As previously mentioned, Raj Rajaratnam’s younger brother, Regnan, was investigated for insider trading in 2007. But why did baby bro (maybe) get into a game of just the (hot stock) tip in the first place? Based on this quote from 2001, I’m thinking to land some ladies. Here’s what Rengs told Fox in an interview on bachelors competing for a dwindling supply of bachelorettes:
“It definitely feels like there are less quality women out there,” said Rengan Rajaratnam, 31, a hedge fund analyst in New York. “I stress about it. It’s like they’ve all gone away or someone snatched them all.”
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Not hungry anywayDozens of prominent Indian-Americans were among the 338 guests at President Barack Obama’s first state dinner, in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. One was notable by his absence: Vikram Pandit.
To be sure, it is possible that the Great Pandito was invited to last night’s black-tie bash, and was simply unable to attend. There may have been hiring binges to attend to, failing businesses to rename or top business lines to sell to appease certain pay czars (also not at the state dinner).
On the other hand, maybe the White House thinks Vikram has eaten at taxpayer expense quite enough over the past year. Maybe Barack didn’t want the stench of failure hanging over his first state dinner. Maybe Tim Geithner (at the dinner) insisted on a big, fat bailout repayment check before Vik could be seated. Whatever the reason, Nagpur’s favorite son seems unlikely to have rated an invite.
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The Journal reports that Raj Rajaratnam was deposed by federal authorities in 2007 in an insider-trading investigation involving “an unrelated hedge fund.” And by unrelated he means it was his brother Rengan’s fund, Sedna Capital, which was described that year by Total Alternatives as a “Galleon spin-off.” So this is why Raj argued yesterday that all that evidence the feds might’ve gathered re: insider trading at Galleon via wiretaps shouldn’t be held against him because he was already co-operating/handing over docs in the other case. Little bro’s fund closed in June 2007 supposedly due to poor performance though perhaps the matter of being investigated for fraud played a tiny part as well (the last reported returns for Sedna, in January ’07, had their domestic fund down -8.2%).
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$$$ QBs as PE investors [The Deal]
$$$ Canopy Financial Accused Of Fraud, Investors Burned [TechCrunch]
$$$ White Collar Criminals Are Running Amok, Says U.S. Attorney [BI]
$$$ SEC manages to win an insider trading case [FT Alphaville]
How many Houston-based billionaires did Brian Hunter try to screw in an attempt to not blow $6 billion out of his ass, have himself escorted from the Amaranth building and be placed on Nick Maounis’s permanent shit list? At least one that we know of but maybe more will come out of the woodwork. For now it’s John Arnold. The Centaurus founder could probably point to trades that made him a ton of money but you really can’t put a price on avoiding the humiliation that would’ve come from being taken for a ride by fish boy.
Traders familiar with Arnold’s style also credit a calm and disciplined manner that helps him stay eerily focused on the fundamentals of the market when other trades are creating distractions.
That was on display most notably during the Amaranth debacle. Amaranth, a $9 billion commodities hedge fund in Greenwich, Conn., was betting that natural-gas prices would rise in the winter, according to a Senate report that shed light on what happened in September 2006.
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Illustratively-speaking. Sometimes the Journal makes its subjects look like Biff from Back To The Future. Sometimes they base the headcut on your high school yearbook photo. Sometimes they charitably move you several spots up on the evolutionary timeline than your Cro-Magnon Man visage suggests you belong. Sometimes they just make people look entirely unrecognizable, for sport. But today I think we need to give credit where credit’s due. Rupes and his team have nailed the Raj Face (and neck).
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Despite being owned by the government, WestLB is only now getting the government-funded bailout that is apparently the right of every bank.
Unlike many of the rest of the banks on both sides of the Atlantic, which got their billions (or trillions) with few–if any–strings attached, Germany and the European Commission are force-feeding WestLB some pretty stiff medicine. The bank plans the old good bank-bad bank split, but also has to reduce its size by half, sell off its riskier business and then sell itself over the next two years in order to qualify for the aid. In return, Germany’s bank-bailout fund will provide a capital injection to the WestLB “core bank.”
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Fairfax Financial, a Canadian Insurer, still has it in their head that some of the most feared and respected hedge funds got non-public information about the company and spread it around the street encouraging their buddies to short the heck out of the stock.
Matt Goldstein, at Reuters, is now reporting that the SEC has taken notice of an on-going civil suit Fairfax filed, in 2006, against noted short-seller Jim Chanos and Stevie Cohen and has started their own investigation. One that Reuters thinks will involve these titans’ funds into being forced to turn over any and all trading records to the folks that missed the Madoff Ponzi scheme.
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As Steve Cohen prepares to be deposed in some stupid insider-trading lawsuit filed by some goddamned Canadians, we have a piece of advice for the Securities and Exchange Commission: Leave it alone.
We know you think that something is rotten in the City of Stamford. We know you know that Raj Rajaratnam is way too dumb to have masterminded an insider-trading circle. And we know all of the arrows are pointing right at the Big Guy (it’s not his fault; he’s just big-boned).
But this is a step too far, SEC. For one, taking the word of some Canadians over that of a red-blooded American like Steven A. Cohen is unpatriotic. It’s unconscionable. It’s letting the terrorists win.
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Think the worst is over? Think again. Greenwich, CT is probably going to be forced to cut back on its Christmas lights this year, having only raised $30,000 for a display that costs a minimum of $45,000 to put on, if we’re talking bare bones, $60,000 if we want it done up right. Over 2,000 letters have been sent out begging for more money, so far to no avail, while organizer Mary Ann Morrison is already saying she may have to get rid of lights entirely on long stretches of Greenwich Avenue (this is not simply a matter of dimming). And yet, first Selectman Peter Tesei seems unconcerned about the whole thing.
“I’m sure that some angel will come down to provide the money to put them up,” Tesei said. “I’m optimistic that will happen.”
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