Bailout Funds

The Treasury Department may release as early as next week its long-awaited ruling on how to limit pay for executives at firms bailed out by the federal government, two sources familiar with the deliberations said. Justice Department lawyers are currently reviewing the proposed limits. Executive compensation is a delicate political issue for the Obama administration.

Today is judgment day for the country's biggest banks as the government releases results of "stress tests" to gauge their stability, but Wall Street celebrated a day early after concluding that there would be no bombshells about the financial industry. As a group, the 19 banks are likely to be forced to add tens of billions of dollars to their front-line cushions of capital to guard against a deeper-than-expected recession.

Some big banks will need more bailout bucks, President Obama and his aides said Sunday, although it is unlikely the government might need to take over any reeling institution. "We're confident that, yes, some are going to have very serious problems, but we feel that the tools are available to address these problems," senior presidential advisor David Axelrod said.

Ford, the only Big Three automaker to refuse government bailout money, said Monday that it had slashed the debt of its automotive division, enabling it to save $500 million a year in interest costs. Ford used $2.4 billion in cash and 468 million shares of its common stock to buy down $9.9 billion in debt, reducing its leverage 38%.

Five banks have repaid millions of dollars they received from the government's $700-billion financial bailout pot, the Obama administration said Thursday. The Treasury Department, which oversees the bank bailout program, said the banks had returned a total of $353 million. The banks are Iberiabank Corp. of Lafayette, La.; Bank of Marin Bancorp of Novato, Calif.; Old National Bancorp. of Evansville, Ind.; Signature Bank of New York; and Centra Financial Holdings Inc. of Morgantown, W.Va.

Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Kenneth D. Lewis said Tuesday that he wanted to start repaying $45 billion in federal bailout funds next month, after the government's "stress test" of his bank, and to give back the remainder as soon as the nation's wobbly financial system is stabilized. In interviews at The Times, Lewis defended Bank of America's much-criticized acquisitions of Countrywide Financial Corp. and Merrill Lynch & Co. as strategically sound in the long run.

The government will deduct $165 million in proposed aid to bailed-out American International Group Inc. to recoup the cost of bonuses paid to employees of the giant insurer last week, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Tuesday. In a letter sent to congressional leaders, Geithner said he persuaded AIG Chief Executive Edward M.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) on Friday defended her efforts to help minority-owned banks -- including one with ties to her husband -- scoffing at the notion that she, a liberal Democrat, could influence the Bush administration in deciding what financial institutions would receive bailout funds.

A growing number of healthy bank chains across the country are bailing out of the $700-billion federal banking bailout program, saying it has tarnished the reputation of banks that took the money and tangled them in unwieldy regulations. When the program began last fall, it was billed by then-Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson as an investment in strong banks to make them even stronger.

Rep. Maxine Waters, one of Los Angeles' most enduring liberal politicians, has come under scrutiny because of bailout funds that went to a bank in which her husband had owned stock and served on the board. Waters was a senior member of the congressional committee dealing with the financial crisis when OneUnited Bank -- one of the nation's largest minority-owned institutions -- received $12 million in bailout funds.