By Rick Rothacker | From Charlotte.com

Bank of America Corp. said Thursday it’s combining two major divisions to streamline the way it serves business clients.

In the reorganization, veteran Bank of America executive Gene Taylor will run a new unit called Global Corporate & Investment Banking and add the title of vice chairman, reporting to Chairman Ken Lewis.

In the new post, Taylor will continue to oversee commercial banking operations that serve mid-sized companies, while adding the capital markets and investment banking unit that offers Wall Street-style services such as stock and bond offerings.

Al de Molina, who runs capital markets and investment banking, will now report to Taylor, instead of Lewis. He will hold the title of chief executive of Banc of America Securities.

Unlike a restructuring last fall that cut 4,500 jobs, the initiative is not about shaving costs or reducing positions, spokesman Bob Stickler said. "This is simply a reorganization to try to better serve the customer," he said.

The move comes as the Charlotte company is slowing a planned $675 million investment in its capital markets and investment banking unit. Last week, Chief Financial Officer Marc Oken said the company had spent about $500 million so far, but was "holding the line" because of difficult financial markets.

Thursday’s announcement wasn’t a sign of an investment banking pullback, Stickler said. "We are still very intent on growing the investment bank," he said.

Under the new structure, the nation’s No. 2 bank by assets said it could do a better job of providing capital markets and investment banking services to business clients. For example, a client manager who works with a mid-sized business will now be in the same unit that helps companies raise money through stock and bond offerings and provides merger advice.

The combined unit would have accounted for about 40 percent of the company’s $4.3 billion in profits in the second quarter.

Sandler O’Neill & Partners analyst Jeffery Harte said the move makes sense as the company follows a "universal bank" model of offering a full array of services. He said it was too early to cast judgment on the company’s investment bank expansion.

"It takes a lot of time to expand an investment bank," said Harte, who doesn’t own any of the bank’s shares but whose firm has received investment banking compensation from the company.

De Molina, 48, has led the capital markets and investment banking unit since the spring of 2004. The bank said he brought the idea of combining units to Lewis and will be a "key partner" with Taylor, 57. De Molina remains on the risk and capital committee, the group of top executives that guides company strategy.

The bank also announced Thursday that Carter McClelland, 59, who runs the investment banking unit under de Molina, will retire at the end of the year.

Restructurings are nothing new for Bank of America. Last fall, the company combined its consumer and small business units and created a new technology and service position. As part of last year’s FleetBoston Financial Corp. acquisition, Taylor gave up control of the consumer business, while keeping commercial banking.

From SiliconIndia

Cisco Systems, Inc will acquire Sheer Networks, co-founded by Sunil Kishen. The privately held Sheer Networks based in San Jose, CA, develops intelligent network and service management products for service providers and large enterprises.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cisco will pay approximately $97 million in cash and assumed options for Sheer Networks. In addition, the acquisition price may be increased by as much as $25 million depending on the degree to which certain development and product milestones are met after close. The acquisition of Sheer is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to close in the first quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2006.

Sheer’s virtual network model hides the complexity of physical networks in a way that makes them accessible to a variety of management applications. This Dynamic Network Abstraction layer makes them transparent and accessible to a broad range of management applications.

Building on the Sheer Networks technology and platform, Cisco will develop and sell device, network and service-level management applications enabling intelligent management across multi-vendor networks and network-based services. Cisco will also enable other hardware and software vendors to develop and deliver applications that can easily interoperate with Cisco applications through standards-based APIs. These same APIs enable easy integration into service provider OSS/BSS environments.

Funds of Funds

September 19-21, 2005 * Pier 60 * New York City

The largest gathering of Fund of Funds and their Investors in the US

This year GAIM USA Fund of Funds builds on the tremendous success of the inaugural 2004 event which attracted over 450 institutional investors, leading Hedge Fund of Funds, hedge fund managers and other industry experts.  A brand new full re-researched program brings you a speaker faculty with more industry thought leaders, key decision makers and influential allocators than at any other event this year.

