PNC to Buy Riggs Bank for $779 Million

[seemslikeadream]

Fri Jul 16, 2004 09:15 AM ET

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - PNC Financial Services Group Inc. (PNC.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Friday said it would buy troubled Riggs National Corp. (RIGS.O: Quote, Profile, Research) for $779 million, giving the Pittsburgh bank a foothold in the Washington, D.C. market.
Riggs, which recently agreed to pay a $25 million fine amid allegations of possible violations of U.S. money laundering laws, provides commercial and retail banking services at 50 branches in metropolitan Washington.

All existing Riggs branches will assume the PNC Bank name, wiping away a 165-year-old moniker that has been known as the banker to presidents and diplomats in Washington. PNC said it expects to open additional branches in that area.

PNC will pay $24.25 a share, or about $779 million in stock and cash for Riggs. The price is a 7 percent premium over Riggs' closing stock price of $22.67 on Thursday
more
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=5692011

PNC Financial to buy Riggs National for $779M (8:27 AM ET) NEW YORK (CBS.MW) -- PNC Financial Services Group(PNC)and Riggs National Corp.(RIGS)announced a definitive pact for PNC to acquire Riggs in an exchange of cash and stock valued at $779 million, or $24.25 per Riggs share. PNC expects the transaction will add to earnings per share in 2007 and that it has an estimated internal rate of return exceeding 16 percent. Total consideration will be comprised of a fixed number of about 7.5 million PNC shares and $321 million in cash, subject to adjustment. Riggs shareholders may elect to receive PNC stock or cash, subject to proration. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2005. Separately, PNC said it expects to report second-quarter earnings of $304 million, or $1.07 per share. The average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson First Call is for earnings of $1.01 for the quarter. PNC said the results were driven by improvements in noninterest income and lower credit costs.
http://www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journalid=22178240&brk=1

[iconoclastic cat]

1. Is this important news? I'm confused.

I know about the Bush/Riggs thing, but why is it important that PNC is buying them? Is there dirt on PNC, too?

[Minstrel Boy]

2. Is the game up for Riggs? Is the Pirate Class taking its business

elsewhere?

But of course, its business is everywhere.

There are the Nugan Hands, the Banco Ambrosianos, the BCCIs, the Riggs. They've been outed. But there are also the Deutsche Banks, the CitiBanks, the Bank of Montreals. Still respected, but no less criminal.

Hey, drug money doesn't launder itself, unless the pushers have a stake in the laundry.

[AndyTiedye]

8. Drug Money is Clean Compared to BFEEbux

the billions looted from California ratepayers and Enron employees' retirement funds,
the billions looted from taxpayers AND OUR TROOPS IN IRAQ by Halliburton for services not really delivered,
all the payoffs from the Saudis,
so much more we haven't even heard about yet

Drug money is small change by comparison
and drug dealers are much more honest than these people.

BFEE money takes a LOT of laundering to get all the blood off.

[phoebe]

3. more on PNC - a bank with its own dark past..

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2003/June/03_crm_329.htm

snip

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff of the Criminal Division and FBI Director Robert Mueller - all members of the President’s Corporate Fraud Task Force - announced today that PNC ICLC Corp., a subsidiary of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, will pay $90 million to a restitution fund and $25 million in penalties to the United States as part of a deferred prosecution agreement on criminal charges of conspiracy to violate securities laws.

A criminal complaint filed today at U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania charges PNCICLC with conspiracy to violate federal securities laws, a violation of 18 USC Section 371, by fraudulently transferring $762 million in mostly troubled loans and venture capital investments from PNCICLC to certain off-balance sheet entities, known as the PAGIC entities. In a separate agreement with the government, PNC - the seventh largest bank holding company in the United States - has pledged its complete cooperation with a continuing investigation into the PAGIC transactions entered into by PNCICLC in 2001.

In light of PNC’s remedial actions, its willingness to acknowledge responsibility for its wrongdoing, and its continuing cooperation in the criminal investigation of this matter, the U.S. government has agreed to defer prosecution on the criminal complaint for 12 months, and eventually dismiss the complaint if PNCICLC and PNC fully comply with the obligations set forth in the deferred prosecution agreement and the agreement on cooperation.

snip

The charges and the deferred prosecution agreement filed today arose from the transfer by PNCICLC, in the last three quarters of 2001, of $762 million in mostly troubled loans and venture capital investments from PNCICLC to certain off-balance sheet entities. According to the criminal complaint, PNCICLC intended the entitites receiving these assets to be regarded as Special Purpose Entities, or SPEs, under generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”).

[Demonaut]

4. Guess they like the way Riggs does business

isn't this what Enron did?

[seemslikeadream]

5. from emad

emad aisat sana (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-16-04 10:28 AM
Response to Original message

8. Additional reporting from TheSpoof.com:


"Bush Bank helped Pinochet stash Enron $$$$$$$$$s"

Snip:


General Pinochet's personal references had been supplied by former President George Bush Senior whose glowing written assessment described him as a "notorious military leader accused of involvement with death squads, corruption, arms sales and drug trafficking," an epithet that virtually guaranteed him the bank's Tripe A Customer Credit Rating.

Jonathan Bush opened an account for him personally, helped him establish two offshore hell corporations in the Belize called Ashcroft and Aitken (named after UK Tory ministers who had formal postgraduate qualifications in money laundering and perjury at Supreme Court level), and then opened more accounts in the name of those hell corporations both here, in the UK and in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

and

"In 1998, when General Pinochet was arrested in London on charges of not committing enough crimes against humanity, a court issued a gagging order to protect his bank accounts. Jonathan Bush then quietly helped him move money from London to the United States," said Levin.

In March 1999, while Pinochet was still under arrest, the bank authorised the transfer of $16 million from a London account of Aitken to a new one in the United States, despite a court order to increase the amount by another $10 million. "Needless to say, the bank didn't alert law enforcement or the courts to his accounts," said Levin, because the money was earmarked 'George Bush Junior 2000 presidential campaign war chest'.

Commenting on this novel arrangement of electional fundraising, the General's attorney said: "We can't allow our financial systems to be misused by corrupt dictators, terrorists or other criminals who don't do business with the Bush family".

Story:

http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s2i5826...

[phoebe]

6. James E. Rohr, Chairman and CEO of PNC is also on Board of

Trustees for RAND Corp.

Paul W. Chellgren, on the Board of Directors for PNC, used to head Ashland Oil Inc., before he was removed for "dating subordinates". Guess what? Frank Carlucci, Chairman of Board of the Carlyle Group is/was also on the Board of Directors for Ashland Oil.

http://www.ashland.com/investors/ar99/directors.html

snip

Frank C. Carlucci (2, 4*)
Chairman of the Board of The Carlyle Group
Washington, D.C.

Paul W. Chellgren**
Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Ashland Inc.
Covington, Kentucky


You can be sure there are plenty of other ties to the Bush gang..

[seemslikeadream]

7. Senator Rick Santorum and James E. Rohr

Senator Rick Santorum and James E. Rohr
Banking on Our Future Across America

On Thursday, December 11th, Operation HOPE concluded the 2003 “Banking on Our Future” Across America financial literacy tour in Washington, D.C. at Francis Junior High School.

Earlier in the week, "Banking on Our Future" Across America visited Philadelphia, PA with U.S. Senator Rick Santorum and James E. Rohr, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of PNC Bank and Baltimore, MD with U.S. Congressman Elijah Cummings and Joseph Haskins, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Harbor Bank of Maryland.

The grand finale was attended by Chairman Donald Powell, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), who served as the National Honorary Chairman and First Celebrity Banker-Teacher of BOOFAA 2003, Brian Roseboro, Acting Undersecretary for Domestic Finance for the U.S. Department of Treasury, and other high-ranking executives from some of the largest banks in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

http://www.operationhope.org/Epublications/December2003...

RAND Trustee James E. Rohr—chairman and chief executive officer of The PNC Financial Services Group—is also from Pittsburgh.
http://www.rand.org/news/press.03/01.27.html
PNC Financial Services
3/27/03

PNC restated its 2001 income by $155 MM under S.E.C. questioning, and five senior exectuives have since resigned. (The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 29, 2002 ) The S.E.C. found that PNC had moved $762 MM of debt off its books and into 3 special purpose entities, which allowed it to overstate its earnings by 52% in 2001. PNC's actions caused its stock value to drop 15% the day it restated. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 30, 2002)

S.E.C., Class action lawsuit
Click here to read Milberg's class action lawsuit
James E. Rohr: $9.8 MM (in 2001)
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:XX9ibRZQX7oJ:www.cit...


Preparing kids for school...PNC Preparing kids for school

by Sonya M. Toler
Courier Staff Writer

Over the next 10 years, PNC Financial Services Group has a goal to better prepare 2.8 million children for school in the cities it serves.

Chairman and CEO James E. Rohr contends that the $100 million the company will invest in its PNC Grow Up Great program, though significant, is only one reason why the program will succeed.

“We really view this $100 million as an investment in our community,” Rohr said during the Sept. 8 announcement at PNC’s Firstside operations center. He added that he believes the financial commitment is the largest ever corporate commitment to prepare children for school.

http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:vgO4_x1bUBwJ:www.newpittsburghcourier.com/%3Farticle%3D167%26font%3D15+%22James+E.+Rohr%22+bush&hl=en

James Rohr Director of Allegneny Tech