David Faber suggested earlier that Goldman Sachs is down today because people were wondering if GS was in the Volkswagen trade. That could be it, or perhaps it has something to with people being pissed about the hold up of a little announcement. Whichever, we’ll buy either. Pretty boy unfortunately did not do any hypothesizing vis-à-vis what’s up (/down) with Morgan Stanley. We invite you at this time to pick up the slack.
Related? Morgan Stanley Takes Page From Stamford’s Play(a)book
Update: Fabes has heard from sources inside GS that there are “no significant losses tied to trading in Volkswagen.” Also: digging the title of the graphic the network just put up on the topic of the automaker (“This Makes No Sense“).

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Comments (89)

  1. Posted by Tau | October 28, 2008 at 11:06 AM

    GS is to Citadel as Lehman is to Bear?

  2. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:13 AM

    John Mack just announced that he is a hermaphrodite! Run for the hills and sell everything that you have!

  3. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:14 AM

    this isn’t nearly as fun(ny) as the stuff you make up, Bess.
    lie to me!

  4. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:14 AM

    I hear that GS really wants Andy Dick as partner but they already have too many Dicks

  5. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:15 AM

    “Obama ranked as one of the biggest financial winners, with his net worth increasing from $800,000 in 2006 to $4.7 million last year”
    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/54838.html

  6. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:19 AM

    I stuck to the script. I went to MIT, got a 4.0 GPA, got my CFA, went to HBS. Why am I now unemployed?

  7. Posted by VOL IS KING | October 28, 2008 at 11:21 AM

    GS must merge with Citi in order to survive.
    wait, what? really? what about natcity then? oh yeah… Hudson City it is then.

  8. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:22 AM

    Faber is working on a project he calls his baby “The sphincter dysplasia analysis” The direct impact the body has in correlation to the depreciating wealth. Simply fascinating! You should ask him about it sometime. Like at the gym or spa.

  9. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:22 AM

    @6. Because you’re a d0rk and have no people skills. Or you’re ugly. Either way, couldn’t sell a heater to an Eskimo.

  10. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:23 AM

    @6 MIT has a 5.0 GPA, so you didn’t do too well there.

  11. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:24 AM

    @6. YOU SHOULD HAVE GONE TO WHARTON. THAT’S WHERE THE BALLERS GO.

  12. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:24 AM

    @11
    YESSSS!!!!!
    ALLL CAPPPSSS!!!
    HBS 0
    WHARTON 1
    TUCK 3

  13. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:26 AM

    Will someone please post the fat man George Sam youtube again? Number 1 pick – bwah ha ha!

  14. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:26 AM

    Blankie does a Reduction In Force memo. Calling all souls to be there on Halloween @4:15 PM.
    PSYCHE!!!!!!!

  15. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:27 AM

    Where does Chubb rank?

  16. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:27 AM

    George W. Bush is into that “Yale thing.” Is that wild speculation?

  17. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:29 AM

    #6…it’s because you chatted up the married MD’s secret honey the other night and you have a faux-hawk haircut.

  18. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:30 AM

    @6 hbs is for fags. but the real reason you’re unemployed is probably because you use the cfa designation as a noun. anyone who acutally successfully completed that retarded process knows that the cfa mark is only to be used as an adjective.
    ps. there’s no script.

  19. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:31 AM

    George W. Bush is into that “Yale thing.” Is that wild speculation?

  20. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:32 AM

    @16 “What whole Yale thing?”

  21. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:35 AM

    Come on out to North Dakota!! We could use some eastern financial “savvy” out here. And the winter fun is just about to start!!
    ~Sieg Frauusthenhorstenschulaacht
    North Dakota Center for Warmth Studies

  22. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:37 AM

    @ I think they meant that “whole Harvard thing”.

  23. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:37 AM
  24. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:47 AM

    aren’t Harvard and MIT the ones who spawned the alumni who created this mess?
    Isn’t Yale only responsible for the mess in Washington, DC?

  25. Posted by NotNasser | October 28, 2008 at 11:52 AM

    I love “This Makes No Sense” too.
    Why is Chewbacca living with the Ewoks?
    This makes no sense!

  26. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:52 AM

    Sounds like the problem is they may have profited from the run-up in the stock
    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aFBoc3BFpUpo&refer=home

  27. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 11:58 AM

    Broken Securities Industry Still Has $20 Billion to Pay Bonuses
    By Christine Harper and Serena Saitto
    Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) — Five straight quarters of losses and a 70 percent slide in its stock this year haven’t stopped Merrill Lynch & Co. from allocating about $6.7 billion to pay bonuses.
    Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, both still on track for profitable years, have set aside about $13 billion for bonuses after three quarters, down 28 percent from a year ago. Even some employees at Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which declared the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history last month, will get the same bonus they received a year ago.
    The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, a $700 billion taxpayer bailout, public outcry over excessive pay and the demise of three of the biggest securities firms won’t deter Wall Street from offering year-end rewards to employees on top of their salaries, compensation experts say.
    “Critical producers and critical managers will be retained with the same bonus they had last year,” said Robert Sloan, head of U.S. financial-services recruiting at Egon Zehnder International, a New York-based executive-search firm. “The others will see sharp cuts.”
    Goldman, the biggest and most profitable Wall Street firm until it opted to become a bank holding company last month, has set aside about $6.85 billion for bonuses, or an average of $210,300 for each employee, down 32 percent from $339,400 a year ago. Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest securities firm until it also converted to a bank, has $6.44 billion for bonuses, or $138,700 per person, down 20 percent from last year. Both firms accrue a fixed percentage of their revenue for compensation, so the decline in bonus pools matches the drop in revenue.
    Merrill’s Compensation
    The money Merrill has set aside for bonuses equates to an average $110,000 for each of its 60,900 people, up from $108,000 a year ago because more than 3,000 jobs have been cut.
    The bonus figures are based on estimates that about 60 percent of the compensation and benefits expenses reported by the companies will be paid in year-end bonuses, as occurred in past years. Average bonuses aren’t an indication of how much any employee will receive, since payments range widely from assistants to top traders. Bonuses aren’t paid until the end of the fiscal year, so firms could choose to reallocate the funds.
    “We are in the process of determining appropriate levels of year-end compensation, and no decisions have been made,” said Mark Lake, a spokesman at Morgan Stanley. Ed Canaday, a spokesman for Goldman in New York, declined to comment.
    Merrill spokeswoman Jessica Oppenheim said the firm’s accrued bonuses aren’t down as much as those at Goldman and Morgan Stanley because the firm reduced expenses last year, when it also had a loss. Compensation costs are down 18 percent this year, compared with the first nine months of 2006, Merrill’s last profitable year.
    `Moratorium on Bonuses’
    A worldwide economic slowdown, caused in part by the financial industry’s losses, and a U.S. Treasury plan to spend $250 billion of taxpayer money buying stakes in banks, have made pay a political issue this year.
    “There should be a moratorium on bonuses,” Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told reporters last week. “If nobody gave them, there wouldn’t be a competitive aspect.”
    In Zurich, protesters blocked UBS AG’s private-banking branch on Paradeplatz last week to seek curbs on executive pay after Switzerland’s largest bank was forced to ask for government aid.
    $145 Billion
    “I’m just flabbergasted that the financial community has failed to show any sense of leadership on this issue and doesn’t seem to understand how angry people are at them,” said Nell Minow, editor of Corporate Library, a Portland, Maine-based corporate-governance research firm. “They are just a bonus away from having the villagers come after them with torches.”
