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CORRECTED-MOVES-(June 2) Goldman Sachs, UBS, BofA Merrill, Houlihan Lokey, Aviva

Written By Unknown on Selasa, 03 Juni 2014 | 18.12

Tue Jun 3, 2014 6:03am EDT

(Corrects Aquiline Capital Partners item to say the last name of the new appointee is La Ruffa, not Ruffa)

June 3 (Reuters) - The following financial services industry appointments were announced on Monday. To inform us of other job changes, email to moves@thomsonreuters.com.

UBS AG

The Swiss bank named Mark Haefele as chief investment officer of its flagship private bank, replacing Alexander Friedman who is leaving the bank. Haefele previously reported to Friedman, who joined UBS in 2011 and developed a unified investing view for the Swiss bank's wealthy clients.

BANK OF AMERICA MERRILL LYNCH

The U.S. bank has named Tim Waddell, a 28-year veteran of rival UBS, as vice chairman of corporate and investment banking for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP INC

The investment banking firm said Stephen Scherr will become chief strategy officer at the start of 2015, replacing Andrew Chisolm who will retire after nearly 30 years. Scherr has been global head of Goldman's financing group within the investment banking division since 2008.

HOULIHAN LOKEY

The international investment bank said Jennifer Muller has been appointed co-head of the firm's transaction opinions practice alongside Chris Croft, who has been leading the practice since 2010. Both Muller and Croft are managing directors in the firm's financial advisory services business.

MITSUBISHI UFJ SECURITIES HOLDINGS CO LTD

Geoffrey Coley has been appointed as international business head by Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Holdings Co Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. Geoff joins the organization with over 30 years' experience in financial services with majority of his career at Citigroup.

AVIVA INVESTORS

The asset management arm of UK-based insurer Aviva has recruited Susan Ebenston as new chief operating officer to oversee technology, operations and performance. In a statement on Monday, Aviva Investors said Ebenston joins from Westpac Group in Australia where she was chief compliance officer. Ebenston will report to the division's Chief Executive, Euan Munro, who joined Aviva from rival Standard Life at the start of 2014 with a remit to boost performance.

AQUILINE CAPITAL PARTNERS LLC

The private equity firm said it appointed Vincenzo La Ruffa as financial technology specialist. La Ruffa was managing director and co-founder of Susquehanna Growth Equity. Previously, he held positions at NGP Energy Technology Partners, EnerTech Capital, and Deutsche Bank.

LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE GROUP

The exchange said it had appointed former Espirito Santo investment banker, John Millar, head of primary markets. Millar will focus on generating initial public offerings and report to Raffaele Jerusalmi, LSE's director of capital markets and chief executive of Borsa Italiana, and London Stock Exchange CEO Alexander Justham, the group said in a statement.

BANK OF JAPAN

The Japanese central bank will reappoint Masayoshi Amamiya, an architect of its quantitative easing, for a rare second term as an executive director to oversee a division that determines monetary policy options, people with direct knowledge of the process said.

NATIXIS GLOBAL ASSET MANAGEMENT

The asset manager hired Scott MacLean, Gerry Burke and Mike Schnackenberg as sales managers in its UK wholesale and retail team. The firm also added Harriet Chatfield to its sales support team. Natixis said all four will report to Darren Pilbeam, head of UK retail sales.

METRO BANK PLC

The UK-based bank appointed Sam Mackenzie-Carmichael as commercial banking director for local authorities. Mackenzie-Carmichael joins Metro Bank from independent treasury advisory company Arlingclose, where she advised local authorities on their debt and investment portfolios.

BARNETT WADDINGHAM LLP

The UK-based pension consultant said it promoted Jonathan Daykin, Paul Leandro and Simon Taylor to the position of partners. With these promotions, the firm now has 62 partners in total, Barnett said.

