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By Grant McCool

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A judge will rule next week on whether the names of 200 top bonus earners at Merrill Lynch & Co should be kept confidential.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried said at the end of a hearing on Friday that he would issue a ruling "within the next week" in a legal tussle between New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Bank of America Corp, which bought Merrill on January 1.

A lawyer for Merrill and Bank of America told the judge that the names were a trade secret and should not be made public, citing concerns over competition, privacy and security of those personnel.

"There are only five people in the company who would know all 200 names," lawyer Evan Davis said.

"We're going to lose people, that is the competitive harm, that's what makes it a trade secret."

But a senior deputy of Cuomo, who has pressed for months for details on the billions of dollars paid to executives at banks given U.S. government bailout money, said Cuomo's office had the authority to make the names and bonus details public.

"It's not like a formula of ice cream or a business plan," Eric Corngold, executive deputy attorney general of economic justice, told the judge.

Corngold said it was the nature of investigations to "reveal information people may not want out on the street, but this is not a reason for the courts to handcuff the attorney general."

Cuomo's office is investigating whether $3.6 billion in bonuses paid to Merrill employees broke securities laws, and whether Bank of America should have disclosed more about Merrill's troubled condition sooner.

Merrill awarded bonuses just days before Bank of America completed its acquisition of the Wall Street investment bank and brokerage. Merrill lost $27.6 billion in 2008.

Bank of America has received $45 billion from the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, including $20 billion in a January bailout that included a government agreement to share in losses on some toxic assets.

A Bank of America spokesman has said the Charlotte, North Carolina-based bank has continually offered to provide Cuomo with information on Merrill bonuses "subject to reasonable confidentiality."

Former Merrill Chief Executive John Thain and Bank of America CEO Kenneth Lewis have testified under oath to lawyers at the attorney general's office on executive pay.

The case is Cuomo v. Thain, New York State Supreme Court (Manhattan), No. 400381/2009.

(Reporting by Grant McCool; editing by John Wallace)

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By Elinor Comlay

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A longtime banking executive who sold his company to a Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) predecessor is calling on other shareholders to oust the embattled Kenneth Lewis as chairman of the largest U.S. bank.

Jerry Finger said Lewis, who is also Bank of America's chief executive, took too many risks in acquiring troubled investment bank Merrill Lynch & Co.

Finger is asking the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to run a "vote no" campaign without formally soliciting other shareholders by proxy.

"This group of directors needs to be aware of their duty to shareholders and needs to fulfill that," said Jonathan Finger, who with his father co-manages Finger Interests, an investment firm in Houston that primarily manages the family's capital.

Shareholders have increasingly been voicing concern about Lewis' position following the troubled acquisition of Merrill and Bank of America's falling share price. The shares are down almost 60 percent year-to-date.

The Fingers' campaign also calls for shareholders to reject the reelection of lead outside director O. Temple Sloan and Jackie Ward, chairwoman of the bank's asset-quality committee.

Jonathan Finger said his family has had initial discussions with some of the bank's large institutional shareholders.

"They are certainly open to hearing our side of the story," he said.

The Finger family controls about 1.5 million Bank of America shares.

"There's going to be a very strong outpouring of support for the (Fingers') campaign," said Richard Ferlauto, director of corporate governance and pension investment for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

"If the board were to move before the annual meeting to create an independent chair position, I think that would mollify at least for the time being these investors who are right now calling for Lewis' head."

Jerry Finger founded Houston commercial bank Charter Bancshares, which merged with NationsBank in 1996. NationsBank later acquired BankAmerica Corp to become Bank of America in 1998.

Separately, through Finger Interests Number One, the Fingers have filed a lawsuit in New York charging Bank of America executives and board members with concealing information by failing to disclose losses at Merrill Lynch ahead of a shareholder vote on December 5.

"We have met with (Jerry) Finger several times to hear his concerns and have attempted to address them," a Bank of America spokesman said.

Bank of America shareholders have proposed voting on eight issues at the April 29 annual meeting on subjects including executive pay, the election of board directors, credit card lending practices and whether to replace Lewis as chairman with an independent director.

