Household International Incorporated

The nation's No. 1 mortgage lender, Countrywide Financial Corp., is under investigation by California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown and the attorney general's office in Illinois, the Calabasas company said Thursday. Countrywide said it had received subpoenas...

Joseph Ficalora is not a happy banker. The chief executive of New York Community Bancorp is tired of listening to the nonstop speculation within the industry and on Wall Street that his thrift is up for sale. Ever since New York Community announced...

Joseph Ficalora is not a happy banker. The chief executive of New York Community Bancorp is tired of listening to the nonstop speculation within the industry and on Wall Street that his thrift is up for sale. Ever since New York Community announced...

Chicago-area stocks have not gotten off to a particularly good start in 2003. As market benchmarks look to break the first three-year losing streak since World War II, the biggest local companies endured a rocky first quarter, with a few, mostly limited,...

Last year, Timothy Callahan got it coming and going. In April, he resigned as chief executive of Chicago-based Equity Office Properties Trust, receiving "separation pay" of $1.65 million, roughly equal to a year's salary and bonus, plus accelerated...

In a recent speech to corporate directors in Chicago, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker asked: "How did we get compensation to the truly grotesque levels to which I think it has risen?" He answered: "What was going on was our good friend,...

It’s getting harder and harder not to get nipped by your credit card company. Fees, fines and fine print are proliferating, and even the best customers are getting hit. Credit card issuers Providian and First USA, for example, admitted in 1999 that...

Stock prices face potentially sharp adjustments to new global economic realities as soon as trading resumes. Trading has been frozen since last Monday, but investor sentiment toward equities has ebbed and flowed with each news headline. Generally,...

Investors' relief over companies' willingness to stand by their financial statements Wednesday sparked a late-day rally on Wall Street, sending the Dow Jones industrials soaring 260 points. The market's advance reversed an earlier sell-off as investors...

Investors jarred by a wave of accounting scandals were jostled by smaller ripples Wednesday, as several big companies restated their finances against a deadline to swear to the accuracy of financial reports. After waiting until the last minute, scores of...