They haven’t said anything yet but I think it’s pretty obvious it’s coming. Yesterday, when the dream team in charge of the two ridiculously named Bear Stearns funds–High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund and High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund– emerged from a Brooklyn courthouse, Matthew Tannin had the shit-eating grin pictured at left on his face. He was happy, of course, that he and his co-conspirator, Ralph Cioffi had gotten off counts of conspiracy, securities and wire fraud, and dodged 20 years each in the big house. Because honestly, even MT didn’t see that coming (you read the e-mails). But mostly, he was psyched to learn that his career as a money manager is not over. People aren’t planning on holding this (apparently baseless) duping of investors stuff against him and his colleague and in fact? Some are pretty impressed with how the dream team conducted their business.
Aram Hong, a juror from Woodside, Queens, said the exchanges between Cioffi and Tannin shown to the jury proved to her that the two men were working “24-7″ to save the funds in the months before they collapsed. She noted a defense exhibit that showed the fund managers were working at 4 a.m.
“If this was really a fraud case, they wouldn’t have worked that hard,” said Hong, 27, a food and beverage director at the Iroquois Hotel in midtown Manhattan, adding that she would invest with the two men if she had the money.
Unfortunately, Hong is strapped for cash at the moment. But what we’re thinking is that, as a show of good thanks, Tannin and Cioffi should lower their minimum investment ($50 million with a 10 year lockup) for the jurors who let them off (throw in the prosecution as well cause, this was a team effort). It’d be a nice show of thanks, and the SEC would love it.
Bloomberg reported that Tannin used his ‘personal’ gmail account to send Coiffi an email to his wife’s hotmail account. Hmmmm? The email said, if what is being said about CDO’s and the pending downgrade of the CDO’s by the rating agencies would cause their funds to be under water. Now, why would Tannin need to use his ‘personal’ email to send Cioffi’s wife an email about work matters – notably CDO’s? Unless of course he was bagging her. Use your work emails, right. If that is not criminal intent, I’m going to use my son’s email to contact Bin Laden and see what the gov’t tells me. Those f****king crooks.
It is bullshit that these guys got off….
I already possess the business moniker “Dumb Juror Capital Management, LLC℠®” so they better keep their hands off that.
In related news, Aram Hong was quoted saying, “Sammy Israel is a good investor and promised he will give the money back.”
New firm will be called Advanced Qualitative Research and will be based in Greenwich, CT.
We wish them god speed.
What a scumbag. Then again OJ got off too and eventually found his true home. karma is a bitch.
I think it should be called Coiffi Tannin, and they Madoff Partners LLC
If they were sending late night emails and shit, you must acquit.
If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit!
Bess, waiting on the next installment of the house of cards that SC built. Could do with some distraction right about now…
That’s a sociopathic grin for you: I fucked you, I beat you, there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it, bitch.
@10 shhhh!
She’s an artist; don’t rush her. Earlier posts whet the palate, somehow frothy and spicy at the same time.
This post is the sorbet.
TGFD thinks this whole charade is putrid bullshit. If TGFD had his way, Ralph and Matthew would be participating in a scat porn within my garage at this time. There would be yellow spandex suits (with cut bottoms) and open jars of rubber cement with hand-rags. We’d be a’ huffin’ and puffin’ (pun intended). I would take them across the creek behind my trailer, build a bonfire, make s’mores, and talk about my time as an accountant at Deloitte. They’d probably snicker at TGFD’s “low-class” status. TGFD would “pull the plugs” from these two clowns, and TGFD would see who’s low-class and blanused.
The Gay from Delaware
Figured I would ask here first before doing research. What is the best way to buy corporate bonds. I want to invest in the bonds of individual companies for the long term. I’m not going to be trading in and out of positions but rather will be buying and holding for years. Any advice. I don’t want to buy bond funds because then you get the bad with the good.
There’s a difference between conspiracy, securities fraud, etc, and just being equally as blindly optimistic (hope as an investment strategy) as all the schmucks who bought pre-construction condos in South Florida (etc).
@14 = queens juror
@14, try laying on your back on the floor, near a wall, then rest your legs along the wall vertically, making an L-shape with your body. You may need to slide your butt toward the wall to get as close as possible. Now, if you do a partial sit-up, you have a semi-decent chance of sucking yourself off. Don’t give up, keep trying, and let us know how it works out.
@14 have you considered REITs? There are some awesome opportunities in CRE right now, but they won’t last long.
@14 You figured wrong.
This is so funny Bess – a much better read then what Bloomberg was trying to write. They go out and get great quotes from the jurors and then burry that news in the story. Thank God for Dealbreaker or I’d miss so much of the good stuff form the rest of our dry financial press
@14 as a retail investor you’re going to get slaughtered on the mark up. Just buy PTTAX and call it a day.
14, If you are trading corporate bonds in small size you will get your face ripped off by the spreads. Don’t bother investing in corporate bonds as an individual unless you have 5 million plus and even then you should watch the bid/ask spreads very closely. You can however invest in exchange traded bonds/unit trusts (see http://www.quantumonline.com/), but the number of securities is very limited. If you are going to invest in fixed income and have less then 5 million and the time/access to trace/broker runs to make sure your not getting ripped off I reccomend an index fund. I work in the industry and am invested in High yield through VWEHX (Though I am going to sell it soon, fixed income and especially high yield/distressed have rallied a lot).
So Im sittin with my blintzes, checkin blanus on my shiksas, and suddenly some poster licked my balls…
-The Goy From Delaware
22 Hey Bigshot, the casting call for Wall Street 2 was six months ago, but I hear they’re going to remake Howard the Duck so there’s always that.
He needs some tooth whitener or Zoom℠ action. Just sayin’…..But those yellow teeth make his shirt look brighter.
Hey 24…get a life, how lame can you be?
Of course. What else is there to do?
Bess, “May Be” as two words in the title, not Maybe. Really, rudiments of grammar are necessary for blog-writing. Although most of the readers seem barely literate anyway.
@28 Please choke to death on a 24K gold-plated cigar vibe.
kthnx
PS you’re a racist anti-Semite.
Just the names of the funds should have been enough of a defense to get these guys off the hook. I mean they were like TOTALLY upfront about what ludicrous piles of sh!t these were, and people who weren’t mentally disabled widows and orphans bought them anyway.
Try to imagine a sales guy calling up an institutional or HNW investor and saying “Hi, this is Jack from Bear Stearns, and I wanted to let you know about this great new fund we have called the High Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund”. No matter how hard you try to utter these words in a serious tone, it still comes out sounding like a prank call or a SNL skit. And yet they bought.
-@30
-and irrespective of TGFD’s semicrazed rantings, this is exactly why they got off. well put.
Could not be happier wih the verdicts, and wish these two @ssclowns well…
@29, your spelling is amazing for a narrow-minded moron. Kudos!