TARP Banks, AIG: Tuesday's Headlines

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Here are the top stock market headlines for the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009.

Tuesday's Early Headlines

• Fed Reportedly Asks Banks for TARP Plans -- Bloomberg reports that the Federal Reserve this month asked nine U.S. banks which were part of this year's stress tests to submit plans including a timetable to repay funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, citing a person familiar with the situation. The nine banks are Bank of America (BAC Quote), PNC (PNC Quote), Citigroup (C Quote), Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB Quote), GMAC, KeyCorp (KEY Quote), Regions Financial (RF Quote), SunTrust (STI Quote) and Wells Fargo (WFC Quote). These banks received a combined $142 billion in TARP funds out of the total $700 billion Congress authorized in 2008, Bloomberg noted.
• U.S. Officials Want Pay Czar to Ease AIG Compensation Curbs -- The Wall Street Journal reports that federal officials have been urging pay czar Kenneth Feinberg to ease the compensation restrictions at American International Group (AIG Quote) for 2010, arguing that the taxpayer would ultimately bear the burden if the restrictions are too severe. Federal Reserve and Treasury officials told Feinberg that tough restrictions ultimately could jeopardize the government's ability to recoup its roughly $90 billion in loans because key employees would leave.
• Citigroup Sells Diners Club to BMO -- Citigroup will sell its Diners Club North American franchise to BMO Financial (BMO Quote). Citigroup said the sale would reduce its assets in Citi Holdings by about $1 billion and isn't expected to have a material impact on Citigroup's net income or capital ratios. The transaction is expected to close by March 31, 2010. BMO said the agreement represents net receivables of almost $1 billion and about 7.8 billion in card transactions.
• E.U. Drops Qualcomm Antitrust Probe -- The European Commission closed a two-year investigation against chipmaker Qualcomm (QCOM Quote) after companies that complained dropped their charges. Companies such as Broadcom, Nokia and Ericsson claimed that Qualcomm broke agreements among patent holders of third-generation cellphone equipment to keep costs at reasonable levels
• Lloyds Plans U.K.'s Biggest Rights Issue -- Lloyds Banking Group (LYG Quote) will issue a total of 36.5 billion new shares on the basis of 1.34 new shares for every one existing ordinary shares as on the record date of Nov. 20. Lloyds expects to raise a record $22.3 billion (13.5 billion pounds) and avoid taking part in the government's asset protection scheme which would have increased public ownership from 43% to above 60%.