Fremont General Corp., the former subprime lending giant that regulators forced out of the mortgage business last year, said Friday that it probably would seek bankruptcy protection to hasten its liquidation of assets, the Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday. Fremont General said that its board would wait to make the bankruptcy filing until regulators approved the sale of its retail business to commercial lender CapitalSource Inc. of Chevy Chase, Md. The retail operation includes 22 Fremont Investment & Loan offices in California and $5.6 billion in deposits. When the deal was announced last month, CapitalSource officials said that the branches would stay open with many of the same employees and no changes in interest rates or other terms of existing certificates of deposit or other accounts.

General Motors Corp., the biggest U.S. automaker, agreed to provide as much as $200 million to help American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. end a two-month strike that has idled all or part of 33 GM plants, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The aid will be used for costs such as early retirements and buyouts of union workers at the supplier, GM said yesterday in a U.S. regulatory filing. The United Auto Workers walkout at American Axle, GM’s largest axle supplier, cut the automaker’s production by 230,000 vehicles through April and cost $800 million in the first quarter, GM said. The strike began Feb. 26.

Bondholders who are owed hundreds of millions of dollars by Tropicana Entertainment LLC asked a judge to put the casino operator under the control of a court-appointed administrator, saying the company’s leader steered it into financial distress, the Wall Street Journal reported today.  The bondholders asked Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey to put the company under the control of a chapter 11 trustee, saying that Tropicana Entertainment CEO William J. Yung shouldn’t be allowed “unfettered control over a significant chapter 11 proceeding involving a multi-jurisdictional, highly regulated gaming enterprise with over $2.5 billion of creditor claims.” The bondholders account for more than $700 million of Tropicana’s debt. The group includes Citigroup Global Markets, Harbinger Capital Partners, Highland Capital Management, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and a Merrill Lynch & Co. unit.

Securities regulators refused a congressional request to disclose why they dropped an investigation into whether Bear Stearns Cos. harmed investors by improperly valuing complex debt securities, the Wall Street Journal reported today. The Securities and Exchange Commission cited confidentiality in its decision involving the late-stage probe of the Wall Street firm. At issue is a move by the SEC to abort an enforcement case into activities at Bear Stearns several months before the firm imploded in March. The firm has agreed to be acquired for a fire-sale price by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.

Ceres Capital Partners LLC, a firm specializing in forming structured investment vehicles (SIVs), filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday saying that it was unable to operate due to the subprime credit squeeze, Reuters reported. Ceres, which is partly owned by XL Reinsurance America Inc. and Stanfield Capital Partners, organized SIVs, including Stanfield Victoria Finance Ltd., and other packaged investment products. Ceres, which filed for bankruptcy in federal court in New York, said that although its funds had “little or no exposure to subprime mortgage risks,” it was “unable to retain access to the credit markets” and was unable to find buyers for its paper. It also said it initiated discussions with lenders including XL Capital in March that allowed it to file for a “prepackaged” bankruptcy that would allow “a swift emergence” from a court-supervised restructuring.

Capco Energy Inc., an onshore and offshore gas company, filed for chapter 11 protection last week, citing $22 million in debt owed primarily to Union Bank of California, Bankruptcy Law360 reported yesterday. The company said that it owes the bank approximately $14 million, $3.7 million of which is in the form of letters of credit issued to cover ongoing operations. Capco also cited 100 to 199 unsecured creditors claiming debt up to $10 million and listed up to $10 million in assets. Capco said its largest unsecured debt of approximately $2 million was to Hoactzin LP, who joined Capco in acquiring various oil properties. The company also cited $8 million of trade debt to vendors for goods and services.

Critics are worried that the Securities and Exchange Commission is losing its bite amid the recent financial crisis, the New York Times reported today. Wall Street and the broader business community have pushed aggressively in recent years to roll back regulation, arguing that the United States is losing its competitive edge. “There has been less emphasis on investor protection and more on this issue of the competitiveness of markets,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D- R.I.). In March, Reed and Senate Banking Committee Chair Christopher J. Dodd (D- Conn.) asked the Government Accountability Office to look into the penalties that the SEC has been levying recently. Penalties, together with the return of ill-gotten gains, fell by half in the 2007 fiscal year, to $1.6 billion. Staff lawyers in the SEC enforcement division say high turnover, tight budgets and a new, looser attitude toward corporate wrongdoing are sapping morale. The staffing and budget of the SEC have lagged far behind the explosive growth of the markets the commission must police.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will face questions at a congressional hearing today over the central bank’s role in JPMorgan Chase’s absorption of the investment firm Bear Stearns and accepting $30 billion worth of questionable mortgage-related assets as collateral for a Fed loan that enabled the deal, the New York Times reported. “There’s a lot of concern that this was done ad hoc,” said Joint Economic Committee Chairman Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), whose committee will hold the hearings today. Senate Banking Committee Chair Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) has also signaled that at his panel’s hearing tomorrow that he will ask Bernanke about Bear Stearns and why the financial sector’s problems were allowed to fester.
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The U.S. Internal Revenue Service objected to People’s Choice Home Loan Inc.’s chapter 11 liquidation plan on Friday, saying the bankrupt mortgage lender needed to be clearer about when the plan would become effective and when it would pay its taxes, Bankruptcy Law360 reported on Friday. In its disclosure statement, the company said that “at the option of the debtors, a confirmation order that is subject to a pending appeal or certiorari proceeding may be considered a final order provided no court of competent jurisdiction has entered an order staying the effect of the confirmation order.” This language, the IRS said, “is too vague to permit any interested party to determine when, if ever, the plan will become effective.” The agency said that instead, People’s Choice should set a hard deadline if the court confirms its plan.

Visa Inc., set a record for U.S. IPOs by selling 406 million shares at $44 each late Tuesday and raising $17.9 billion, The Deal reported yesterday. The IPO eclipses AT&T Wireless Group’s $10.6 billion stock offering in 2000 and comes in second in the world only to the $22 billion debut of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. in 2006.  J.P. Morgan Securities Inc., Goldman, Sachs & Co., Banc of America Securities LLC, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., HSBC Securities (USA) Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. are leading the 15-bank underwriting team. Visa’s member banks are also expected to benefit nicely from the offering. According to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the largest selling shareholder is JPMorgan, which will see its fortunes rise by about $1.25 billion by offering nearly 29 million shares of Visa - times more than the New York-based bank has agreed to pay in the proposed takeover of Bear Stearns Cos.