• It looks like General Motors will file for bankruptcy on Monday. [WSJ]
• Bill Ackman, the activist investor who's been taking aim at Target for months now, lost his battle to remake the company's board yesterday. [Fortune]
• A group of banks and money managers are now trying to "fend off" some of the new trading rules proposed by the Obama administration. [WSJ]
• The U.S. economy shrank at a 5.7 percent annual pace in the first quarter, which makes it the worst six-month performance in five decades. [BN]

• The Carlyle Group will pay $20 million to end an investigation by Andrew Cuomo into its dealings with pensions and placement agents. [NYT, WSJ]
• Two attorneys at the SEC are under investigation for insider trading. [CBS]
• Hedge fund manager Jim Simons is facing tough questions from angry investors who put money into one of Simons' under-performing funds. [WSJ]
• Barclays is in talks to sell its Barclays Global Investors. Blackrock and Bank of New York Mellon are two of the bidders. [BN, Reuters]
• Six major insurance companies are getting a bailout. [BN, NYT]

• Stocks are down in early trading today as investors brace for disappointing earnings as well as signs the recession is getting worse. [WSJ, BN]
• Bank of America reported first quarter profits totaled $4.2 billion and revenues almost doubled, not that any of that will do much to soothe angry investors, who are pushing for a change in management. [NYT, WSJ, [NYT]
• Citigroup's first quarter profit of $1.6 billion last week? That may have been the product of creative accounting more than anything else. [NYT]

• UBS is cutting another 7,500 jobs after posting a $1.8 billion quarterly loss and clients pulled more than $20 billion out of the firm. [BN, NYT]
• Andrew Cuomo strikes again: Carlyle Group is now under investigation by the attorney general and the SEC over whether it illegally paid third parties to secure $1.3 billion in investments from New York's pension fund. [BN]
• BlackRock plans to raise $5-$7 billion to scoop up toxic assets. [Reuters]
• Scandal du jour: Danny Pang, who heads up the $4 billion fund Private Equity Management Group, has a few questions to answer, it would seem. [WSJ]

• The Treasury is expected to announce in the next few days that it will be extending bailout funds to a handful of life insurance companies. [WSJ]
• Brian Moynihan, who took over Merrill Lynch after John Thain was ousted, is emerging as a potential successor to Bank of America chief Ken Lewis. [WSJ]
• Not that Lewis necessarily needs to be replaced, at least according to Meredith Whitney, who (bizarrely) says Lewis has "done a great job." [BN]
• Blackstone, KKR, and Carlyle are in the running to acquire the mobile phone operations that Verizon Wireless is selling now that it's acquired Alltel. [BN]
• Looks like Jim Cramer has a new enemy. Nouriel Roubini is calling the CNBC star "a buffoon," and Cramer has since responded in kind, of course. [NYP]

You can add The Carlyle Group to the long, long list of financial firms looking to cut back on their private jet budgets. The Washington-based private equity giant that counts members of the Bush family as investors is now looking to unload its 2004 Gulfstream G450. Like its rivals, it's been a challenging few months for Carlyle, which was ranked the largest private equity firm last year by Private Equity International. In December, the firm announced plans to slash 10 percent of its staff—the first layoffs in Carlyle's 20-year history—and it also said it planned to close down its Silicon Valley office. The jet broker responsible for selling the G4 didn't indicate how much Carlyle is hoping to get for the plane. (Similar models run about $30 million.) But if you're in the market for a jet that's made its fair share of trips to Kennebunkport and Crawford, you may want to set aside a little extra to replace all the gaudy gold plating in the bathroom and kitchen. Photos and detailed specs after the jump.

