As you’re aware, Meredith Whitney struck out on her own last month to found an eponymously named firm based on the same principles of ass kicking and testicle clamping that made her famous. But what else can we expect from the new shop? In a New York profile today, the Dollar Dominatrix offers some hints.
An air of Paris.
Meredith Whitney, dressed in a tightly fitted plum velvet jacket and towering red patent-leather heels, is giving me a tour of her new offices. “This will be where our research juniors are, this room is gonna be sales,” the former Oppenheimer & Co. analyst says, gesturing grandly across the 5,000 square feet of raw space above Lexington Avenue. She could almost be describing a full-fledged investment bank, which isn’t far from her aspirations.
“I joke that this has to be the Ken Chenault conference room, because he comes in and does an event for me every year,” Whitney continues in her breathy voice, referring to the chief executive of American Express. “I just want to make it nice! I’m also going to use this space to have writers, managements, thought leaders come in and entertain, like a salon series.”
Answering to no one, being in charge, saying who, saying when, saying yadda yadda yadda.
At the same time, she is trying to capitalize on her moment, and she’s so confident that she’s financing the new venture herself. “I had people be like, ‘Oh, let me give you seed capital, yadda yadda,’ ” Whitney says. “I’m not working for anyone anymore. That’s full-stop done. I’m never going back.”
The hotness.
“The funny thing is, in your twenties you try and look serious, and after your twenties, you just try and look hot,” she jokes. “I’m not an old white dude, so I stick out.”
Cookies!
“Ooh! who are those from?” Whitney squeals, catching sight of a congratulatory box of cookies by her assistant’s desk. “That is so sweet!” She is working out of a bare room she refers to as the “fallout shelter” until the renovations are complete.
An exclusive VIP list at the door.
“What I love about this model is the simplicity. If clients want my research, they pay for it,” Whitney continues. “What’s frustrating for so many sell-side analysts is, your research goes off into the never-never land, and so many people get access to it and don’t pay for it. I imagine I’ll cut thousands from my distribution list. That’s cathartic.”
What we’re PRAYING is a new wrestler rolled out by the WWE called ‘The Financier,’ whose first match has her rumbling with a certain JBL.
She pulls off a winning high-low combination–a brainiac with an Ivy League pedigree (Brown) and a glammy party girl who’s married to a WWE wrestler. His name is John Layfield, and in the ring, he plays an evil oilman inspired by J.R. Ewing, of the eighties hit TV show Dallas. He’s not the sort you’re likely to meet at Manhattan cocktail parties. He’s a postmodern jack of all trades, peddling something called Mamajuana Extreme, a “virility” elixir, online, and also working gigs as a stock analyst. In 2004, he was fired from CNBC after he goose-stepped like a Nazi in a wrestling skit in Munich.
A lot of what-EVERs, a lot of ‘Talk to tha hands.’
After she issued her infamous report on Citi on Halloween 2007 (the title, “Is Citigroup’s Dividend Safe? Downgrading Stock Due to Capital Concerns,” now sounds tame), she was shocked by the intensity of the reaction. “I knew it would be a big deal, but I didn’t know it would be a market-crashing event,” she says. “It provoked fury amongst people. Rage, fury, and the dismissal of it, like, ‘Oh, what does she know, you know, who is she?’ I was just like, Whatever. If anyone ever told me that my math was wrong? That would have gotten me. That’s worse than telling me that I’m fat.”
Vikram Pandit’s face on a punching bag.
To cope, Whitney started working out with a celebrity trainer named Jay Cardiello, whom she’d met at Bikini Boot Camp, a fitness retreat she attends every year with her girlfriends in Mexico. Cardiello put Whitney on a regimen that lasted for months: They met at the gym twice a day, once at 5 a.m. and again at eight or nine at night, for an hour and a half each time. “I made the right call!” she assured herself before jabbing into Cardiello’s boxing mitts. “I was right! I was right! I was right!”
Finding out which banks are going down before they bite the big one, provided *someone* isn’t scared to get in trouble.
According to a just-published book about the collapse of Bear Stearns called House of Cards, by William Cohan, Whitney became convinced that Bear was insolvent during the week leading up to the company’s emergency sale to JPMorgan, in March 2008. She’d been cowed by the reaction to her Citigroup report, however, and decided not to publish a piece about Bear. “It was a conscious choice not to write anything,” she told Cohan. “Because I thought it was such a tenuous situation that I was going to get in serious trouble.”
JBL is a lucky man.
Too testosterone, didn’t bleed.
“gonna” ” yadda yadda” “dude”
An’t that grand!