    New York-based Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Merrill, Lehman and Bear Stearns Cos. awarded their employees a cumulative $145 billion in bonuses from 2003 through 2007, according to estimates based on company reports. That’s more than the annual gross domestic product of the Philippines. Last year the firms paid out a record $39 billion.
    At the end of this year, companies may decide against paying the money accrued for bonuses and instead use part of it to cover severance costs, said Rose Marie Orens, a New York-based partner at Mercer, the human resources consulting unit of Marsh & McLennan Cos., who specializes in executive compensation for financial- service companies. Goldman and Morgan Stanley end their fiscal year in November, and Merrill’s ends in December.
    Lehman Bankruptcy
    “Whether what you see is what they’re going to pay, you can’t tell yet,” she said. “It’s highly unlikely they’ll add to those numbers and more likely they’ll bring them down.”
    Lehman filed for bankruptcy on Sept. 15. Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns were rescued in emergency sales to Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York. Goldman and Morgan Stanley are each receiving $10 billion of capital from the government.
    Bank of America is offering Merrill’s U.S. brokers bonuses of as much as 100 percent of the revenue they generate to keep them after the deal is complete, people briefed on the plan said last week. Scott Silvestri, a spokesman for Bank of America, declined to comment.
    Employees at Lehman Brothers in Europe have been promised by their new owner, Nomura Holdings Inc., that they will receive the same bonus as last year, according to two people familiar with the situation. A Nomura spokesman declined to comment.
    Earnings Slump
    Share prices and profits have dropped more than bonuses so far. Goldman’s profit has fallen 47 percent this year, and the stock is down 53 percent. Morgan Stanley’s earnings have tumbled 41 percent, and the shares have shed 69 percent of their value.
    “Performances have certainly not been what investors would expect,” said Daniel Moynihan, a principal at Compensation Resources Inc., a 25-year-old company in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey that advises companies on pay practices. Still, “smart companies are going to reward those people who performed well,” he said.
    Even without bonuses, Wall Street’s traders and bankers typically receive salaries that range from $80,000 to $600,000 a year. That compares with the mean annual wage for the average U.S. employee of about $40,690 and a mean for CEOs of $151,370, according to a May 2007 Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
    For many on Wall Street, those salaries aren’t enough. Top employees expect to receive bonuses that can be in the millions or tens of millions of dollars. Lloyd Blankfein, 54, Goldman’s chief executive officer, was awarded a $67.9 million bonus last year on top of his $600,000 salary.
    `Obscene’ Mindset
    At Merrill Lynch, CEO John Thain, 53, received a $15 million bonus when he was hired in December. Peter Kraus, 56, who is leaving after joining Merrill last month as strategy head, may be eligible to collect on a pay package originally valued at $95 million, including stock and options that replaced a Goldman stake he had to forfeit, people familiar with the matter have said.
    While some of the most senior executives may choose to forgo their bonuses, like Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, 63, did last year, others whose compensation isn’t disclosed can still take home millions, said Mercer’s Orens.
    At investment banks, “the largest compensation doesn’t necessarily get paid to the top five executives,” she said. “They could be zeros, but there still will be people making $28 million.”
    “When you work on Wall Street and you get no bonus, that is a huge shock to the system,” said Bill Coleman, chief compensation officer at Salary.com, a software provider based in Waltham, Massachusetts. “Wall Street has created this mindset that most people find obscene, which is that it’s hard to live on just half a million dollars a year.”
    `No Wall Street’
    A Morgan Stanley investment banker in Europe, speaking on the condition that he wouldn’t be identified, said his bonus last year was five times his salary and that he would quit if he didn’t get a bonus this year, unless his salary was doubled.
    “There is no Wall Street without bonuses,” said Andy Kessler, a former analyst and hedge-fund manager turned author. “The guys who know how to make money are the ones who are in demand. If you want to keep them, you have to pay them something.”