SL CAPITAL PARTNERS

The private equity fund said it was promoting Chief Operating Officer Ian Harris to the position of partner. Harris will continue to lead finance, operations and fund administration teams and oversee the fund's third-party relationships, SL Capital said. The fund also appointed David Thompson as legal director. (Compiled by Lehar Maan and Shailaja Sharma in Bangalore)

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Europe stocks down, euro holds near lows after inflation data

Tue Jun 3, 2014 6:10am EDT

* European stocks down, euro near lows after inflation data

* Data seen cementing case for ECB to ease policy

* Asian shares rise as U.S., China activity picks up (Updates after inflation data)

By Nigel Stephenson

LONDON, June 3 (Reuters) - European shares dipped on Tuesday and the euro held near 3 1/2-month lows against the dollar after a fall in euro zone inflation cemented the case for the European Central Bank to ease monetary policy later this week.

The pan-European FTSE Eurofirst 300 equity index was down 0.3 percent at 0930 GMT, barely reacting to the data that showed annual consumer price inflation unexpectedly slowed to 0.5 percent in May.

The ECB, which targets inflation of close to 2 percent, meets on Thursday and is widely expected to cut interest rates, including lowering the rate that banks are charged for depositing funds with the central bank to below zero.

The euro briefly rose after the numbers, reflecting relief that price growth had not decelerated even further, while German government bond futures fell.

"Today's inflation numbers underscore the need for the ECB to act. The ECB has consistently underestimated the deflationary forces threatening Europe and now is the time for unconventional monetary policy," said Dominic Rossi, Global Chief Investment Officer at Fidelity Worldwide Investment.

While recent data pointing to a weaker-than-expected economic recovery have weighed on stocks, the prospect of ECB intervention has offered some support.

However, expectations of lower euro zone rates, and recent upbeat U.S. economic data, have combined to push the euro to its weakest against the dollar since mid-February.

The single currency was steady at $1.3605, all but flat on the day and not far from a low of $1.3586 hit last week.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against a basket of currencies, edged down but was close to Monday's four-month high.

The dollar stood at 102.40 yen, having earlier hit 102.49, its strongest in more than a month.

German 10-year government bond yields, which hit 12-month lows last week, rose 3.1 basis points to 1.34 percent. Bund futures declined. Some traders said the weak inflation data was already priced into the market and prompted investors to book profits after a recent rally.

"That number was if anything bond-friendly. We expect the Bund to regain its momentum and start rallying again ahead of Thursday's ECB meeting," one trader said.

U.S. 10-year Treasury yields rose on Monday to 2.54 percent after the Institute of Supply Management showed U.S. manufacturing activity accelerated in May. The ISM data helped push U.S. stocks higher, with the Dow Jones average and S&P 500 index closing at record highs.

EMERGING MARKETS

The U.S. numbers and Chinese data showing factory and service-sector performance had their best showings in months in May helped push Asian shares higher on Tuesday.

Japan's Nikkei hit a two-month high, further boosted by talk of public pension funds increasing their assets allocated to domestic shares. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.4 percent, nearing a one-year high hit last week.

Emerging markets stayed broadly rangebound. Emerging dollar bond spreads versus Treasuries stood at 288 basis points , their tightest in 15 months. Emerging stocks rose 0.4 percent, just off recent 6-1/2 month highs

Higher U.S. and Asian shares helped steady gold after a five-day losing streak, though the metal was still near a four-month low at $1,246 an ounce.

Brent crude slipped towards $108 a barrel, reflecting weak European demand, although the Chinese data kept a floor under prices. (Additiional reporting by Jamie McGeever, Sujata Rao and Sudip Kar-Gupta in London, Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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MOVES- Artemis Investment Management, State Street Global, Euronext

June 3 Tue Jun 3, 2014 6:21am EDT

June 3 (Reuters) - The following financial services industry appointments were announced on Tuesday. To inform us of other job changes, email to moves@thomsonreuters.com.

ARTEMIS INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT LLP

The company said it had appointed Raheel Altaf as a fund manager. Artemis said Altaf would work alongside Philip Wolstencroft and Peter Saacke, managing the three funds that they run - Artemis Capital, European Growth and Global Growth.

STATE STREET GLOBAL ADVISORS

The asset management business of State Street Corp named James MacNevin as head of its intermediary business group - Asia Pacific. State Street Global also said MacNevin would continue in his role as chief operating officer, Asia Pacific and report to Lochiel Crafter and Jim Ross.

