New York - Investment banking firm Goldman Sachs Group Inc gained the potentially influential support of legendary investor Warren Buffett late Tuesday.

The announcement that Buffett's firm, Berkshire Hathaway Inc, would buy a 5-billion-dollar stake in Goldman Sachs comes as the investment banking firm is converting itself to a normal bank holding company, a decision reached this week to obtain greater access to loans from the US Federal Reserve. The conversion will place Goldman Sachs under greater government scrutiny.

Tehran  - Iran's Central Bank (CBI) Chief Tahmasseb Mazaheri was on Tuesday replaced by his general secretary Mahmoud Bahmani, ISNA news agency reported.

Mazaheri is the second CBI governor to resign within President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's three-year presidential tenure. The first governor, Ebrahim Sheibani, resigned in August last year over differences with the president in the country's economic management.

Tokyo  - Japan's largest brokerage Nomura is gearing up to acquire the European business operations of bankrupt US investment bank Lehman Brothers, the Kyodo news agency reported Tuesday.

Citing informed sources, Kyodo said Nomura Holdings was in the final stages of negotiations for the acquisition.

The report comes a day after Nomura announced it was acquiring Lehman Brothers' operations in Asia, with Kyodo putting the value of the deal at over 20 billion yen (190 million dollars).

Karvy Stock Broking Limited has maintained ‘sell’ rating on State Bank of India (SBI) stock with an intraday target of Rs 1500. 

According to Karvy, interested traders can sell the stock between Rs 1560-1565 with a strict stop loss of Rs 1590. 
 
Karvy feels that SBIN stock would remain under pressure due to recent market volatility. 

Today, the stock opened weak at Rs 1550, against its last closure at Rs 1566.70 on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Current EPS & P/E ratio stood at 109.38 and 13.87 respectively. The share price has seen a 52-week high of Rs 2387.60 and a low of Rs 1007 on BSE. 

The Asian operations of US bankrupt investment bank Lehman Brothers is acquired by Japanese financial services major Nomura. 

The agreement was signed by the executives of both groups as per the reports of UK daily, Financial Times. Nomura is a leading Tokyo-based company and the largest security firm of Japan.

The financial operations would include investment banking, fixed income and equities of entire Asian region franchise. The South Korean operations of Lehmans would not be covered under the plan on some technical grounds. 

Congress started challenging a 700-billion-dollar White House plan to rescue the US financial system Monday as US stocks plunged more than 3 per cent and industrialized countries pledged action to ensure global economic stability.

On Wall Street, the last two remaining major investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, left the high-wire world of risk to become bank-holding companies with the approval of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve.