The private equity firm Carlyle Group intends to raise $2 billion for a third Japan fund to follow its seven-year old second fund, with Japan’s aggressive monetary easing helping to reinforce investor interest, according to knowledgeable sources. Carlyle is the sole worldwide private equity company with funds specifically earmarked exclusively for Japanese investments, and plans to tap investor desires for alternative investments, while Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government presses monetary expansion to fight deflation, keeping interest rates low.

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The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE:BK): Current price $30.12

BNY Mellon is launching a significant two-year recruiting program to grow BNY Mellon Wealth Management’s sales force by 50 percent. What is more, the bank plans to add private bankers and mortgage bankers, portfolio managers and wealth strategists, alongside additional sales support staff. The move marks an important new step in BNY Mellon Wealth Management’s multi-year growth strategy through which to continue to build presence and capabilities both in the United States and worldwide.

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The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (NYSE:RBS): Current price $10.44

The Prudential Regulation Authority will allow Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Lloyds Banking Group (NYSE:LYG) to fill multibillion-pound capital shortfalls with future earnings, and also by divesting assets, instead of forcing them to sell shares or to accept new government aid. The Authority is cooperating with the United Kingdom’s banks to explore ways in which to plug a 25-billion-pound capital gap identified in March, and said that RBS and Lloyds “have advanced their plans to a position where disclosure is appropriate,” and that additional announcements would be made by other banks as capital discussions are finalized.

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Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS): Current price $25.06

Inside sources report that Morgan Stanley’s infrastructure investment division will search out $4 billion for a second worldwide fund. At that magnitude, the new pool from Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners would equal the previous vehicle from 2008, which originally targeted $2.5 billion. The bank intends to officially commence raising money in the coming weeks, according to the same sources.

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JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) Chief Executive and Chairman Jamie Dimon is still the most powerful man in the United States banking industry. With threats that the leader, who had led the bank through the financial crisis with not one quarterly loss darkening its balance sheet, would resign from his post if shareholders chose to strip him of his title of chairman, investors voted down that proposal at Tuesday’s annual meeting. While it has been argued that Dimon has made too many mistakes to hold both roles, shareholders reaffirmed their support for him.

Following the vote, Dimon left the stage of the company’s annual meeting to the soft piano strokes of Bruce Hornsby’s “The Way It Is,” which has a refrain that states: “That’s just the way it is/Some things’ll never change.” While the bank naturally denied that it was a message to shareholders, it could not have been better choreographed. A memorandum sent to employees after the meeting read that he plans to stay at the bank “for many years to come,” according to The Financial Times.

Still, despite the emphatic tone taken by the bank in its official communications, questions and concerns linger; the board remains under scrutiny and questions regarding his successor persist. Dimon may have escaped, but the several of the bank’s directors who sit on its risk committee continue to feel the force of investors’ anger. All three — Ellen Futter, a museum president, James Crown, who runs a Chicago-based investment firm, and David Cote, the head of Honeywell, bore the brunt of shareholder anger regarding the London Whale, trader Bruno Iksil who lost JPMorgan $6.2 billion in misplaced derivative bets last year.

Rubber-stamping exercises — those that serve to reaffirm de jure power of institutions or leaders — are commonplace in corporate America, but even so, none of those three directors, who have little expertise in risk management, could attract more than 60 percent of the vote in their re-elections. According to the shareholder advisory service Institutional Shareholder Services, which criticized all three for their lack of experience in risk management and financial regulation, the average support for board nominees at S&P 500 companies this year is 96.9 percent. Before the JPMorgan vote, just six nominees from a total of 2,127 executives elected this year have failed to receive more than 60 percent of votes cast.

This clear break with precedent has a profound implication for the bank. Given the choice between criticizing the board of directors or limiting the power of the company’s still-popular chief executive, investors decided to keep on Dimon as both chief executive and chairman. But, as the proposal to strip him of his chairmanship was aimed at bringing more oversight, Tuesday’s vote begets the question of whether the issue of increased oversight of Dimon has been laid to rest.

A change in leadership did emerge to some degree during the annual meeting. The bank’s lead director, former Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Lee Raymond, took a more active role during the meeting compared with last year, including answering shareholder questions. But many investors were displeased that queries addressed to other directors were answered by either Dimon or Raymond, while most of the board sat with their backs to the room.