We’re gonna see her shaking a cup at the corner of Broad and Wall within 18 mos. Mary Meeker II
No kids, huh.
I’m female – in the business – with kids. Meredith – the celebrity trainer at 5am and 9pm, “plum velvet jackets” and Ken Chenault doing a drive-by don’t make up for what you have chosen to pass up. I would have made a kid the next project, not the bank. But good luck. You have now proven women CAN’T have it all.
@5- what do you want, a medal? no one cares that you have kids.
Mark H: “In my point of view it was easy to call a bottom, we were too oversold”.
The bloviating fatty … It’s too easy, too easy….
@5- no one gives a shit. you have no idea why this woman doesn’t have kids. perhaps she can’t have kids.
“Squeals” is exactly right!
8==D~~~
5 is a woman? How retro. And stupid. Maybe she’s in the middle of post partum. Am I missing something here? Kids are not mentioned at all in the article.
@10- of course they’re not, but 5 feels the need to tell us her reproductive organs are working, as though we give a fuck.
@ 11, shut up. I , for one, would like to hear more about #5s reporductive organs
Maybe i’m crazy, but that looks like the views from an office from the lower floors of 237 Park Ave. Same views, same crappy radiators. Lower floor offices of 237 Park Avenue not ringing a bell for anyone? They were the old offices of Bear Stearns Asset Management…. Like a phoenix from the ashes?
@12- no, it’d be interesting if she was telling us how much she likes to fuck, but she’s not, she just wants us to congratulate on her on being able to push a few kids out, as if she’s the only woman on earth to have done that.
She is in 420 Lex.
8==D~~~
@5 Stop being so jealous, it’s not her fault that your kids made you fat.
I see a fate worse than Erin Callan’s brewing here… .
“’The funny thing is, in your twenties you try and look serious, and after your twenties, you just try and look hot,’” she jokes.
As if! Honey, accept that you’ve been lucky and keep quiet. Any successful white old dude knows that!
Wow. She’s fat.
mmm, is everyone 12 on this site?
kudos to 5
5 sounds like a catty cunt. I would to see her reproductive organs stapled to a wall.
5 sounds like a catty cunt. I would like to see her reproductive organs stapled to a wall.
@ carbonara
Maybe she can bring in Rich Marin to manage risk. I am sure he can be lured away from his teaching job at Cornell.
at 20, who thinks about stuff like that? You know, there’s no need to take American Psycho literally, sadistic fantasies included…
@ 5 – As a female, I feel comfortable telling you to keep your trap shut. We are more than just breeders — your aching ovaries are not my problem. Get over yourself.
Elitist! I agree with #5.
“Bikini Boot Camp, a fitness retreat she attends every year with her girlfriends in Mexico.”
How can she care about the maths– or the non-old white dudes for that matter– in the face of this!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7956689.stm
“US bikini wax ban plans ditched”
@6,8,10,11,16,20,21,24– she seems to have to answer her own phones but has enough staff to blog for her.
@5 here. Mostly, I wasn’t trying to show anything to anyone. Having kids is no big deal. Raising them, while working – is.
I am frustrated at the whole “women can have it all” thing, which gets shoved down your throat with “you have to be hot/look hot at all ages”, right after they shove the “what? you can’t work & raise kids & have a happy marriage & have personal time simultaneously”?
I find it amusing (in an evil-laugh kind of way) that basically, you cannot have it all. I’ve stayed in shape, etc. but I have 0 personal time and the time-management concept of going to Mexico for “Bikini Boot Camp” or 3 hours of training a day – or even just time to SHOP for the kind of clothes Meredith has – really makes me puke.
Meredith is held out as this wunderkind, when really – she has given up a lot. This is JMHO. There are only so many hours in a day and it is interesting/amusing to me to see that one woman’s daily training regimen is basically the only time I have with my kids.
There’s finite time, and the other mit-kinder women on here know it.
fourteen thirty….fourteen thirty one…..fourteen thirty two….
@27/5- meredith whitney didn’t shove shit down your throat. and don’t presume to know what she has or hasn’t given up. if you’re bitter about your life, fess up to that yourself, rather than taking it out on other women.
“I’ve stayed in shape, etc. but I have 0 personal time and the time-management concept of going to Mexico for “Bikini Boot Camp” or 3 hours of training a day – or even just time to SHOP for the kind of clothes Meredith has – really makes me puke.”
why don’t you just admit that you’re jealous she’s able to work out as much as she is, or shop for those clothes, instead of bull shitting about how “i love my life, i have kids!”?