    More than 148,000 financial jobs have been eliminated worldwide since the middle of 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Securities industry jobs in New York fell by 9,000, or 5 percent, through August 2008, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in an Oct. 23 report. The mean annual salary of securities-industry employees in 2007 was “slightly less than $400,000,” according to the Fed report.
    Goldman Cuts
    Goldman Sachs plans to cut about 3,200 people, or 10 percent of its employees, a person familiar with the matter said last week. That’s a reversal from Sept. 16, when Chief Financial Officer David Viniar said he expected the number of employees to grow this year. Viniar told analysts in March that compensation costs make up two-thirds of the firm’s expenses and that year-end bonuses are roughly two-thirds of compensation.
    More job reductions are likely, especially at Merrill and Lehman. About 10,000 Merrill employees may lose their jobs, estimates Richard Bove, an analyst at Ladenburg Thalmann & Co. Options Group, a financial services recruitment and consulting firm in New York, estimates that global banking job cuts could reach 200,000, with as many as 50,000 in New York.
    “The vast majority of the guys who are being let go are not going to find another job in this environment on the Street,” said Fred Joseph, the former CEO of Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. who’s now co-head of Morgan Joseph & Co. in New York. “Middle- market firms like us are growing, but all of us won’t hire enough people to dent the 10 percent of people that Goldman’s going to let go.”
    Hedge Funds
    Barclays Plc, which is acquiring Lehman’s North American investment banking and capital markets businesses, will cut about 3,000 jobs, Barclays President Robert Diamond said in an Oct. 10 Fortune magazine article. While London-based Barclays has a $2.5 billion pool of money to pay severance and other compensation, it hasn’t promised former Lehman employees any bonuses. Seth Martin, a spokesman at Barclays, declined to comment.
    Competition for top employees, a standard explanation for paying large bonuses, is less fierce this year. Hedge funds, which have poached top traders from securities firms in the past, may cut as many as 10,000 jobs this year after their biggest losses in more than 20 years, estimates Options Group.
    “People don’t have a whole lot of alternative places to go to, and it’s pretty clear to everybody that they’re lucky to have a job,” said Roy Smith, a former Goldman partner who’s now a finance professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business. “It has never been easy to find industries away from finance where you can make millions of dollars a year.”
    Who Are Keepers?
    Fewer employees means more bonus money will be available for those who remain, said Mercer’s Orens.
    “You determine these are keepers, and you’ve got to keep them, so they’ll receive a disproportionate amount of the money that remains,” she said. “You want to make sure they’re not there and angry.”
    Joseph, the former Drexel CEO, recalled the time at Shearson Hammill & Co. in 1973 when he had to deliver some good news and some bad news to a young employee.
    “The good news is we’re firing half your class, but we love you and we want you to stay; the bad news is you’re not going to get a bonus, and we’re cutting salaries 10 percent,” he said. “He stayed and he built a whole career, and he’s been a successful investment banker ever since.”
    The following table compares compensation and estimated bonuses for the first nine months of 2008 with the first nine months of last year. Bonus estimates are 60 percent of total compensation. Bonus awards are typically determined at the end of the year, with payments made in December or January.
    Goldman Morgan Stanley Merrill
    Nine Months 2007
    Total Compensation $16.92 $13.37 $11.56
    (in billions)
    Estimated Bonus $10.15 $8.02 $6.94
    (in billions)
    Employees* 29,905 47,713 64,200
    Bonus Per Employee $339,408 $168,067 $108,075
    Nine Months 2008
    Total Compensation $11.42 $10.73 $11.17
    (in billions)
    Estimated Bonus $6.85 $6.44 $6.70
    (in billions)
    Employees* 32,569 46,383 60,900
    Bonus Per Employee $210,322 $138,749 $110,049
    *Employee numbers are figures in third-quarter earnings reports
    and don’t reflect any cuts or additions since then.
    To contact the reporter on this story:
    Christine Harper in New York at
    charper@bloomberg.net;
    Serena Saitto in New York at
    ssaitto@bloomberg.net.