However, the biggest concern raised by shareholders was the vote count for the three risk committee members. “This is borderline rejection, too close for comfort, and I would suggest they step down,” said Anne Simpson, head of corporate governance at the pension fund Calpers, according to the Times. Of the three directors, Flutter — who received just 53 percent of the vote — is the most likely member of the committee to depart, sources told the publication.

Raymond promised that the bank took shareholders’ “concerns, suggestions, and feedback very seriously and said that it would give an unspecified “tempered” response to the votes against the directors. The most likely response the bank will take is to add an additional member to the risk policy committee, as it did last year when the board hired former KPMG executive Tim Flynn.

The other pressing problem is who will replace Dimon when he does retire. Raymond said that “shortly after Jamie became the chairman and CEO the board made it clear to Jamie that his first priority was to develop successors.” But that conversation took place more than six years ago, and since then, experienced executives, including Bill Winters and Steve Black, have left the bank and questions over his potential successor remain unanswered.

Despite these problems, Dimon said that his executive committee is “as good a team of leaders as I’ve ever had the privilege to work with.”

Follow Meghan on Twitter @MFoley_WSCS

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JPMorgan Chase’s shareholders have soundly tossed a proposal to split Jamie Dimon’s two top jobs in the Wall Street bank. Chief Executive Dimon can now keep is position as chairman as well, as the vote to take it from him garnered a mere 32.2 percent, which was actually down from the approximate 40 percent supporting a similar move in 2012. Concurrently on Tuesday, all 11 directors of the bank’s board were re-elected.

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Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC): Current price $13.47

On Tuesday, Charlotte-based BofA announced an underwritten public offering of depositary shares, each representing a 1/25th interest in a share of its Non-Cumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series U, having a liquidation preference of $25,000 per share, which is equivalent to $1,000 per depositary share. Bank of America Merrill Lynch will serve as sole book-running manager for the offering. The company will use any net proceeds from the sale of the depositary shares to redeem its outstanding 7.25 percent Non-Cumulative Preferred Stock, Series J, 6.70 percent Noncumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series 6, and 6.25 percent Noncumulative Perpetual Preferred Stock, Series 7.

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Citigroup (NYSE:C): Current price $51.83

Via its Treasury and Trade Solutions unit, Citi announces an important investment in its Commercial Card issuing division through the intro of its Global Issuing platform in the Latin America region. The first location to adopt the tech will be Puerto Rico, establishing Citigroup as the first local Commercial Card Issuer to provide a chip card solution into that market. The firm’s clients continue to swell internationally, and this proprietary operating environment offers a unified world platform that makes truly consistent and cutting edge card programs easier.

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IntercontinentalExchange (NYSE:ICE): Current price $174.12

ICE has formally requested a European Union okay for its plans to acquire NYSE Euronext (NYSE:NYX), 15 months subsequent to regulators disallowing Deutsche Boerse’s purchase of the New York Stock Exchange operator. In April, the EU regulator announced that it would review the exchange’s plans after national regulators failed to object to it taking the lead. The formal filing by ICE was made on May 17, and thus generated an initial deadline of June 24 for the EU to rule on the proposed transaction, according to the European Commission website on Tuesday.

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Don’t Miss: JPMorgan’s Dimon Is Staying in Power.

Despite the lack of oversight that contributed to JPMorgan Chase’s (NYSE:JPM) $6.2-billion loss from failed derivative trades last year, shareholders do not want Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Jamie Dimon to quit — which is what many worried he would do if stripped of the title of chairman. But those concerned shareholders can shelve their fears, at least for the time being; the vote that sought to separate the two powerful positions failed.

JPMorgan’s annual meeting brought months of bitter shareholder campaigning to a head on Tuesday. Investors have argued for months that Dimon has made too many mistakes during his tenure to hold both positions. Stripping him of the chairman title and giving it to another director, would have ensured that Dimon’s actions as chief executive would be under increased oversight. The trading loss and a series of confrontations with regulators fueled the campaign to institute an independent chairman, a move that would strengthen oversight of the bank’s risk controls.