EURONEXT

The Pan-European exchange group, which is set to list on three of its markets in the coming weeks, said it had hired Jos Dijsselhof as chief operating officer. Dijsselhof, who was most recently a general manager at Australia and New Zealand Bank in Singapore, will join Euronext on July 1, provided that regulators sign off on the appointment, Euronext said in a statement on Tuesday.

THE U.S. FEDERAL RESERVE

The Federal Reserve has hired a former state insurance commissioner to help it oversee non-bank financial firms that a council of regulators identified for tougher scrutiny last year. Thomas Sullivan, who led the Connecticut Insurance Department from 2007 through 2010 and later worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers, told Reuters he starts as a senior adviser on June 9. (Compiled by Lehar Maan in Bangalore)

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UPDATE 2-Russia's Gazprom gives Kiev extension into next week in gas dispute

Written By Unknown on Senin, 02 Juni 2014 | 18.12

Mon Jun 2, 2014 5:46am EDT

* Kiev has until June 9 to pay for new deliveries

* Gas dispute is at heart of standoff with Kiev

* More talks being held in Brussels on Monday (Adds gas pricing and debt detail, charts)

By Vladimir Soldatkin and Katya Golubkova

MOSCOW, June 2 (Reuters) - Russia's Gazprom gave Ukraine on Monday an extension into next week to resolve a gas price dispute at the heart of the two countries' confrontation, a day before Moscow was due to switch off the gas unless Kiev paid in advance.

The argument over prices for natural gas has quietly simmered in the background even as the two countries have squared off over Moscow's seizure of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula and over a pro-Russian rebel uprising in eastern Ukraine.

Since a pro-Moscow president was toppled in Ukraine in February, Russia has demanded a sharp increase in the price Ukraine pays for gas. Kiev says it cannot afford it and wants to pay a discounted price which it negotiated in the past.

While the dispute has gone on, Gazprom has continued billing Kiev at the higher rate. It says Ukraine already owes it more than $5 billion in unpaid bills and is running up more debt at a rate of more than $1 billion per month.

Moscow had previously threatened to switch off Ukraine's gas as soon as this Tuesday unless it began paying up front for supplies, a measure that could potentially have also hit European supplies shipped through Ukrainian pipes.

But after Kiev paid some of its gas debt, Gazprom announced a six-day extension of the deadline until June 9. Gazprom also said that it would not sue Ukraine's gas supplier Naftogaz over unpaid bills during the coming week.

"Payment for May should be done before June 9," Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said in a statement.

That means gas will continue to flow to Ukraine and Europe while President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders - including Ukraine's new president-elect Petro Poroshenko - are in France this week for events commemorating the allied forces' "D-Day" landings in Normandy during World War Two.

The Kremlin has announced no plans for talks with Poroshenko or U.S. President Barack Obama during Putin's visit on Thursday and Friday but has said it cannot rule out the possibility of informal meetings. They are all due to attend a lunch on June 6.

Putin has pulled back some of the tens of thousands of troops he had massed on Ukraine's border and says he is prepared to work with Poroshenko, who won a landslide presidential election a week ago. But the past week has also seen a sharp increase in violence in eastern Ukraine, with dozens of pro-Moscow rebel fighters killed in a government assault, most of them Russians whose bodies were sent back across the border.

MORE TALKS

Talks between the Russian gas exporter and Ukraine were due to resume later on Monday in Brussels, under the auspices of the European Union.

EU mediator Guenther Oettinger said on Friday a $786 million partial payment for back gas bills was on its way to Moscow, clearing the way for further talks on Monday.

Gazprom confirmed on Monday that it had received the payment.

The delicate negotiations over gas supplies worth billions of dollars provide the economic backdrop for the crisis in Ukraine, which has led to the biggest confrontation between the West and Russia since the Cold War.

Ukraine's industry-heavy economy depends on Russian natural gas to be competitive. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Moscow has frequently used its control over energy resources to influence politics.

Kiev wants to return to a discount gas price of $268.50 per 1,000 cubic metres while Moscow is demanding $485 - the highest paid by any client, which Kiev says would effectively bankrupt it. Most European countries are believed to pay Russia around $300-$400 for gas, although the prices are not published.