  28. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:03 PM

    @6 – because you still can’t DO anything.

  29. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:05 PM

    @24, @27. HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS IS A MESS? HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT WE DIDN’T DO THIS ON PURPOSE? HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT THE BRAINS OF THE IVYS ARE “STUPID?”
    THE SPREAD BETWEEN YOU AND ME IS NOW EVEN WIDER. I HOPE YOUR RAGE AGAINST SUCCESS GROWS. GET MAD. GET ANGRY. IT WONT HELP.
    THANKS FOR THE BONUS.
    -AFW

  30. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:05 PM

    That bloomberg article says VW is the largest company in the world by market cap.
    I doubt it.

  31. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:08 PM

    While we’re speculating about wild stuff, who’s to say Hamels didn’t get the call from Bud Selig to allow the run in the top of the 6th so Selig wouldn’t be faced with chaos; ie, a defacto World Series victory for Philadelphia based on a rain suspension?

  32. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:09 PM

    @30 – You are even dumber than @29, which is difficult and impressive.

  33. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:19 PM

    @ 30 actually as of this morning – the bloomberg article on VW is correct.

  34. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:26 PM

    31 is correct.

  35. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:28 PM

    @5 he published a book, idiot.

  36. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:28 PM

    once again cnbc rips db off, how flagrant. VW’s market cap is directly correlated to caruso-cabrerra’s sweater

  37. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:30 PM

    @32, please shut the fuck up.
    “Volkswagen became the world’s biggest company by market value today after Porsche SE announced plans to raise its stake in the German carmaker to 75 percent, triggering demand from short-sellers. “

  38. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:33 PM

    I have to return some videotapes.
    -Moneygrip Wisdom

  39. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:34 PM

    This article goes directly to some of BL’s blind items….
    EMERGING MARKETS CAPITAL FLIGHT EXACERBATED BY GOLDMAN SACHS AND MORGAN STANLEY BECOMING BANKS
    I somehow managed to fail to connect the dots on this one. When Morgan Stanley and Goldman, the far and away two biggest prime brokers (as in lenders to hedge funds) became banks, tougher regulatory requirements forced them to curtail hedge fund lending significantly.
    To give you an idea of the concentration in this business, Morgan, Goldman, and number three (until late 2007) prime broker Bear Stearns had among them 70% market shares, with some sources saying as high as 75%. So with all three now regulated as banks, the reduction in credit availability, even absent adverse market conditions, margin calls, and redemptions, is considerable.
    From Roger Peston at the BBC:
    As for this most recent phase of the withdrawal of credit, which has caused financial crises for a series of emerging economies in eastern Europe, Asia and South America (see “Now there are runs on countries”) and also global falls in share prices, it was in a way wholly foreseeable.
    It was caused, to a large extent, by an exceptional and unprecedented shrinkage in the prime brokerage industry, which in turn led to a serious reduction in the volume of credit extended to hedge funds, which in turn forced hedge funds to sell assets, especially those perceived as higher risk.
    This contraction in loans provide through prime brokers was the inevitable consequence of the collapse of Lehman, but also – far more importantly – of the recent conversion into banks of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.
    Morgan Stanley and Goldman are – by far – the biggest prime brokers, with Morgan Stanley the number one.
    But as banks, they’re prevented by regulators from lending as much relative to their capital resources as they had been as securities firms.
    So the US authorities should have known – and presumably did know – that by allowing Morgan Stanley and Goldman to become banks they were in effect forcing a serious contraction in the hedge-fund industry, which in turn would lead to sales of all manner of assets held by hedge funds and precipitate turmoil throughout the financial economy.
    Which, as if you needed telling, only goes to show that regulatory intervention carried out with the best of intentions can have consequences that – in the short term at least – can be very painful.

  40. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:35 PM

    @39 where’s that from? ie who’s ripping of db (again)?

  41. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:41 PM

    @37 – did you read 32′s comments?

  42. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:44 PM

    @37 – Congratulations, you just surpassed @30 as the biggest dumb fuck on this site. Another record! Again, very impressive.

  43. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:46 PM

    @6, probably because every HBS person Ive encountered is a total knob who can write a book reort but couldnt sell jack. Plus by reading your post you can tell that you have never been laid. Translation, no custy would ever want to socialize with you
    I went to Siena and make a TON of cash, school means very little in the trading world.. You either have it or you dont fool

  44. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:49 PM

    @39, @27
    too long didn’t read

  45. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:49 PM

    …someone needs to have her fangs milked.

  46. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:53 PM

    @43, that’s a great story. Now could you please go make me some coffee?