CEOs and CIOs from now fewer than 20 of the world’s top hedge fund of funds will be speaking — representing well in excess of $100 billion of capital.  Here are some of the speakers you will meet at this year’s event:

�         Byron R. Wien, Senior Investment Strategist for the United States, MORGAN STANLEY

      �         Jeff Greenstein, CEO, QUELLOS GROUP, LLC

      �         Dr. John Rowsell, Ph.D, President, GLENWOOD

      �         Jane Buchan, CEO, PACIFIC ALTERNATIVE ASSET MANAGEMENT CO.

      �         Michael T. Welch, CIO & Head of Alternative Investment Solutions, UBS

      �         E. Gerald Corrigan, Managing Director, GOLDMAN SACHS & CO., Chairman, COUNTERPARTY RISK MANAGEMENT POLICY GROUP II

      �         Roxanne M. Martino, President & CIO, HARRIS ALTERNATIVES L.L.C

�         Ivo Felder, Head of Hedge Fund Investment Management, RMF INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT

�         Sean McGould, CIO & President, LIGHTHOUSE PARTNERS, LLC

�         Todd E. Petzel, CIO, AZIMUTH TRUST

�         Emanuel Derman, Prof. Financial Engineering Columbia University & Head of Risk, PRISMA CAPITAL PARTNERS

�         Afsaneh Mashayekhi Beschloss, President and CEO, THE ROCK CREEK GROUP

�         Alexander M. Ineichen, Head of AIS Research, UBS

�         Jerry Wang, CEO, VISION INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT LIMITED

�         Ron Mock, Director, Alternative Investments,

This is the best opportunity you will have this year to hear where and how the most influential allocators from the hedge fund of funds industry will be placing capital in the year ahead.

Email: register@iirusa.com

Web: WWW.GAIMUSAFOF.COM

Call: 888-670-8200 or click here to register online

From Youngstartup.com

Join innovative early stage and emerging companies from around the globe as they convene with some of the world’s leading international VCs at the World Venture Summit on September 27 & 28 in New York City.

If you would like to be considered for an exhibiting and/or presenting opportunity at World Venture Summit 2005, submit your 1-2 page executive summary to plans@youngstartup.com prior to Tuesday, August 23rd

Benefits include:

- Access and exposure to early stage international investors
- 8′ Exhibit space for full duration of two-day Summit
- Two-Page Company Profile published in event guide
- Complimentary passes for two company executives
- Investor Pitch and Presentation Coaching
- Introductions to leading investors and strategic partners
- Opportunity to be selected for presentation

The fee to exhibit is $595.

Companies selected to present will be invoiced an additional $595.

Click here to register now.

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From bloomberg

July 25 (Bloomberg) — Canada’s seven-year ban on bank takeovers, a restriction that left the country’s biggest lenders dwarfed by foreign rivals, may be ending.

The government plans to introduce guidelines by the end of the year that would permit mergers among Canada’s five largest banks. To ensure they get broad political backing, the regulations contain an antitrust clause that prevents any one lender from having too large a share of the market by revenue, said people who have seen the rules.

The change, delayed for more than a year by Finance Minister Ralph Goodale, is likely to spark the first round of consolidation in the Canadian bank industry in more than four decades. With the market-share cap preventing a merger between Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank, the two biggest lenders, No. 4 Bank of Montreal and No. 5 Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, are more probable targets, analysts said.

“It’s going to be wide open,” said Alex Zivic, who helps manage about $12 billion for the Signature Group at CI Fund Management Inc. in Toronto. “I wouldn’t count anyone out.”

Mergers would help make Canada’s banks more competitive after the government in 1998 stopped No. 1 Royal Bank from buying Bank of Montreal and scuttled a merger between Toronto- Dominion and CIBC. At the time, Royal Bank was about half the size of Citicorp. Today, its $350 billion in assets is dwarfed by Citigroup $1.5 trillion.

Competition

While allowing mergers, Goodale needs to preserve enough competition among Canada’s 68 banks to win support from opposition parties. U.S. regulators limit banks to 10 percent of the nation’s deposits, a cap that Bank of America Corp., the second-biggest U.S. lender, is close to breaching.

“This is a reasonable condition that has precedence in other countries,” said Zivic, who has been buying shares of CIBC and Bank of Montreal in anticipation of mergers.