Yet, Dimon had suggested that he would leave the bank, and that move would have unsettled investors who still believe his leadership can bring big returns. Among the CEOs of the United States’ largest banks, he ranks first for stock returns. Even more impressive, during his tenure, he lead the bank through the financial crisis with no quarterly losses and a strong balance sheet. If Dimon resigned, CLSA bank analyst Mike Mayo estimated that JPMorgan’s shares would have dropped as much as 10 percent and erased about $20 billion of market value, according to Reuters. Another concern for shareholders was that many of Dimon’s advisers, who helped navigate the financial crisis, have left the bank, leaving a team of younger executives that do not have the necessary clout to reign in Dimon.

After a tally of Tuesday’s, a source told The Wall Street Journal that Dimon — the nation’s most power banker — kept his title of chairman, with 40 percent of shares voting down the proposal, despite the turbulent year that saw JPMorgan and its top executives faced with the damage brought by the London Whale losses. Last year, a similar proposal to separate the chairman and chief executive positions won about 40 percent of votes.

All three members of JPMorgan board’s risk committee also received backing from shareholders even though shareholder advisory firm, Institutional Shareholder Services, criticized all three for their lack of experience in risk management, financial regulation, and other relevant areas.

Some industry experts expected shareholders to vote down the resolution; in fact, they said that Dimon’s continued leadership was assured by his proven track record of generating strong profits, and the results showed that the sentiment was still alive and well.

The board of directors led a proactive campaign to avert the split. JPMorgan’s efforts were spearheaded by the board’s decision to slash Dimon’s pay by more than 50 percent in January. In March, directors urged shareholders to vote against the proposal, noting in a proxy filing that the “board has determined that the most effective leadership model for the firm currently is that Mr. Dimon serves as both.”

Follow Meghan on Twitter @MFoley_WSCS

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On Monday, Goldman Sachs initiated the divestiture of around $1.1 billion worth of Hong Kong-traded shares in Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, offering to sell 100 percent of its remaining interest in the bank by market value. Such a sale would represent the final phase in Goldman’s investment in China’s ICBC. Before its 2006 IPO, ICBC was a technically insolvent government institution, damaged by the bad loans that saddled China’s financial industry. The bank’s $240 billion market value is currently just below that of JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) and Barclays put together.

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The Blackstone Group (NYSE:BX): Current price $23.39

Blackstone is mulling over an initial public offering of its Brixmor Property Group shopping-center unit by the end of 2013, taking advantage of a stock market rally as it begins to divest real estate assets. Knowledgeable sources indicated that a share sale as a real estate investment trust is possible by the end of this year or early 2014. Last week, Brixmor chose a new financial head, a move some analysts interpreted as heralding an IPO. The assets which comprise the core of Brixmor were bought in the $9 billion acquisition of American shopping centers from Australia’s Centro Properties Group in 2011.

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First Potomac Realty Trust (NYSE:FPO): Current price $15.25

First Potomac will sell a portfolio comprised of 24 industrial properties, consisting of roughly 4.3 million square feet, in a total sales price of $259 million. The majority of the industrial portfolio, accounting for about 4.0 million square feet, is being sold to an affiliate of Blackstone Real Estate Partners VII at a purchase price of $241.5 million. Subsequent to the purchase, the properties being bought by Blackstone will be managed by IndCor Properties, which is Blackstone’s national industrial portfolio company.

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BGC Partners (NASDAQ:BGCP): Current price $5.77

The brokerage company has obtained regulatory approval for the proposed sale of certain assets making up its platform for the fully electronic trading of benchmark, on-the-run United States Treasuries to NASDAQ OMX Group. As previously reported, total consideration for the transaction comes to $1.234 billion.

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Don’t Miss: Will Dimon Resign If Forced Out of Chairman Role?

Shareholders could vote to separate the positions of chairman and chief executive, which have both been occupied by Dimon since 2006. Shareholder protests are usually only fruitful at companies that are struggling, but if successful this move would signal a significant power shift in corporate America.

Some investors argue that an independent chairman is necessary to counterbalance the chief executive. If shareholders reject the proposal, it will be a powerful act of faith in Dimon’s leadership. Whether or not the positions are separated, changes that would create a greater distribution of power within the company are expected. The board is expected to face shareholder’s questions as well, as they want to be sure that the board is not just Dimon’s puppet. Critics believe the board is not independent enough and has not been properly monitoring risk-taking behavior at the bank. The board did firmly support Dimon as CEO and chairman.