Gazprom's Miller said that averting the requirement for prepayment for gas would depend on whether Kiev pays off the remaining $2.24 billion for deliveries from before April 1 and makes "progress" in paying off for April and May.

"The Russian side would be ready to look into the resolution of the pricing scheme issue through cuts in exports custom duty" if Ukraine settles all its bills, he said.

Europe gets a third of its gas needs from Russia, and almost half of these supplies are sent via Ukraine. On Monday, Gazprom said gas was flowing to Europe as usual.

The debt Moscow says Kiev already owes is equivalent to around 3 percent of Ukraine's GDP. Delaying an agreement will make it increasingly difficult for already cash-starved Ukraine to meet its obligations.

Moscow's leverage is blunted somewhat because the peak winter demand season is now over and storage tanks across Europe are full. Past pricing disputes between Moscow and Kiev in 2006 and 2009 took place during times of peak winter demand, causing shortages and freezing across Europe.

But following a mild winter and spring as well as healthy supplies from non-Russian sources such as Norway and Qatar, Europe's gas storage sites are well filled this year.

The healthy supply is reflected in wholesale prices, which have fallen 30 percent since the start of the Ukraine crisis in late February to the lowest levels since 2010. (Additional reporting by Denis Pinchuk in Moscow and Henning Gloystein in London; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Peter Graff)

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Spain's king abdicates for political reasons - palace source

MADRID, June 2 Mon Jun 2, 2014 5:58am EDT

MADRID, June 2 (Reuters) - Spain's King Juan Carlos has decided to abdicate for political reasons rather than because of his ailing health, a source at the royal palace told Reuters on Monday.

"It's a political decision. He is abdicating given the new challenges in Spain because he thinks it's necessary to make way for the new generation," the source said.

The king made the decision to step down in January and told Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Socialist opposition leader Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba of it in April, added the source.

The announcement was delayed until after the European elections to avoid affecting the vote, the source said. (Reporting By Elisabeth O'Leary; Writing by Sarah Morris; Editing by Fiona Ortiz)


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MOVES- Bank of Japan, Natixis Global Asset Management, Metro Bank

June 2 Mon Jun 2, 2014 6:30am EDT

June 2 (Reuters) - The following financial services industry appointments were announced on Monday. To inform us of other job changes, email to moves@thomsonreuters.com.

THE BANK OF JAPAN

The Japanese central bank will reappoint Masayoshi Amamiya, an architect of its quantitative easing, for a rare second term as an executive director to oversee a division that determines monetary policy options, people with direct knowledge of the process said.

NATIXIS GLOBAL ASSET MANAGEMENT

The asset manager hired Scott MacLean, Gerry Burke and Mike Schnackenberg as sales managers in its UK wholesale and retail team. The firm also added Harriet Chatfield to its sales support team. Natixis said all four will report to Darren Pilbeam, head of UK retail sales.

METRO BANK PLC

The UK-based bank appointed Sam Mackenzie-Carmichael as commercial banking director for local authorities. Mackenzie-Carmichael joins Metro Bank from independent treasury advisory company Arlingclose, where she advised local authorities on their debt and investment portfolios.

BARNETT WADDINGHAM LLP

The UK-based pension consultant said it promoted Jonathan Daykin, Paul Leandro and Simon Taylor to the position of partners. With these promotions, the firm now has 62 partners in total, Barnett said.

SL CAPITAL PARTNERS

The private equity fund said it was promoting Chief Operating Officer Ian Harris to the position of partner. Harris will continue to lead finance, operations and fund administration teams and oversee the fund's third-party relationships, SL Capital said. The fund also appointed David Thompson as legal director. (Compiled by Lehar Maan in Bangalore)

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Argentina says no plan to evade U.S. courts in creditor case

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 01 Juni 2014 | 18.12

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK Fri May 30, 2014 8:25pm EDT

NEW YORK May 30 (Reuters) - Argentina's lawyers sought Friday to assure a U.S. judge it would not evade orders to pay $1.33 billion to bondholders who refused to accept its debt-restructuring offers if the U.S. Supreme Court declines the case.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in New York questioned lawyers for Argentina about a leaked memo described as advising on a plan for how to restructure its bonds outside the reach of U.S. courts if the Supreme Court does not take the case.

