Monday's Headlines: California Schools Dodge Affirmative Action Ban
Despite an affirmative action ban, the University of California system is embarking on an innovative strategy to increase the diversity of its applicant pool. And the Haas Business School at the University of California-Berkeley is the incubator for this strategy, reports Businessweek.
California banned affirmative action in 1996 and freshman enrollment of blacks in the UC system fell from 4.2 percent in the 1995-96 school year to 2.8 percent in 2004-05. In recent years, the number of black undergraduates has inched up slightly to 3.7 percent as the system’s universities have employed strategies such as wooing students from low-income homes and those who are the first in their family to go to college. The system has also teamed up with groups like the Urban League and First African Methodist Episcopal Church. Now the UC system is looking to further diversify its graduate student body.
This is where the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley comes in.
The school has 25 spots reserved for underclassmen at historically black colleges for a special summer program that may help them get into the school’s vaunted MBA program. University officials believe that recruiting students at historically black colleges will help them increase their pool of black applicants without running afoul of the law.
Other News:
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is exploring ways to give foreign banks and overseas subsidiaries of U.S. lenders a break from rigid derivative rules, a move that could mitigate one of the biggest concerns confronting global financial institutions. [Financial Times]
Brian Kim, founder and operator of the hedge fund Liquid Capital Management LLC, has been sentenced to five to 15 years in prison following a guilty plea to grand larceny in connection with what investigators allege was a $6 million Ponzi scheme. [Bloomberg]
E.F. Hutton will speak again. A group of former executives from the old brokerage firm led by former E.F. Hutton manager Frank Campanale plan to launch the firm under its old name in the coming weeks with the hiring of financial advisors. [WSJ]
Following in the footsteps of other fund administrators, Cayman Islands-based hedge fund administrator Admiral Administration has opened a new office in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. [Hedgefund.net]
Brazilian banking giant BTG Pactual is preparing to float its shares in Sao Paulo on Thursday and the IPO is shaping up to be one of the South American country’s most successful. [Financial Times]
Morgan Keegan Chief Executive John Carson has been named president of Raymond James’s Financial Board of Directors. [On Wall Street]
The fiscal-first-quarter TD Ameritrade Advisor Index of 502 registered investment advisors reveals that half don't have written job descriptions for positions in their company, and two-thirds have no defined career paths for new hires, two factors that are important to younger job candidates. [Investment News]
Two financial advisory firms and their top executives will be honored this week for their participation in an industry effort to bring more blacks into the financial advisory business. [Investment News]
Current and former members of Bank of America’s board of directors have agreed to a $20 million settlement in a lawsuit that alleged shareholders were wronged during the bank’s takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. [Bizjournals.com]
In a sign that construction lending is still alive in some parts of the country, U.S. Bancorp has closed on a $285 million bridge loan to finance a Silicon Valley office complex. [Bizjournals.com]