  47. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 12:58 PM

    @46, I can buy and sell you 5 times over im sure. My assistant is at sbux right now gettin me a latte Get a metrocard for your ride back to Bensonhurst today back office chumpstain.

  48. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:04 PM

    @47, did you just make that bit up all on your own, or did you just copy what I said – yet in an idiotic way? Keep making those fellow successful Sienna alumni proud! And when you’re done wasting my time, go bake me a turkey pot pie.

  49. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:06 PM

    In reading this thread it feels like some people are a little on edge.
    found this fascinating website:
    http://bankimplode.com/
    and the link led me here:
    “Since mid-2007, at least
    86
    funds at 54 outfits have “imploded*”
    http://hf-implode.com/

  50. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:07 PM

    #48m you aren’t knocking the Catholics are you? Sienna is a fine Catholic institution.

  51. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:08 PM

    I wonder if any of you can name the 86 funds that have “imploded” thus far?

  52. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:13 PM

    @48, I guarante you are on the stret in less than 2 months. I’ll remember to step right over you on my way into the office. I’ll take your gfriend, your apt, your car, all of that off of your hands so you can ove back in with mommy and daddy with a few bucks in your pocket

  53. Posted by Tau | October 28, 2008 at 1:14 PM

    @47:
    Question for you baller – how is it that you even know what Bensonhurst is? I had to google the damn place only to find that it was located out in the sticks in a region called “Brooklyn”
    Please explain, thanks
    And Starbucks? Really? Enjoy slurping down that mid-tier slush. If you spill, please use your Brooks Brothers ‘tie’ to clean up. Thanks again

  54. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:14 PM

    @51
    other than a few, most of them aren’t/weren’t worth noting

  55. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:16 PM
  56. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:19 PM

    @53, when you live somewhere your whole life you tend to learn about your surroundings, kind of how yo uknow where Des Moines is. Understand? Good. Anyone who uses the term”baller” is a giant tool and a guaranteed b office chooch, what firm do you settle trades for baller?

  57. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:25 PM

    Mmmmmm turkey pot pie.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-y3Q9gNtXU
    SPODE

  58. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:25 PM

    why so much hatred for backoffice on DB?

  59. Posted by StupidEquityGuy | October 28, 2008 at 1:25 PM

    CHICAGO (Reuters)�Target Corp. shareholder Pershing Square Capital Management said it will publicly suggest a potential transaction to boost the company’s value, sending shares in the discount retailer up as much as 7% on Tuesday [Oct. 28].
    Pershing said it would present the plan at an event in New York City on Wednesday [Oct. 29] that it described as being “of particular interest to investors and analysts focused on retail, real estate, fixed income and credit.”
    The hedge fund run by William Ackman has built a position of just under 10% of Target’s shares since taking an initial stake in April 2007. It gave no further details on the transaction.
    “Pershing Square believes that the insights gained by sharing the potential transaction in a public forum will benefit Target and all of its stakeholders,” the fund said in a statement on Tuesday.
    During a Target meeting with investors last week, Mr. Ackman asked executives a question about a potential derivatives transaction that he said would let Target effectively retire more of its own shares.

  60. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:25 PM

    why so much hatred for backoffice on DB?

  61. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:26 PM

    geez, the third stringers are restless today on this board

  62. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:28 PM

    @49 – the implodes are so 2007
    -Moneygrip Wisdom
    Ps – Feed me a stray cat

  63. Posted by Tau | October 28, 2008 at 1:30 PM

    @56:
    So…you’ve lived in Bensonhurst your entire life you say, therefore you are familiar with the surroundings? Fair enough, I suppose that answers my first question. I suppose that also explains why you would confuse Manhattan with this ‘Des Moines’ you’ve referenced
    Oh, and by the by…
    Statement A: “Anyone who uses the term “baller” is a giant tool and a guaranteed b office chooch”
    Statement B: “what firm do you settle trades for baller?”
    I believe that would make you a “giant tool and a guaranteed b office chooch”, please let me know if you are at all confused by the logic

  64. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:30 PM

    @56 – What a douche!