(Reporting by Elinor Comlay; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Andre Grenon)

By Robert MacMillan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Washington Post will stop publishing a business section six days out of the week and move business news to the front section of the paper at a time when finance stories dominate world headlines.

The decision, which the Post's editors explained in a memo obtained by Reuters, means that the paper will save money on newsprint when newspaper advertising revenue is plunging.

The cost-cutting would allow the paper to keep providing readers with what they say they want, according to the memo signed by Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli and other editors.

"We remain absolutely committed to the strongest, in-depth and authoritative coverage of business locally, economics and economic-policy nationally, and the hugely important intersection of government, politics and money," the memo said.

"The A section gets more readers than the Business section, so we'll have more readers for our business coverage. We aren't changing the size of the staff," Brauchli, former top editor of The Wall Street Journal, the preeminent U.S. business newspaper, told Reuters.

Post media reporter Howard Kurtz, writing on the paper's website earlier on Friday, said Brauchli did not dispute the fact that the loss of a stand-alone section would mean less prominence for many business stories.

The decision to cut the section comes as the financial crisis puts an ever brighter spotlight on how well or poorly the federal government, traditionally The Washington Post's strongest turf, regulated financial institutions before the financial crisis.

The Post will stop running full listings of daily stock-price movements on Tuesdays through Saturdays. Instead, it will offer a half-page package of statistics and graphics showing how major national and local stocks fared.

The paper will run an enhanced Sunday Business section that will include new financial tables and graphics along with more personal finance stories aimed at helping people and small businesses survive the downturn.

In the Style section, the Post will move some comics online. It also will end one of its crossword puzzles and its weekly chess and poker columns.

Many U.S. papers have cut their stock listings and business sections to save money as ad revenue falls and they buy out or lay off staff to reduce expenses.

The Post has cut other sections since Brauchli joined the paper last year, including the Sunday Source section and Book World. it also has combined its Sunday Arts and Styles sections.

Washington Post print advertising revenue fell 17 percent last year to $410.4 million, mostly because of declining classified ad revenue. Daily circulation at the paper fell 2.6 percent in 2008.

The Post has a strong line-up of business news reporters, and has written many large, investigative stories about companies involved in the ongoing financial crisis, including a three-part series on the downfall of insurer American International Group.

Berkshire Hathaway owns about a fifth of the company's Class B shares, and Chairman Warren Buffett sits on the board. Continued...

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By Emily Chasan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's task force on the auto industry has hired a bankruptcy lawyer to advise it on its options.

The task force hired Matthew Feldman, a partner in the business reorganization and restructuring department at New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, the law firm said in a news release on Friday.

Feldman will be advising U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, the director of the National Economic Council, on reorganization efforts by auto manufacturers and suppliers, Willkie said in a statement.

He will leave the firm by the end of March to start his position in Washington, according to Willkie.

A U.S. Treasury official also confirmed Feldman's hiring, adding this would not change the task force's approach in restructuring the auto industry. He will work to help analyze restructuring options with the rest of the teams, the official said.

The U.S. government also has been working with bankruptcy and restructuring lawyers at law firms Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP and Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, as well as turnaround specialists at investment bank Rothschild. Those advisors have been working with officials on the taxpayer- backed restructuring of General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC.

General Motors shares fell almost 12 percent in after hours electronic trading after the news.

Feldman has worked on both in court and out of court restructurings, according to his firm's website. He also represented investors that bid for assets in the Chapter 11 restructuring of auto parts supplier Dana Holding Corp, the site showed.

Members of the administration's task force toured GM and Chrysler facilities in the Detroit area earlier this week, checking new technology and meeting with company executives.

The panel faces a March 31 deadline to determine whether GM and Chrysler can be commercially viable and deserving of more government aid. The two received a $17.4 billion bailout in December and have asked for an additional $22 billion.

In after hours electronic trading General Motors shares fell to $2.40, down from a closing price of $2.72 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday.

(Reporting by Emily Chasan; Additional reporting by David Lawder in Washington; Editing by Tim Dobbyn and Andre Grenon)

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DETROIT (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co (F.N) has granted Chief Executive Alan Mulally options to buy 5 million shares in the automaker under a long-term incentive plan, it said in a U.S. regulatory filing on Friday.