@ 27, she is missing out, bigtime. I’m a guy, equity research, with kids, and it’s tough enough. You made the right choice. In 20 years you’ll have them, and she’ll be hoarsly recounting her glory days over a stiff G&T with her new gay boytoy, who does not like her wrinkles
Oh please 29. The whole article is about glamorous M. Whitney and her glamorous life.
@5 Nobody cares. Go watch Oprah.
@31/27/5 yeah, and? It says nothing about having or not having kids, or passing judgment on YOUR choice to have them. You’re clearly bitter, by your own admission, about not being able to work out like MW, or shop like she does, so you have to come on to an anonymous message board and convince us you made the right life choice. convince yourself, sweetheart. no one here gives a shit.
@27– why is it the octomom has time for plastic surgery and manicures on welfare and you don’t? maybe a lifestyle guru is in order? if not, i know a good fertility doctor that will do you a dozen a clip, cash only.
@34 – she doesn’t work?
@5 said “I’m female – in the business – with kids. Meredith – the celebrity trainer at 5am and 9pm, “plum velvet jackets” and Ken Chenault doing a drive-by don’t make up for what you have chosen to pass up.”
not everyone wants kids. do everyone here (and in your office, as you definitely tell everyone how great your little brats are all the time) get over yourself.
@27 ever hear of a utility function? Maybe Merideth’s isn’t the same as yours. And you can take your children == happiness argument and shove it up your ass with a couple of shotgun blasts from the Menendez brothers. Live you own life if possible.
So she’s a one call wonder. If she can monetize it, more power to her. There are damn few women who’ve been able to do that.
What 36 and others will never understand is that they are not the center of the universe. If you’ve never had a child you cannot possibly understand what 5 is saying about what is being given up. And to condemn her is to admit to the emptyness of your own life. So sad.
Once you have a child you realize that you would trade anything in the world for him/her and that truly, nothing else matters.
Do yourselves a favor and get existential for a moment. Your lives are passing you by and you have no idea its happening.
well, this just shows why i married a non- wall street woman. You’re all bashing a woman who decided to have kids, in an effort to justify your own miserable, worthless careers.
@39/40– 5 is not getting shit for having a child. that’s her choice, and that’s great. she’s getting shit for coming on here and telling us how much better she is than whitney and other people who don’t have kids, when the article had nothing to do with children, or was she asked her opinion on the matter. SHE is the one who fancies herself center of the universe.
“You’re all bashing a woman who decided to have kids, in an effort to justify your own miserable, worthless careers. ”
actually, that’s exactly what 5 did in her first comment. attempted to justify her miserable life by telling everyone how unhappy they must be for not making the same choice as her. STFU.
@5 – no one gives a shit.
@ 41, no you STFU. MW is the type of woman that makes it hard for teh rest of women to stay home and give a good life to their kids. Feminism and encouraging women to join the workforce is at the root of America’s decline.
@5/27 – This is not about you. This is not about how hard it is to be a working woman in finance and have kids. This is about Meredith Whitney, and I, as a woman in finance, applaud her efforts to venture out and be her own boss. Stop being a bitch and try to be happy for someone else’s success.
@43– amen.
Meredith Whitney Total Comp
i would smash that shit like baby aspirin.
i give her 3 year tops
Remember Elaine Garzelli from LEH who predicted the crash in ’87? No, well that’s what Meredith Whitney can look forward to.
@ 45 , plus she’s caused major inflation (“she” being all the woman spurred on by the feminazis)
To all women commenting on this blog:
Get back to cooking me dinner and cleaning stuff.
I said clean stuff goddammit!
@5/27 and all these folks yapping about poor childless MW and how people w/o children don’t know what they’re missing…
*yawn*
Get over yourselves.
Congratulations, you have babies. That doesn’t make you better or worse than anyone else. Some people try for years and can’t have kids. Some get mired in adoption red tape. Some people are single and are looking for the right person rather than just a functioning pair of ovaries and a uterus. Are you better than they are because you’re lucky enough to have offspring? Is it better to marry someone because they’re ready, willing, and able to bang out babies than marrying the right person?
F*ck. Spare us all your sanctimonious drivel. MW is happy with her life, her cookies, and her WWE hubby. Life goes on.
JBL is lucky to have her. Why is she fat? If I was JBL, I would not be with her.
JBL is lucky to have her. Why is she fat? If I was JBL, I would not be with her.
@52/53- lucky for mer, you’re not, you’re some douche in his mom’s basement.
all done so soon you stupid stupid fool – you pressed your luck too far too fast and it is awesome to see such a vile piece of shit EPIC FAIL
fuck you
“I’m not an old white dude, so I stick out.” The old white dudes are sticking out too.
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