Carmine Boccuzzi, a lawyer for Argentina at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, acknowledged the memo was real. He said while it did address whether Argentina may need to restructure in a way consistant with U.S. court orders, that was "not the upshort of the memo."

"There is no secret plan to evade," he said.

Boccuzzi added there "likely would be a default" if the lower court rulings remained in place, saying "there would be a cataclysmic result from an affirmance of the order."

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled on June 12 to consider whether to hear Argentina's appeal of rulings requiring it to pay the holdout bondholders back in full.

The holdouts' case is the last hurdle to the country putting its 2002 default on $100 billion in debt behind it and regaining full access to international credit markets.

Argentina on Thursday clinched a landmark deal with the Paris Club of wealthy creditor nations to repay its overdue debt worth nearly $10 billion.

After the default, creditors holding about 93 percent of Argentina's bonds agreed to participate in the swaps, in 2005 and 2010, accepting between 25 cents and 29 cents on the dollar.

But bondholders including NML Capital Ltd, a unit of billionaire Paul Singer's Elliott Management Corp, and Aurelius Capital Management went to court seeking payment in full.

The hearing Friday stemmed from the publication in an Argentine blog of portions of a May 2 memo by Cleary Gottlieb that advised the country on options if the Supreme Court did not take the case.

The memo posted online said the "best option" for Argentina would be to let the Supreme Court force a default and then restructure its bonds so the payment mechanism was outside U.S. court jurisdiction.

Robert Cohen, a lawyer for NML, argued the memo "requires the immediate attention of the court."

He argued the judge should rule it was not protected by attorney-client privilege, find the county violated the court's orders and force Argentina to disclose its plans.

Boccuzzi, while not confirming many details of the memo, said it also laid out "possible settlement scenarios," adding there was no plan to evade the U.S. courts' jurisdiction.

But Judge Griesa noted another lawyer at Boccuzzi's firm had previously told a U.S. appeals court Argentina "would not voluntarily obey" his injunctions even if upheld.

"All that's ever been done by Argentina is to refuse to pay its just obligations," he said.

The case is NML Capital et al v. Republic of Argentina, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 08-6978. (Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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Minority creditors of Brazil's Oleo e Gas sue Deutsche Bank

SAO PAULO Fri May 30, 2014 9:26pm EDT

SAO PAULO May 30 (Reuters) - Minority bondholders of bankrupt Brazilian oil company Oleo e Gas Participações SA filed suit in New York state court on Friday against Deutsche Bank AG, which is the trustee for $3.6 billion of principal of defaulted notes.

The bonds were issued by an Austrian subsidiary of Oleo e Gas, a company formerly known as OGX that filed for Latin America's largest-ever bankruptcy in October.

The minority bondholder plaintiffs allege that Deutsche Bank and affiliates "have made or will make grossly disproportionate distributions" to majority bondholders, according to a statement from the plaintiff's firm, Brown Rudnick LLP on Friday.

The plaintiffs believe majority bondholders will receive recovery at a rate 3.5 times over those of minority bondholders, in violation of Deutsche Bank's duty as trustee to "ensure that all holders of the notes are treated equally," the statement said.

Plaintiffs include Capital Ventures International of the Cayman Islands, GLG Partners LP of London, Brennus Asset Management and VR Global Partners L.P. (Reporting by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)


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Egypt opens tender to import fuel in July-Sept 2014 -official

Sat May 31, 2014 7:24am EDT

* Government hoping to avoid summer blackouts

* Tender to supplement energy products donated by Saudi Arabia

* Raising energy prices could cause unrest

CAIRO, May 31 (Reuters) - Egypt has launched a tender to import hundreds of thousands of tonnes of petroleum products in the third quarter of 2014, an energy official said on Saturday, as the country tries to stave off a summer energy crisis.

Egypt's government wants to avoid major power blackouts during the months of increased consumption in the summer, when outages are worsened by a dilapidated grid and a wasteful subsidies system.