Ford, which posted a record $14.7 billion net loss in 2008, disclosed the options grants to Mulally and other executives that were made on Wednesday, according to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

"It's part of our long-term incentive plan to tie compensation to the performance of the company and the performance of the shares for investors," Ford spokesman Mark Truby said of the option award.

The options for Mulally carried a strike price of $1.96. The stock closed on Friday at $2.19.

Mulally may exercise one-third of the options a year from now, two-thirds after two years and all of them by March 2012. The options expire in March 2019.

Mulally also received 136,005 shares of restricted stock under another long-term incentive plan based on Ford's 2008 performance. Because the automaker failed to meet company targets last year, the award was 15 percent of the maximum.

Mulally has agreed to take a 30 percent salary cut for 2009 and 2010. Performance bonuses for 2009, which would be paid next March, have been eliminated for Mulally, other senior executives and global salaried employees.

The automaker previously eliminated a performance bonus for 2008 that would have been paid this month, merit pay increases for salaried workers in North America and has made other cuts.

Ford has said it believes it has the liquidity to continue a restructuring through the global recession without seeking emergency U.S. government loans as long as industry sales stay above 9.2 million units.

Still, the automaker has said it does not expect its results to return to break-even or a small profit until 2011 amid an industry where U.S. auto sales have fallen to the lowest monthly adjusted levels in 27 years.

Ford's rivals, General Motors Corp (GM.N) and Chrysler LLC, have been kept in operation since the start of the year with emergency loans from the U.S. Treasury.

(Reporting by David Bailey, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

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13 Mar 2009

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By Jonathan Stempel - Analysis

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc may benefit from a push to install more directors with financial industry experience after a board heavy with Fortune 500 chief executives oversaw a disastrous push into risky debt.

Diversifying the board, whose chairman Richard Parsons is the only outside director with top-level financial services background, is likely to ensure greater oversight of the risks the bank takes and limit the potential for losses to mushroom further following a $37.5 billion deficit over five quarters.

The attempt to add financial experience to a board stacked with current and former chiefs of nonfinancial companies, including Alcoa Inc, AT&T Inc, Chevron Corp, Dow Chemical Co and Xerox Corp follows last month's U.S. government agreement to expand the federal stake in the third-largest U.S. bank to as much as 36 percent.

"Those sound like strong names," said Ralph Ward, publisher of the Boardroom Insider and a corporate governance specialist. "The government and the people watching Citigroup most closely are interested in whether you know your stuff and have competence in turnaround situations."

A shift could also presage a wider move among companies toward boards that seek out industry expertise, as well as heavyweight name recognition.

"This could set a trend: the idea that your being a Fortune 500 CEO makes you a great generalist for other companies' boards may be a thing of a past," Ward said. "We're moving into an age of specialists."

GOOD, STRONG SIGNAL

Citigroup wants to nominate Jerry Grundhofer, once chief executive of regional bank US Bancorp, to its board, a person close to Grundhofer said. The person did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation.

The Wall Street Journal, which earlier reported the appointment, said Citigroup also plans to nominate three other financial experts: former Bank of Hawaii Corp Chief Executive Michael O'Neill; William Thompson, a former co-head of bond manager Pacific Investment Management Co; and a specialist in risk management, perhaps a finance professor.

Citigroup has gotten $45 billion of taxpayer money in the last six months, but shares of the New York-based lender languish below $2 each.

"It seems that Citigroup is sending a very good, strong and appropriate signal to the government and the market that it is taking its problems very seriously," said Lawrence Mitchell, a George Washington University law professor and author of "The Speculation Economy: How Finance Triumphed Over Industry."

The bank is expected to name at least six new independent directors as part of a February government bailout.

It is replacing two directors who have reached retirement age and three inside directors. The latter include former U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who once led the bank's now disbanded executive committee.

Citigroup and US Bancorp did not return requests for comment. O'Neill could not be reached. Pimco spokesman Mark Porterfield declined to comment.

In 2007, Citigroup had considered Grundhofer and O'Neill for the chief executive job, according to a person familiar with the matter, who sought anonymity because talks were confidential. Vikram Pandit, a former Morgan Stanley executive, got the job and remains at the helm. Continued...

