Mergers & Acquisitions

nee.190.jpgA well-known financier—cough, Lloyd Blankfein, cough—once said, “The Sunday Styles’ ‘Weddings and Celebrations’ section exists solely to make people feel bad about themselves. If you’re unwed—it’s a reminder that you probably never will be; for the single women, it reinforces the fact that they will die alone, save for their cats and the indelible crows feet caused by years of putting careers before relationships. For the men, it’s a splash of cold water on their no-longer-youthful faces that no one wants an aging bachelor—even Jay McInerney is all, ‘I’d argue that having three divorces and four wives to my name is a small price to pay in exchange for being off that bitch of a singles market.’ And if you’re reading ‘W&C’ and are wearing the tiniest handcuff known to mankind? Well, that’s just the cruelest punishment of all. You know what these people are in for.” (Which is part of the reason people stopped inviting him to their weddings and bar mitzvahs– who needs that kind of negativity?)
With that said, we here at Dealbreaker are always up for trivializing the pain of others, and noticed some time ago the considerable Venn Diagram overlap between the unfortunate souls “married last evening at the Tribeca Rooftop” and the same people having jobs in the industry of which we cover. Every Monday, we’ll review the Times wedding announcements that involve professionals, assign them “market value,” based on experience, firm, any other occupational variables we see fit. Feel free to add your own ratings scale and we may or may not incorporate it into our own next week.

Karen Ruiz and Jonathan Block
Bride:
Teaches first grade (+1) at a public school (-1)
Pre-merger valuation: 0 pts
Bridegroom:
Vice president (+2) and stock research analyst (-1) of medical device companies (-3) in the investment banking group (+1) at SunTrust (-5) (A word on SunTrust: when starting annual bonus rumors, Brock would send out an email saying, “I hear SunTrust is giving top tier 2nd years $150k” because this fact is unverifiable and requires SunTrust bankers to be in the discussion to begin with…)
Pre-merger valuation: -6 pts
Post-merger valuation: -6 pts
This merger is extremely dilutive to the bride, obviously. Daimler acquired Chrysler thinking they could get by on love alone and look at them now. Please relate back to what this couple’s going to look like in five, six years max.


Lora Foster and Kevin Nee
Bride:
Does not work in finance (-1)
Is the executive director (+1) of strategic planning (+2; you know what “strategic planning is code for”) in New York for Estée Lauder brands (-1)
Graduated from Columbia (+1) business school (-1)
Pre-merger valuation: +2 points
Bridegroom:
Is a partner (+2) and a portfolio manager in the New York office (+1) of the Quellos Group (-2; Quellos sounds made up), an investment company.
Received an M.B.A. (-1) from Columbia (+1)
Pre-merger valuation: +2 points
Post-merger valuation: +4
A merger of equals: BORING. No hostile takeover role-play.
Erin Tunstill and Jeffrey Lui
Bride:
An associate (+1) in the investment banking division (+1) of Merrill Lynch (-2); specializes (+1) in raising money through public offerings (+1)
Pre-merger valuation: +2 pts
Bridegroom:
An associate (+1) in the investment banking division (+1) of Merrill Lynch (-2); works with companies raising money from investors (-1)
Pre-merger valuation: -1 pts
Post-merger valuation: 1 point
Check out the romantic story of how this couple met.

Comments (21)

  1. Posted by Anonymous | April 3, 2007 at 3:57 PM

    What exactly is “strategic planning” code for?

  2. Posted by Anonymous | April 3, 2007 at 3:59 PM

    drug trafficking

  3. Posted by Anonymous | April 3, 2007 at 4:02 PM

    no german joke re: daimler chrysler? i blame carney for this sensorship.

  4. Posted by jcd | April 3, 2007 at 4:11 PM

    what does intern alexis think of this?

  5. Posted by Anonymous | April 3, 2007 at 4:17 PM

    jcd: she probably doesn’t care since they mentioned last week this is a blatant rip off of the gawker feature.

  6. Posted by huh? | April 3, 2007 at 4:18 PM

    We’re blatantly ripping-off Gawker posts now?

  7. Posted by Anonymous | April 3, 2007 at 4:21 PM

    and gawker’s is a blatant rip off of Veiled Conceit

  8. Posted by jcd | April 3, 2007 at 5:07 PM

    I just wanted to see if anyone else knew who intern alexis was

  9. Posted by PBateman | April 3, 2007 at 5:22 PM

    Is this, or is this not a finance website? Are we judging people off of their jobs or Bess’s own dating experience?
    P.S. Quellos is an extremely large FOF

  10. Posted by hugh jorgen | April 3, 2007 at 5:26 PM

    Quellos is a very large and very successful hedge FOF out here in Seattle. They have grown very large very quickly. They were dragged down a year or two ago with Grant Thornton in a tax shelter mess. The groom should at least get +2 for the tax shelter angle.

  11. Posted by MSM Hack | April 3, 2007 at 5:30 PM

    Bess dates? Who knew? (+1)

  12. Posted by Anonymous | April 3, 2007 at 5:58 PM

    Bess dates should be (+10), at least.

  13. Posted by BSD | April 3, 2007 at 6:19 PM

    Funny (and sad) but true: back in my i-banking days I set up a comp sheet to choose the best girlfriend from a list of prospects. Fortunately now I’m at a hedge fund and don’t have to limit my choices.

  14. Posted by MSM Hack | April 3, 2007 at 8:47 PM

    Bess is like (+38.75) but I’d hate to have debrief my three (like Jay) marriages. Ugly.

  15. Posted by onthetopoftheworld | April 3, 2007 at 9:05 PM

    No problem as long as the wife to be sign the water tight pre-nup agreement. Any sound woman has no problem with that.

  16. Posted by Anonymous | April 4, 2007 at 1:10 AM

    the hope of one day seeing more than that picture of her blowing a kiss to the camera is the one reason i read this site. bess (+234,949,102)

  17. Posted by Texas Energy | April 4, 2007 at 10:08 AM

    Creepy

  18. Posted by Migster | April 4, 2007 at 10:50 AM

    Lloyd’s got some good taste…(+5)

  19. Posted by pop | April 4, 2007 at 4:31 PM

    post link to bess pic?

  20. Posted by pop | April 4, 2007 at 4:34 PM

    post link to bess pic?

  21. Posted by Anonymous | April 16, 2007 at 4:09 PM

    Would love to see an update on this past week’s weddings!

Leave a comment

You can log in with your account or comment as a guest below.