The tender comes in addition to supplies from Saudi Arabia, which will deliver energy products to Egypt in July and August as part of an aid package announced after the Egyptian army overthrew Egypt's first freely elected president, the Islamist Mohamed Mursi.

An official from the Egyptian General Petroleum Corp (EGPC) told Reuters that Egypt launched a tender on Thursday to import 90,000 tonnes of diesel each in July and August, and 120,000 tonnes of gasoline and 500,000 tonnes of diesel in September.

The tender would remain open until the first week of June, the official said, declining to be named.

Saudi Arabia would give Egypt about 240,000 tonnes of gasoline and 850,000 tonnes of diesel in July and August "as a gift", he said.

The country has enjoyed strong support from Gulf Arab states since the army deposed Mursi last year, whose Muslim Brotherhood organisation they regard as a potent security threat to the wider region and themselves.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) pledged more than $12 billion in loans and donations.

The head of the EGPC told Reuters in May that Egypt would receive about $650 million to $700 million worth of petroleum aid per month in August, totalling to more than $3 billion from April to August.

Power cuts and long queues at petrol stations contributed to widespread discontent with Mursi and sparked mass protests against his rule before he was ousted in July by the then army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Sisi then stepped down from his post in the army and stood in last week's presidential elections, winning with over 90 percent of the vote. But his landslide win has been undermined by a low turnout, partly caused by an Islamist call for a boycott of the poll.

Raising energy prices could cause more unrest in a country where street protests helped bring down two presidents in three years, but analysts say failing to reform the system will inhibit economic growth. (Reporting by Abdel Rahman Adel; Writing by Alexander Dziadosz; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

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UPDATE 1-Illinois budget with income tax revenue hole passes

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 31 Mei 2014 | 18.12

Fri May 30, 2014 7:56pm EDT

(Adds statements from governor, Senate president; in paragraphs 4-5, 9-10)

By Karl Plume

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. May 30 (Reuters) - The Illinois Senate gave final approval to the state's $35.7 billion fiscal 2015 budget on Friday, sending the governor a spending plan that offsets a big tax revenue hole with one-time measures.

Temporary income-tax rate increases, passed in 2011 in the midst of one of the state's budget pinches, are set to partially expire on Jan. 1, causing an estimated $2 billion revenue decline in the fiscal year that begins on July 1. The budget bills, which were passed by the Democratic-controlled House on Tuesday, keep most spending flat despite the projected revenue decline.

Governor Pat Quinn had proposed making the temporary tax rates permanent, but House Democrats could not muster enough votes to pass the extension, which Republicans in both chambers opposed. The House also refused to enact spending cuts to account for the revenue loss.

The Democratic governor said lawmakers sent him an "incomplete" budget that postpones tough decisions.

"I will work to minimize the impact of cuts in vital services while continuing to cut waste and maintain our hard-won fiscal gains," Quinn said in a statement.

The revenue decline will occur in the second half of fiscal 2015 as the personal income tax rate falls to 3.75 percent from 5 percent and the corporate rate drops to 5.25 percent from 7 percent.

Lawmakers said the budget is expected to add $2 billion to Illinois' big backlog of unpaid bills, while it would allow the governor to borrow up to $650 million from a variety of dedicated state funds to boost general fund cash flow. These kinds of one-time revenue measures have contributed to past downgrades of Illinois' bond ratings, which are at the lowest level among states.

The state has shrunk its bill pile to $4.17 billion as of last month from $5.3 billion in April 2013, according to the governor's budget office.

Senate President John Cullerton acknowledged that the budget will reverse fiscal progress Illinois has made in recent years and said lawmakers will have to revisit income tax rates.

"In order to return to this path of fiscal progress, we will have to bring revenues in line with our growing liabilities," Cullerton said in a statement. "While a vote on our tax rates has been deferred, rising costs and pressures will force the issue at a later date."

Ahead of the budget vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate, Republican senators held a news conference to push a resolution to prevent a post-November general election vote on making the income tax rates permanent.

"Lame-duck action is not something that needs to be occurring on very controversial and important issues," said Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno. "Those should be reserved for the regular session of the general assembly." (Additional reporting by Karen Pierog in Chicago; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Mohammad Zargham)

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