Actress (and aspiring gym entrepreneur!) Gwyneth Paltrow was kind enough to post a list of her favorite restaurants and hotels on that new lifestyle website of hers, Goop.com. Lots of the usual suspects are mentioned, like Balthazar and Babbo, which is owned by her food travel show co-host, Mario Batali, naturally. The hotels reflect the places she's lived for the past year while her apartment is being renovated. (That sounds cost efficient!) So where has Gwynnie spent the past 12 months? She says she's only mentioned the places she "loved," a list that includes the Lowell, Bowery, Carlyle, Mercer, and the Inn at Irving Place. But she throws in the Greenwich Hotel, too, although she admits she's yet to see the place. "It looks good on the website anyway." Good enough for us! [Goop via Eater]

♦ Layoff announcements, grim unemployment data, and dismal retail sales figures should lead to another nasty trading session on Wall Street. [CNN]
♦ A group of managers and senior execs from Neuberger Berman won the auction to take over Lehman's money management business. [NYT]
♦ Credit Suisse is laying off 5,300 people. [Reuters]
♦ Citigroup's top execs like Vikram Pandit and Bob Rubin say they're willing to forgo annual bonuses. How generous of them! [FT]
♦ Thomas H. Lee may shut down two hedge funds it launched recently. [WSJ]
♦ Poor Steve Schwarzman is "knocking on more doors and pressing more flesh than ever" to get business done these days. [NYP]
♦ Fortress Investment Group is falling apart fast. [NYT]
♦ Carlyle Group LLC is cutting 10 percent of its staff. [WSJ]

It's not just Ferrari dealerships and private clubs that are feeling the pain as hedge funds wither: Property owners in Midtown are now seeing a record number of finance tenants pull up stakes. Ramius Capital spent $22 million on marble office space at 599 Lexington Ave eight months ago and is now now looking to sublease one of its three floors. Old Lane, which was co-founded by Vikram Pandit and sold to Citigroup in 2007, has put 20,000 square feet at 500 Park Ave on the market. The Carlyle Group's Blue Wave fund is unloading its space at 1177 Sixth Ave. Over at 9 West 57th Street, which is home to Henry Kravis's KKR and Leon Black's Apollo Management, there is 30,000 square feet available on the 26th floor now that the Clinton Group is downsizing. And it turns out that Scott Bommer, the founder of SAB Capital, isn't just looking to dump his apartment at the Ritz-Carlton. His hedge fund is looking to dispose of 9,000 square feet at the GM building, too.

♦ How did Hank Paulson's negotiations with the CEOs of the nation's largest banks go down on Monday? There were no negotiations, actually. He handed them a term sheet and told them to sign it on the spot if they knew what was good for them. [WSJ, NYT]
♦ Whether or not the federal government make actually make money taking a take in all these banks is still up in the air. [NYT]
♦ Will the bailout really change the way Wall Street CEOs are paid? Nah. They "will find other creative ways of paying their executives as they see fit." Which means Lloyd Blankfein will still take home tens of millions. [NYT, Bloomberg]
♦ The credit markets thawed ever so slightly yesterday following the news the U.S. government would take a stake in major banks. It could take weeks or months for things to really improve, though. [WSJ]

HealthCentral just announced $50 million in funding. The round included a major investment from IAC and smaller contributions from prior investors Sequoia Capital, Carlyle Group and Polaris Venture Partners. HealthCentral operates several health-related websites, including the long-troubled DrKoop.com, which was once a publicly traded company a bubble or two ago. Here's how their traffic looked last year, according to Compete. It's nice and all, but stick around for the one comparing HealthCentral to WebMD. If I used the word pwnage, I would. But I don't.

White financiers are all flooding up to the Waldorf Astoria this morning for the opening of today's Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst confab! The topics and the attendees are undeniably sexy; Paul Gigot, the WSJ's editorial page editor, Hamilton James, president of Blackstone Group, and, most of all, David Rubenstein, the reformed liberal, capitalism evangelist, Bush family friend and co-founder of private equity firm the Carlyle Group, who is not to be confused with uber-publicist Howard Rubenstein. And for some reason, New York's poor people are going to show up and protest the intricate system of tax breaks and benefits that help the rich amass more capital.

Private equity firm The Carlyle Group is discussing a $20 billion bid for Richard Branson's Virgin Media. [NYT]