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It's never been a better job market for private equity professionals, with the sector seeing the most active hiring market ever, according to a new report. In a survey of 630 North American investment professionals released Tuesday, recruiting firm Heidrick & Struggles found that more than half of respondents saw an increase in base salary this year compared with 2017. More than three-quarters of that group saw their base salary increase up to 20%. Managing partners saw the biggest increase, with base compensation up 13.6%, to $768,000. Bonuses are rising, too: 77% of those surveyed said their bonus increased from...

[N]o elected official in the country has more aggressively sought to limit free speech rights than Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D., N.Y.). Now he will have to answer for it in court. ... In May this column described how Mr. Cuomo was using the state’s financial regulatory agency to intimidate insurance companies, banks and other firms into turning down business with the NRA. The gun-rights group sued Mr. Cuomo after he ordered the state’s Department of Financial Services to tell the firms it oversees “to review any relationships they may have with the National Rifle Association and other similar organizations. Upon...

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The news from the Treasury Department that the federal deficit has hit a six-year high of $779 billion should give President Trump added incentive to reset his agenda for 2019, regardless of whether or not the anticipated Democratic blue wave in the midterm elections materializes next week. A key element of that agenda should be the introduction of a financial transaction tax dedicated to all economic security payments (that is Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance and other forms of public assistance). Such a tax will address two of the biggest threats to our continued economic health: the federal...

BlackRock Inc. has big plans for Atlanta. The New York-based money manager, touted as the biggest with $6.28 trillion in assets under management, will go from 15 employees in the Georgia capital to 1,000 people by 2024. According to the Wall Street Journal, BlackRock will use $25 million in public tax breaks to bolster its Southern expansion. The final incentive package is still under negotiation with the city, the report continued, citing unnamed sources. BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) did confirm the Atlanta expansion in a memo to employees Thursday, calling it “our newest innovation hub.” The memo was signed by chief...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell over 300 points on Wednesday as tech names like Intel, Microsoft and Netflix were in the red, helping to also bring the Nasdaq Composite down over 100 points. The S&P 500 was also down just over 30 points as of 11:00 a.m. ET.

American homeowners have amassed a record $6 trillion in equity in their properties, a figure boosted by surging home prices and a trend of owners staying put longer. But rising interest rates and caution resulting from the housing troubles of a decade ago are limiting how much of that equity is getting tapped.

Wells Fargo executives know that everyone hates them. In the last two years, the bank has launched three separate marketing campaigns hoping to clean up its public image, only to see each effort thwarted by fresh, catastrophic scandals ― like wrongly repossessing 27,000 cars and foreclosing on 400 families for no reason. The bank’s latest quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission dedicates more than 2,000 words to “Additional Efforts To Rebuild Trust,” listing “automobile lending,” “mortgage interest rate lock extensions,” “consumer deposit account freezing/closing,” “certain activities within wealth and investment management,” “foreign exchange business,” “fiduciary and custody account...

Do you really earn less working for a European than for a U.S. bank in London? Popular opinion would have it that you do. But popular opinion may be wrong: our analysis suggests that if the European investment bank you work for is either Credit Suisse or UBS, you'll be paid on a par with people at U.S. houses. - Or at least, this appears to have been the case for last year. Both UBS and Credit Suisse issued UK specific remuneration reports for 2017. They're not new, but they are buried on the Swiss banks' websites and we've only...

The social media giant has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to users. Facebook increasingly wants to be a platform where people buy and sell goods and services, besides connecting with friends. The company over the past year asked JPMorgan Chase JPM +0.25% & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. C +0.20% and U.S. Bancorp USB +0.40% to discuss potential offerings it could host for bank customers on Facebook Messenger, said people familiar with the matter. Facebook...

Deutsche Bank is hiring nearly 800 new university graduates globally in 2018, its second highest number ever and 25% more than last year. The German lender is bringing more analysts in corporate finance than in sales and trading. The hiring comes as Deutsche surprised investors last week with a higher-than-expected profit for the second quarter under new CEO Christian Sewing....

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan named the members of his new Cabinet after he was sworn in Monday (Tuesday AEST) under a new governing system that grants him sweeping executive powers and which critics think gives him far too much control.Erdogan appointed Berat Albayrak, the man who married his daughter 14 years ago, to head the powerful new treasury and finance ministry. Mevlut Cavusoglu will remain as Turkey's foreign minister and Suleyman Soylu as the country's interior minister.The executive system of government that began with Erdogan's swearing-in scraps Turkey's parliamentary governance structure and boosts the powers of the formerly ceremonial...

Despite President Trump's tit-for-tat trade barbs, America’s CEOs are not wasting anytime in taking advantage of his tax reform plan. Over $300 billion was repatriated to the U.S. in the first quarter, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) -- the most on record. “U.S. firms that used to build their factories overseas in order to avoid U.S. taxes, they stopped in their tracks because of the tax bill, they are bringing all the money home,” said Kevin Hassett, chair of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, during an interview on FOX Business’ Varney & Co. in June.

If liberals can’t silence self-defense advocates or pass the gun control laws that they want, they will keep you from using your credit cards to buy guns or accessories. They also will prevent firearm makers from getting financing. At first this was a matter of government policy, but now it is coming about by political pressure on private companies. In 2013, the Obama administration initiated Operation Choke Point, which utilized the banking industry to “choke off” the ability of certain “fraudulent” businesses in “high-risk” sectors to operate by cutting off their access to financial services. Many in the gun industry...

Several gun-related businesses were suddenly — and without warning — disrupted in recent weeks when Intuit stopped processing credit card payments because sales were gun-related, The Post has learned.

President Trump on Thursday called for an investigation into allegations that the Obama administration tried to give Iran access to the U.S. financial system by sidestepping sanctions. "The Obama Administration is now accused of trying to give Iran secret access to the financial system of the United States. This is totally illegal," Trump tweeted.

International financial institutions get a lot of heat for terror state ties. But this is a case where Obama Inc. tried to get them to do the wrong thing. While they did the right thing. The Obama administration secretly sought to give Iran access — albeit briefly — to the U.S. financial system by sidestepping sanctions kept in place after the 2015 nuclear deal, despite repeatedly telling Congress and the public it had no plans to do so. Yet another Obama dirty deal with Iran that we're just learning about now. The question is how many more are there? And...

For those of you who like talk radio. The Financial Guys is a talk radio program in western New York. Sat. 1 - 3 pm est. Financial Guys Twitter Financial Guys Talk Radio Link

The Federal Reserve voted Wednesday to seek input on a proposal to simplify the Volcker Rule, a provision of the post-financial crisis reform law that blocked banks from trading on their own accounts. The proposed alterations would tailor compliance based on the size of a firm's trading assets, benefiting smaller institutions; clarify that firms trading within internal risk limits are conducting permissible market-making or underwriting activity; and limit the rule's impact on foreign activities of foreign banks. The Fed will accept comments for the next two months, a key step toward final adoption and implementation of the changes drafted by...

A few years ago, I spoke with a young man preparing to get married. His aunt told him that she thought he and his fiancée were too financially-strapped to have a child, and that it wouldn’t be fair to bring up a baby in poverty. Keenly aware of his joblessness and his minuscule bank account, he concluded she was probably right. The young man and his fiancée were ready to tie the knot in a few months and they expected that she would be at the infertile phase of her cycle around the time of their honeymoon, so they would...