  65. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:39 PM

    You chooches are all so entertaining. Proves one thing, none of you asswipes has enough to do, sitting here posting on db all day. It’s gonna be great watching all of you deal with non-IB jobs in ’09 when you get vaporized along with your bilge-bracket pretender firms. Can’t wait to bitch-slap you for screwing up my morning latte future baristas!

  66. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:39 PM

    Don’t mean to defend the guy from Bensonhurst, but if you are unfamiliar with Bensonhurst, you are obviously not originally from any part of NYC.

  67. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:42 PM

    @60
    Because there’s some jealousy that backoffice folks actually have marketable skills and a purpose.

  68. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:42 PM

    I’m a hedge fund manager.. what is NYC?

  69. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:43 PM

    Is GS involved in blow ups? There must be fire (blowups), because there is smoke (massive FX intervention)!
    Who has blown up among banks and hedge funds in carry trades?
    http://www.marketwarnings.com/2008/10/forex-currency-yen-intervention-japan.html

  70. Posted by Tau | October 28, 2008 at 1:44 PM

    @65:
    Yeah man, we suck for posting on dealbreaker. Man, people who post on dealbreaker are such chooches and asswipes. Look forward to your response post
    @66:
    Satire

  71. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:46 PM

    anyone ever wonder if its the same person posting 905 of these comments?

  72. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:48 PM

    @63, clearly reading comprehension is not your strong suit. Read the first line of #56 again. Bensonhurst would be the surrounding area, I was born and raised in NYC. Calling you a douche is an insult to douchebags. Too many excel spreadsheets maybe. Anyway, when you get canned from your “job” in two months post on DB. Ill let you pick up my dry cleaning and clean my apt for extra cash

  73. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:50 PM

    I’m on the side with the trader.

  74. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:54 PM

    Gee, Tau, with all the writing you’re doing you got nothing to worry about when you get blown out the door next month. The Carson Daley show could use a person with your talents….at fetching coffee for the writers that is…

  75. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:54 PM

    jesus christ. we’re picking sides now?
    it’s one thing to laugh at the kids jawing at each other, but joining?!
    fuck it, i’m with the trader, too.

  76. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:56 PM

    me again (75)… i really need a job.

  77. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:56 PM

    For you, the day Bison graced your back office was the most important day of your life. But for me… it was Tuesday.
    -General M. Bison

  78. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 1:57 PM

    For you, the day Bison graced your back office was the most important day of your life. But for me… it was Tuesday.
    -General M. Bison

  79. Posted by Tau | October 28, 2008 at 2:13 PM

    @72:
    I’m sure “Mom” was very impressed by the B-average you rocked at Baruch but that doesn’t mean you should go around questioning anyone else’s reading comprehension. When a retard puts pen to paper and people can’t understand what he wrote, all that means is you’ve got a retard on your hands who can’t write for sh*t
    @74:
    You should tell your MD to get on the phone and pitch me some better ideas! I’m getting sleepy scanning all these terrible CIMs. If his office is cleaned out – well I think 72 might have some work for you

  80. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 2:47 PM

    Will all you d-bags realize that if you/we have time for DB then you are NOT doing biz. so all you “traders” and “ballers” Shut the Fuck Up. Anyone else wanna man up and admit it?!

  81. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 3:08 PM

    good point
    ….im so ashamed

  82. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 3:21 PM

    I’m doing a s’bux run, who needs?

  83. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 3:41 PM

    Yes I’ll have a tall half-skinny half-1 percent extra hot split quad shot (two shots decaf, two shots regular) latte with whip
    thanks bro

  84. Posted by guest | October 28, 2008 at 3:44 PM

    @80 perhaps we are in cash and taking the balance of the yr off. In other words, can’t we rest on our -30% laurels?

  85. Posted by Tau | October 28, 2008 at 4:01 PM

    Man, someone’s upset about their 30K

  86. Posted by guest | October 29, 2008 at 3:11 AM

    #80 here. Sorry for yelling. I was having a bad day and I didn’t mean to take it out on everyone.

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