South by Southwest Interactive, the annual festival that lures the tech-savvy set away from the warm glow of their computers to Austin, Tex., kicks off Friday. I’ll be joining the masses who turn out to see the newest and coolest Web innovations and the latest clickable sensations, reporting on what I see along the way.

Last year, as a newbie to the rituals of the digerati, I thought that the event resembled spring break for bloggers — at one party, guests playfully blew into Breathalyzers. And a calamitous keynote interview between Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and journalist Sarah Lacy gave everyone something to Twitter home about.

But this year, organizers are hoping to make the conference — part of the bigger South by Southwest festival that includes film and music — more than just a string of wild, barbecue-fueled parties.

For starters, organizers have taken note of the makeshift, digital tent city erected around the infrastructure of the conference and made some of those third-party innovations official parts of the gathering. In short, “we formalized what had been happening in the hallways all along,” said Shawn O’Keefe, one of the event producers.

For example, during 2008’s event, graphic designer Mike Rohde drew visual guides to several of the panels and events that he nicknamed Sketchnotes. After the conference he uploaded his hand-drawn infographics to Flickr, where they were widely circulated and linked to.

South by Southwest organizers commissioned Mr. Rohde to create another set for 2009, and they’ll be made available for free after the event.

Organizers also borrowed a page from one of 2008’s most prized applications — a free, unofficial scheduling tool called Sched.org, built by a pair of developers in a single day. This year, SXSW rolled out its own version of a custom networking and schedule-building tool called MySXSW. It lets attendees keep track of the week’s presentations and happy hours via the Web and mobile browsers, as well as send messages to one another.

Many of the 200-plus panels scheduled for the five-day event have how-to or do-it-yourself format, emphasizing practical skills in an economy where they are suddenly more valuable. For example, there are in-depth lessons on Adobe software, video journalism tutorials and tips for building online communities. The fun stuff is still there, of course, and several panels look promising: Sex lives of the microfamous, drilling down into the anatomy of online scandals and sustainable food 2.0.

The recession doesn’t seem to have dampened the spirit of the event or its attendance. South by Southwest is on track to exceed last year’s 9,000 people by at least 30 percent, said Mr. O’Keefe.

Ever since Twitter caught the attention of the crowd at South by Southwest in 2007, start-ups have flocked to the conference hoping to dazzle its influential mixture of bloggers, social media mavens and early adopters.

This year, organizers teamed up with Microsoft BizSpark to create the Accelerator, an event hosted by the venture capitalist and entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki, where more than 20 start-ups will demonstrate their products before a panel of judges.

As part of our coverage, I’ll be blogging on Bits, Twittering dispatches from the scene, ducking my head into keynotes by the statistical whiz Nate Silver, playing a round or two of SXSW Bingo and following start-ups like Foursquare that are hoping to break through the noise.

Marine Institute of Ireland A buoy in Galway Bay, Ireland, uses sensors in the ocean to collect data on water quality and sea conditions. The SmartBay system, developed by I.B.M. and the Marine Institute of Ireland, provides real-time information to scientists, commercial fishermen, environmental monitoring agencies and the general public.

Give I.B.M. credit for technological ambition and a willingness to tackle big problems.

I.B.M. is presenting a new bundle of services and research offerings at the World Water Forum in Istanbul on Monday. The package, grandly called Strategic Water Management Solutions, is the most recent entry in I.B.M.’s so-called smart planet initiative. The “smart planet” label is attached to all of the company’s efforts to put more information technology and analytics into fields from health care to energy.

No one would question that water conservation and management is a big, worthy issue worldwide. Whether I.B.M. can make money in water is another question. It is a field freighted with all sorts of thorny policy and economic issues. Depending on one’s perspective, water is a human right, a public utility or a vast new marketplace ready to take off. Water could be all three of those things, though the ideological constituencies in each camp rarely view it that way.

I.B.M. is betting that water management is a market waiting to happen. Sharon Nunes, vice president of what I.B.M. calls Big Green Innovations, points to government plans for water-related projects as part of infrastructure spending in economic recovery plans around the world. In the United States, she said, some $16 billion of funds for water-related projects are included in the economic stimulus package, while China intends to spend an estimated $51 billion on environmental programs in the next few years, including water projects.