From the mail bag:
I have been trying to sell a busted emerging markets loan. I called up Merrill about it, because they have been known to broker trades from time to time. My salesman at Merrill called me back. Of course, he had no leads on the loan in question, but he went on to ask me if we had other emerging markets distressed loans we wanted to sell. Why? Well, he told me, the guy in charge of distressed loans in the region in question (let’s call him “Joe”) is looking for paper. Again, why? Joe, my salesperson proceeded to tell me, has been allocated $500 million to build prop positions in distressed emerging market loans. Now, not 10 minutes earlier, the tapes were snapping with the news that Bank of America is thirty-someodd billion short of capital in the stress-test adverse scenario. Band of America has received generous helpings of capital from the TARP and may wind up with more. What the heck is Merrill Lynch doing giving $500 million to some guy, no doubt with a 10% deal, to punt on distressed loans? And not merely distressed loans, distressed loans to foreign borrowers! How does this fit with the goals of the TARP? Wasn’t the idea to stabilize the banking system, thereby protecting depositors and other creditors, and making sure credit would continue to be available for US households and corporates. How does it possibly serve a public purpose to have taxpayer money gambled on foreign loans by a guy on a deal?
What’s more, the reason the salesperson was asking if we have more loans to sell was because he probably thought we were a forced seller. Now, think of the irony if that were the case. A hedge fund that received no government support and is now facing all sorts of new regulation anyway needs to sell loans to pay redemptions; ML/BAC, having run itself into near insolvency doesn’t have to pay back depositors or other creditors early, because the government has provided a backstop, and moreover has gotten so much capital from the taxpayers (including the managers of said hedge fund!) that it can afford to allocate $500 million to building new speculative positions in distressed loans.
What the fuck?
Not sure we have much to add.
Irony, thy name is [fill in the blank].
Everyone has a story.
Didn’t Goldman make its quarter by prop trading? Don’t hate Kenny-boy for trying to be a playa.
Cry me a river.
-Justin T.
Wait a sec, you mean to say some regulation is needed to prevent these bankers from continuing to act like assholes?
You’re kidding me.
I would like to second the What The Fuck! please.
LOUD NOISES!
-Maxine Walters
Bess, send @6 a money croc.
FuCk
Who gives a flying fuck?
Everyone is in the business to make money, I am sorry your feelings are getting hurt because you are having to unload shitty paper bo hoo!
Mr. Anonymous Cry Baby Emailer, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent email were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on Dealbreaker is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
This is like in elementary school, when a captain picks the retard first in dodgeball, and then wonders why he sits in the middle of the game picking his nose and tripping his own teammates
I thought hedge funds had smarter people than this guy. As a hedge fund sob story this one doesn’t make any sense.
I’m very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany.
-Ken Lewis
Youre digging for gold, you’re throwing away a fortune in feelings, but someday youll pay
You’re as cold as ice, you’re willing to sacrifice our love
You want paradise, but someday youll pay the price, I know
HOW DARE U HATE ON FOREIGNER!!!!
-tgwwbh
KAHN!!!!!
KAAAAAAAAAAAHN!!!!!!
Idiots #9 and 11 – the issue here is BAC’s newest creative abuse of taxpayer dollars, not the hedge fund’s busted EM loan. Try to keep up.
didja ever take a dump… feels like ya just slept ten hours???
Blue Mountain?
Irony is the metal between Goldy and Bronzy.
- an old English fable.
Yes children SNAFU is an acronym: Situation Normal All Fucked Up
If I was drowning in taxpayer capital, I suppose throwing half a bill at distressed EM paper would be worth it. Afterall if it goes to zero, I can always go back and get more taxpayer money.
@ 15 thats interesting I dont remember ever seeing anywhere any specific description of what TARP funds were supposed to be used for.
Are all the TARP firms supposed to take that money and lend it out to single unwed mothers with 8 babies?
-9
Hmmm…for a couple decades now that guy’s been able to operate under the radar due to antiquated rules about not having to regulate a fund with a capped number of wealthy or institutional investors, all of whom have given up their rights to bitch about getting fucked as an added fee just to invest in the fund. He probably didn’t mind that.
@22 – the hedge fund has also never been bailed out, nor desperately trying to scratch together another $30B
@2,9 – I think you’re missing the point. If this guy seems to have sour grapes about unloading the paper, then in what universe would it seem appropriate for a TARP firm to start buying it up? The difference between Bo(ones)A and Goldman is Goldman isn’t on the hook to more cash, they’re ready to repay.
Blackberry or i-phone?
Genius @15
The guy is trying to sell junk to a regulated entity that happens to be a ward of the state. He has no problem with him trying to make that sale. Is the guy saying that the regulated entity should be regulated even more so to protect it from guys like him?
Second, the guy thinks that he is going to get regulated even more now. He seems to mind that, but he doesn’t see it as bad for ML.
Third the guy whines that he’s forced to sell because of redemptions at his fund, but leaves the important detail of why he’s flooded with redemptions. The fund guy should open the dictionary to the word comeuppance.
Finally, the guy thinks that ML is actually buying this stuff because the ML person he was talking to tried to figure out how distressed this guy was. ML only wants to know if they can buy the junk at a lower price. But the fund guy offers no evidence that ML actually bought anything from him. Is that why he’s whining after all?
I am a Banc of America Securities salesman. What is a tarp?
@15 is a horses a$$.
He sucks p#nis..
He sucks the biggest p#nis..
He sucks the biggest p#nis he’s a horses a$$.
-tgwwbh
Tgwwbh is a gay.