Many companies, including 7 out of 10 of JPMorgan’s largest owners, are run by men who occupy both CEO and chairman positions. Dimon has been incredibly successful running JPMorgan, and has come to symbolize the American archetype of a businessman atop a bank too big to fail. Dimon successfully pulled JPMorgan through the financial crisis of 2008 and, whether the CEO and chairman positions are separated or not, shareholders are eager to know who will replace him. After coming under scrutiny in the aftermath of the London Whale trading fiasco last year, Dimon has faced harsh criticism for his power over the board and his approach to risk-management.

There are many arguments for and against combining the roles of CEO and chairman. It has been rumored that Dimon will quit if he loses his position as chair, and as he continues to shuffle his executive chairs, uncertainty about who his successor would be is growing. Earlier this month presiding director Lee Raymond and governance committee chair William Weldon wrote a letter to shareholders arguing for Dimon to keep both roles, but the letter may only have given fuel to their opposition.

A vote forcing Dimon to relinquish his role as chairman could lead to crisis for the bank, but would also bring what some believe is a much needed power-shift both within JP Morgan and corporate America as a whole.

Don’t Miss: Are US Banks Playing with Fire in the Commercial Loan Market?

The very small margins have been troubling for banks like Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) since the beginning of the year. In order to make more on the lowest margins in over 50 years, banks have had to push big in commercial lending, according to The Financial Times. Regulators have noticed dangerous trends developing for the first time since the financial crisis of 2008. Consequently, the Fed has issued new standards for leveraged lending practices among banks. Citigroup (NYSE:C) and JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) join BofA and Wells Fargo in having to comply with the new Fed guidelines by Tuesday May 21.

How can the top banks put their own business and the economy at risk? According to Moody’s, the problems come from the banks’ refusal to discipline themselves and stay away from loans to businesses already saddled with debt. Other risks are general overexposure and the potential to create an asset bubble. Amid calls for banks to increase the amount of capital in their portfolios, the lending practices so far in 2013 have reflected a trend in the opposite direction.

Business loans have surged to $1.55 trillion this year, a 10 percent increase when compared to the first four months of 2012. Though positive economic indicators have emerged recently, the interest rates have remained at levels that challenge big banks’ ability to make the profits its investors want. In this situation, banks are seeing the only way out of the trap is through widening the pool of potential borrowers.

In order to pull off an increase in commercial and industrial lending, banks have needed to lower standards. Companies that might not have qualified in previous years are being loaned money that might never be paid back. Are the Fed’s efforts another example of government intervention when banks are finally giving out the loans many economists have called for? In the case of big banks’ current lending habits, many will argue the constraints in place are not nearly adequate.

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Subsequent to the release of new rules by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Well Fargo and Citigroup (NYSE:C) have suspended the broad majority of their foreclosure sales in several. The sudden slowdown was in reaction to the OCC’s release of minimum standards for foreclosure sales in April, which typically mark the final act in the foreclosure process. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve issued identical guidance to the banks which it oversees, thus making the guidelines universal for the industry. However, JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) has since resumed its normal volume.

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Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE:GS): Current price $158.18

On Friday, Goldman Sachs Asset Management reported the launch of the Goldman Sachs Multi-Manager Alternatives Fund, which offers exposure to an array of alternative and non-traditional investment strategies inside the convenient structure of a mutual fund. It is anticipated that the Fund will invest in a wide range of strategies, among which include dynamic equity, equity long-short, event-driven and credit, relative value, tactical-trading, and opportunistic fixed income strategies.

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SunTrust Banks (NYSE:STI): Closing price $31.88

SunTrust has won a court order on Friday blocking a hedge fund from going forward with a $13-million arbitration in regards to mortgage-backed securities. United States District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan disallows Turnberry Capital Management from pushing a securities arbitration before the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. The ruling represents the most recent in a series of lawsuits filed by banks that are challenging the ability of investors with large damage claims to have their cases heard by FINRA, which is a Wall Street industry-funded group.

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For many years, Dimon and other executives have hand-picked new directors, a practice that is now considered unusual for a major U.S. bank. All of the other ten largest banks in the United States have said they use executive search firms, which enable them to review a range of possible candidates. Instead of following this method, the JPMorgan board of governance committee, which is responsible for hiring new board members, depends almost entirely on referrals from management. Previously, little was known about the bank’s method of hiring new directors.

This revelation may prompt an examination of the banks’ selection processes and further questions about how much influence Dimon wields over the bank’s board. The shareholder vote next Tuesday will decide whether the board should strip him of the chairman title and give it to another director. If the board votes to split the roles, Dimon’s actions as chief executive will be under increased oversight.