Bank of Nova Scotia Chief Executive Officer Richard Waugh has campaigned for the freedom to make domestic acquisitions, saying they’re needed to reduce costs and boost returns and to compete for business outside Canada.

“The guidelines must be finalized to give banks greater flexibility in domestic and international markets,” Waugh, 57, wrote in a submission to the federal government last week.

Royal Bank stunned Canada’s bank industry in 1998 with its surprise agreement to buy Bank of Montreal in a transaction then valued at more than $13 billion. Toronto-Dominion and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce unveiled a merger of their own four months later. Paul Martin, then finance minister and now Goodale’s boss as Canada’s prime minister, blocked both deals.

Expansion

Stymied at home, Canadian banks spent more than $12 billion on acquisitions in the U.S. during the past five years.

Bank of Montreal CEO Anthony Comper in February said he was willing to spend as much as $2 billion to purchase U.S. rivals. Toronto-Dominion on July 12 agreed to buy Hudson United Bancorp of Mahwah, New Jersey, for $1.9 billion.

Unlike the U.S., which still has almost 10,000 banks, the Canadian market is highly consolidated. The five biggest banks account for about two-thirds of deposits and 88 percent of the industry’s C$1.9 trillion ($1.6 trillion) in assets.

CIBC, the product of a 1961 merger by Canadian Bank of Commerce and Imperial Bank of Canada, has almost triple the assets of No. 6 National Bank of Canada and more than 17 times the assets of No. 7 Laurentian Bank of Canada.

Market Value

Shares of Bank of Montreal have risen 2 percent this year, the worst performance of the country’s five biggest banks. The bank has a market value of C$29.5 billion. CIBC has gained 7 percent, lifting its market value to C$26.2 billion.

The last successful Canadian bank merger was Toronto- Dominion’s 2000 purchase of Canada Trust’s parent CT Financial Services Inc. for C$8 billion. The government allowed it because CT wasn’t one of the five biggest lenders. Federal law also protects Canadian banks from foreign takeovers, ruling out incursions by the likes of Citigroup or HSBC Holdings Plc.

Goodale last month said he wants to release his guidelines before yearend, provided his government secures broad political backing for the initiative.

He plans to send letters to his opponents in Parliament seeking written assurances that they’ll hold “constructive debate” on bank mergers and won’t change positions before the election scheduled for early next year, said John Embury, a Finance Ministry spokesman.

Opposition

The Conservative Party and Bloc Quebecois, the country’s two largest opposition parties, have said they support bank mergers. The New Democratic Party is opposed.

Any proposed merger would be reviewed by Canada’s Parliamentary finance committees, the Competition Bureau and the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. Goodale would have the final say.

Royal Bank may be the most restricted by a provision limiting the size of combined banks. The Toronto-based lender holds almost a quarter of Canada’s bank assets, according to the Canadian Bankers Association. Combining with Toronto-Dominion or No. 3 Bank of Nova Scotia would leave Royal Bank with about 40 percent of the banking market by assets.

(more…)

From BusinessWire

BIO LIFE TECH is the trendsetter in showcasing the most promising young companies in the biotechnology, nanotechnology, life sciences, and pharmaceutical industries.

Companies that would like to participate in BIO LIFE TECH 2005 are invited to apply at www.biolifetech.org. The deadline to apply is August 5!

Companies that wish to sponsor BIO LIFE TECH 2005 should contact the Early Stage East office as soon as possible at 302-777-2460 or jcropp@earlystageeast.org, as sponsorships are selling out quickly.

Companies that have received up to $5 million in institutional venture capital are invited to apply. Up to 20 companies will be selected to present their high-growth entrepreneurial investment opportunities in search of their early rounds of institutional venture capital.

The 2005 Conference will be held in Baltimore, Maryland on September 13 & 14 at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore. The BIO LIFE TECH Venture Conference is hosted in Baltimore as it proves to be a hotbed for activity in these industries. These industries are dominant in the central region of Early Stage East’s geographic footprint, which extends from New England to the Carolinas.

Contact:

Early Stage East
Julie Cropp, 302.777.2460
jcropp@earlystageeast.org