@23
horseshit
the whole notion of systemic risk is predicated on the idea that the entire matrix of hedge fund allocations are pretty uniform in their composition (regardless of what their collateral says) … so they “benefited” to the same extent that the banks did themselves
and you’re missing my point, which is that all hedge funds have been operating from an unfair advantage for quite some time (and no, I don’t want more regulation, I’m just pointing out that they haven’t had the burdens that traditional RIAs or other asset managers have had)
@19 let’s school you for a sec:
SNAFU = Situation is now absolutely fucked up.
Bac = Boones allows creativity
GS = Great salesmen
@19 let’s school you for a sec:
SNAFU = Situation is now absolutely fucked up.
Bac = Boones allows creativity
GS = Great salesmen
GS- gimmie sausage
ON YO FACE!!!
We are so fucked.
Every GS employee hates GS and cannnot wait to leave.
Every dipshit employee @ xyz fund company loves GS and wishes they could work there.
Every GS client hates GS and cannot wait to leave.
Every dipshit piker client w/ $800 in his Etrade IRA wishes they could be a GS client.
net/net- @31 is (or used to be) an employee of xyz fund company which would make him, in fact, a dipshit.
Seacrest out
So, did the guy sell the loan or what?
Everything else is irrelevant.
I wish I could work at the government, I mean Merrill, I mean BofA.
and then he found five dollars?
Merrill…. I do not recognize this name… is there a broker named Merrill…
You are all tossers… It’s not 500MM or 1/2 a billion
If you’d ever sat on a trading seat, it would be half a yard.
of 500 bucks. nuff said.
Merrill salesman (who doesn’t know anything) tells hedge fund moron whose portfolio shat the bed a yarn in order to get more information. Said moron swallows it, provides Merrill with the information, and is later so damaged by all this that he emails DB. Sub-morons who wish they could rise to the level of the moron, believing the moron’s Merrill salesman’s story, bitch on DB about how BoA is spending China’s money. The sun sets in the west.
time to get over this nonsense…
wah, wah wah… 500m isn’t even on the radar screen..it’s like BHO saving $17 bln on the new budget…
nothing to see here.
send your complaints to- ken.lewis@bankofamerica.gov
@25 – did you even read the post?
1st: he’s not trying to sell junk to a regulated entity – he’s trying to sell junk through a regulated entity. Big diff.
2nd: he is pissed because his firm is under intensified scrutiny while ML, seemingly, is not. And ML is playing with the taxpayers money.
3rd: he never said (whined) that he’s forced to sell because of redemptions. He pointed out that the ML salesman probably thought that he was trying to unload the paper because he was a distressed seller – and hoped he may have more to buy at discount.
Finally: you’re an idiot.
- 2StopShop
Guest @6 – you’re retarded, right? Or do you just not read for comprehension?
LOBSTERCLOPS DROOLS WITH SATISFACTION.
“What’s more, the reason the salesperson was asking if we have more loans to sell was because he probably thought we were a forced seller.”
DUH HICKY
So the perhaps they could buy it at an incredibly cheap price and then make money off the trade?
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
Someone get Ben B on the red phone, STAT!
Who cares. It’s time for Bess to sit on my face and tickle my tongue.
Kenny Boy
@43 2StopShop
You must be from another planet.
No matter what happens, the Bank of Amerllwide (as per the tag) BSD will find a way to shit the bed with this 500 million of walking around money. The portfolio guy is probably a commercial banker or an HR manager if he is legacy BoA. The best example of how pathetic Bank of Amerllwide is, can be quantified by the fact that when BoA came to the debt market today in non-FDIC guaranteed format, they had to price 150bps wider than GECC in 5 years. Way to memorialize how much you suck!
- Fixed Income
Okay, you’re all missing the key question: Which guy is Mr. Greenjeans and which is Captain Kangaroo? Until you know that, you’re just playing with yourself. I rest my case.
What is this all about?
Sounds English but I can’t understand!
-Maxine Waiters-
I work for an emerging market distressed debt hedge-fund. We will look at your loan.
Does anyone know what group in Bank of Amerrillwide it is?
Does anyone know what group in Bank of Amerrillwide it is?
Ken Lewis, who is your CEO?
“I just want to gradulate the gator on another BS Championship. Go Gator”
Looks like the guy has just lost his broker.
Yeah, and also, Bank of America has gotten so much capital from the taxpayers (including me) and is still charging me $35 when my checks bounce!
What the fuck?
Bouncin’ checks is the new bouncin’ impalas!
-Cordozar Calvin Broadus, Jr.
Welcome to a banksters paradise.
@9 If there was a level playing field I dont think many would give a flying fuck.
When you have the ability to loose seemingly unlimited amounts of money and then have your losses covered it kinda gives you a slightly unfair advantage.
As long as some banks are considered too big to fail we are in an economic death spiral. It simply cannot work. Incompetant fucks have money thrown at them so they can fuck up some more cannot work.
ML prop/risk taking culture is like Goldman but they trade drunk.
Just take a walk down to the Blue Room in Au Mandarin and you just might be lucky enough to bump into a trader…even if it is during market hours..
@61. It can if you BELIEVE.
Queue music…
sadly, Armageddon wasn’t enough to eliminate the highly douchetastic nature of most of the “wannabe ballers” who work in finance, and who post here regularly
though @35 was completely correct:
Every GS employee hates GS and cannnot wait to leave.
Every GS client hates GS and cannot wait to leave.
@9 god you’re an idiot
@30 and 31, you dumbass, if you’re going to try and correct people, know your shit. SNAFU = Situation Normal All Fucked Up. #19 was absolutely right.
dumbass.
@30 and 31, you dumbass, if you’re going to try and correct people, know your shit. SNAFU = Situation Normal All Fucked Up. #19 was absolutely right.
dumbass.
The veil of anonymity provided by these sites makes the douchetastic, wannabe baller financial peons feel so powerful