Dimon managed told hold onto both positions even after it was revealed that a single trader, Bruno Iksil — now known as the London Whale — lost more than $6 billion from roguish derivative trades last year, but the deep problems that the loss revealed have haunted both Dimon and JPMorgan. Hearings held by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to determine how the bank was able to rack up such massive losses found that JPMorgan dodged regulators, misled investors, and manipulated risk models to hide the mounting losses.

Now, it has been divulged that Dimon selects directors in a manner that creates the appearance that the board may be too close to Dimon and his senior management team, according to corporate governance experts. But bank spokeswoman Kristin Lemkau told Reuters Wednesday that the board has not found executive search firms to be useful. “Many of the director candidates for our board are names already well known to the business community,” she said. Former Boeing (NYSE:BA) Chief Financial Officer James Bell, who joined the board in November 2011, is one such example.

The eleven-member board can be considered strong and relatively independent by most corporate standards; in regulatory filings, ten directors are described by the bank as independent from management. Former Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) Chief Executive Lee Raymond is the lead independent director, and several important shareholders believe he acts as an effective counterweight to Dimon.

The problem is that no director other than Dimon has significant banking industry experience, a flaw that began to concern investors last year after the trading loss. “This board doesn’t have the bench, the expertise, the supporting cast,” Michael Pryce-Jones, an analyst at CtW Investment Group, told Reuters. The firm acts an adviser to union pension funds owning about 6 million JPMorgan shares and is pushing for changes to the bank’s board.

Proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services has already recommended that Dimon’s job be split into two positions, especially as the experience of the remaining directors on the risk committee lacked experience in risk management, financial regulation, and other relevant areas.

Rampant financial troubles forced Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) to restructure in the wake of the financial crisis, but both banks chose candidates well-suited to the banking business. At that time, Citigroup added eight directors with experience in regulatory and risk management, according to ISS. Bank of America added five directors, including a former governor of the United States Federal Reserve. Both these banks used searched firms, as do all other major U.S. banks in similar circumstances. Only JPMorgan relies on the recommendation of its management.

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On Thursday, the bank said that it would slash an additional 1,400 jobs, as it moves forward with reducing operations to boost profitability. The United Kingdom government controls an 81-percent interest in the company, subsequent to a multibillion-dollar bailout during the financial crisis. RBS said that the layoffs would be taken from its local retail operations and would be isolated to so-called back-office functions. The bank announced in May that it was getting closer to privatization after posting a first-quarter net profit of 393 million pounds.

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KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY): Current price $10.69

KeyCorp announced Thursday that its board has declared the following dividends for the second quarter: A cash dividend of 5.5 cents per share on the corporation’s outstanding common shares, payable June 14 to holders of record of common shares as of the close on May 28. Also, a dividend of $1.9375 per share on the corporation’s outstanding 7.750 percent Non-Cumulative Perpetual Convertible Preferred Stock, Series A, to holders of record as of the close on May 31, for the period commencing on (and including) March 15 to (but excluding) June 15. The dividend will be paid on June 17.

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Lloyds Banking Group (NYSE:LYG): Current price $3.75

Chief Executive Antonio Horta-Osorio says that Lloyds will return to profitability in 2013, thus permitting the United Kingdom government to begin divesting its stake in the lender, commenting, “We expect this to enable us to return to profitability this year and to grow our core business, to realize our full potential to deliver strong, stable and sustainable returns for you, the shareholders, and to allow U.K. taxpayers’ investment in the group to be repaid.” Horta-Osorio’s remarks were heard at the lender’s annual general meeting in Edinburgh on Thursday.

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BlackRock (NYSE:BLK): Current price $288.33

BlackRock and Western Asset Management Co. are offering a new concept on traditional money-market funds, while regulators are poised to impose broad changes on the $2.58-trillion industry. BlackRock, as the world’s number-one money manager, and Legg Mason’s (NYSE:LM) Western Asset division have initiated bond funds created to work similarly to money funds, but with a crucial difference: the new “ultra-short” funds have share prices that vary along with the value of their holdings, as opposed to a fixed net asset value, making for a distinguishing feature of money funds. Further, they have shorter maturities than the similar ultra-short bond funds that hit the wall when credit markets froze in 2008.

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