the police have released 43 of the 59 people arrested on Tuesday night. ACP Rohaimi said they were released as police had finished recording their statements. The remand order for the remaining 16 have been extended to Monday to facilitate police in their investigation.

Read More >> http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/7/31/nation/6772140&sec=nation

US bank failures total 108 after 5 shut on Friday 

July 31, 2010

WASHINGTON, July 31 — US bank failures reached 108 so far in 2010 on Friday as regulators seized five small banks in the Pacific Northwest and the Southeast, none publicly traded. Bank failures are expected to peak this quarter, with the industry slowly recovering from large portfolios of bad loans, many tied to commercial real estate.

The banks seized yesterday were LibertyBank of Eugene, Oregon; The Cowlitz Bank of Longview, Washington; Coastal Community Bank of Panama City Beach, Florida; Northwest Bank & Trust of Acworth, Georgia; and Bayside Savings Bank of Port Saint Joe, Florida, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. The five banks would cost the agency’s deposit insurance fund about US$335 million (RM1.07  billion), the FDIC said. The biggest bank failure of the crisis was Washington Mutual, which had US$307 billion in assets when it was seized in September 2008.

 Read More > http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/business/article/us-bank-failures-total-108-after-5-shut-on-friday/  

Report: Investor Li Lu could be successor to Buffett

Saturday July 31, 2010

NEW YORK: Li Lu, a Chinese American investor and hedge fund manager, could be in line to take a top investment role at Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and even succeed the legendary US investor, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

In an interview with the newspaper, Berkshire’s vice chairman Charlie Munger said he felt it was “a foregone conclusion” that Li, a hedge fund manager who largely invests in Asian technology stocks, would become one of Berkshire Hathaway’s top investment officials. The Journal reported that Li, 44, is in line to become a successor to Buffett, 79. Buffett, who has built an estimated US$47bil fortune running the Omaha, Nebraska-based company, does not have any current plans to step down, but speculation about his eventual successor has increased in the past few years. Berkshire operates about 80 businesses and has tens of billions of dollars invested in US companies.

Read More > http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/7/31/business/6768590&sec=business