So, I don’t have an official word from GS on this yet but needless to say, two and two have been put together. First, you have Goldman Sachs, which has had a pretty rough go of it lately vis-a–vis people hating their guts, which would explain the apologizing, the kitten adoption program, the banning of parties, the touching of trash, and the enforced charity. Obviously, they could use some good press, real bad. Then, you have a bunch of MBA students, looking for summer internships. The competition is fierce and everyone could use a leg up. So what’s the harm in, you know, maybe just telling some reporters how great they, non-Goldman employees but future business leaders of America, think GS is? The answer is there’s no harm at all. No money passes hands, no actual BJs are given out, and everyone goes home happy. You scratch Lloyd’s back, he’ll scratch yours. I bet we could round up a couple willing if we tried. Such as, say:
* Nicole Zenel:The MIT Sloan student (pictured) has “read the negative stories about Goldman Sachs’ role in the financial crisis, its subsequent record profits and its decision to set aside $16.7 billion for pay and bonuses after receiving $10 billion from the U.S. Treasury.” Guess what though? Girlfriend doesn’t give a rat’s ass, which is why she still applied for a summer internship at 85 Broad., “a solid firm that has a track record of success.”
Or how about:
* Jeremy Dent: He too wants a piece of LB’s shit, and in exchange is willing to tell Bloomberg: “They’ve been able to avoid the big blowups other banks have had.” Dent is scheduled to interview for a summer internship today though, and would like a little extra assurance things are going to go over in his favor. So:
Goldman Sachs’s culture and the opportunity to work with “the smartest people on Wall Street” make the company attractive to Dent, who attended about six events with Goldman Sachs recruiters and employees during his first semester at Stern.
“At the end of the day, clicking with the people you work with is critical,” Dent said. “You’re working to three in the morning, and you have to like the people who sit next to you. The quality of people at Goldman really is stellar.”
Danny Pang’s Death Ruled A Suicide (WSJ)
The cause of Mr. Pang’s death was “combined intoxication” from seven drugs found in his system, according to a written report from the Orange County Sheriff-Coroner. The drugs included oxycodone, hydrocodone and two other painkillers, along with drugs generally used to treat depression and anxiety. The active ingredient in marijuana, known as THC, also was found in his system. SEC order helps maintain AIG bailout mystery (Reuters)
You’ll get the info eventually, of course. In 2018. Soros, Citadel Hire Hedge-Fund Analysts From Galleon (Bloomberg)
Eric Wasserstrom and Rajeev Patel will analyze the financial-services industry for Jorge; Charles Benziger was hired as a consumer-industry analyst at Ken’s Kingdom. Federal Reserve earned $45 billion in 2009 (Washington Post)
Ben Bernanke still keeping it real with the Jos A Bank suits. Calif. Fund Manager Sentenced in Fraud Scheme (AP)
Bradley Ruderman was sentenced Monday in a Los Angeles federal courtroom and was ordered to pay $27.5 million in restitution. He pleaded guilty in August to two counts of wire fraud, two counts of investment-adviser fraud and a misdemeanor count of failing to file income taxes in 2007.
December and YTD performance: SAC Capital International: December 2009: 2.18% YTD: 28.39% Moore Global Investments: December 2009: 3.6% YTD: 20.6% Paulson Advantage Ltd. : December 2009: 0.23% YTD: 13.75%
Oh, you thought simply stopping the ass-bleeding of clients was UBS’s only New Year’s Resolution? You thought wrong, ladies. You’re looking at a whole new UBS. One that doesn’t *just* evade taxes, but one that does so with honor. Full memo after the jump, for now, my favorite part:
Each and every one of you creates the new UBS identity through your actions. Every day you make many important decisions. You have the entrepreneurial freedom to do so, and you should use it. The values that guide our efforts are truth, clarity and performance. Specifically, this means:
- We behave with respect and integrity. We are accurate, realistic and accountable. We always act fairly and abide by the law.
- We make it easy to do business with UBS. We are concise, precise and to the point. We are reliable and consistent.
- We always give our best. We will perform to the highest professional standards. We will lead the market through superior service and execution.
And the power to strip search anyone with a list of bonus payouts shoved down his/her pants. So don’t even entertain the though of messing with him on this one, because he sooner or later, he’ll find out.
“Transparency and disclosure of the banks’ practices and plans are essential especially at this time,” Cuomo said. “Trying to hide and secret information never works.”
Ergo, we must do something to entice them to stay. I’m not saying evade taxes faster, Grübel
needs a new pony. But I’m not not saying it.
UBS AG’s chief executive told staff Monday halting the bleeding of assets from its wealthy client division is “imperative,” according to a memorandum on ethics provided by the Swiss bank. “Although one-off effects such as tax amnesties are unavoidable, we ourselves must not give clients any reason to leave the bank,” Oswald Gruebel says in the memo.
Last week we wondered aloud whether or not former TCW CIO Jeffery Gundlach had been set up by his employer to look like a sex-crazed maniac. To recap, Gundlach is being sued by TCW for, among other things, conspiracy, unfair competition and theft of proprietary (Gundlach started his own firm last month, DoubleLine LLC). The other “things” are the items the firm claimed to have found by searching Gundlach’s offices (one in Santa Monica, one in LA), which included drugs, paraphernalia (“bearing evidence of recent use”), 12 sexual “devices,” 34 “hardcore pornographic magazines,” and 36 “hardcore sexually explicit DVDs and videocassettes.” The sheer volume of stuff seemed suspect to us (what could he possibly need with thirty-six different DVDs), and we felt that it was our duty to get to the bottom of the whole thing, by asking you people, in your professional opinions, if you thought the guy was set up. Although over 67% of you agreed that yes, TCW must’ve stashed the stuff in Gundlach’s office to make him look bad (or like he was operating a online wholesale sex shop distributor and keeping the inventory at his office), we’ve been informed that the answer is no. By Jeffery Gundlach. Who took ownership of the items in a letter to his new clients today.
[...]
Also! I’ve spoken with someone extremely familiar with the matter, who was kind enough to provide me with a bit more specific accounting of the aforementioned items. Disclaimer: obviously, this is the sort of thing that, in lieu of having the actual DVD titles, description of the devices, etc, I would be forced to “imagine” whether or not Gundlach was a fan of, say, Backdoor Sluts 9. So I understand that you might automatically assume the following was made up straight from the mind of Bess Levin. But no: this is the stuff Gundlach kept in his office, for real:
He knows this because the banks have said they’re going to be giving out more in stock, less in green when it comes to bonuses, which shows that they’re not tone deaf to anger. They get it, they get it so much it hurts. Especially one firm in particular, which pretty much came up with the idea little-to-no cash idea. And while we’re on the subject of Goldman? Thain loved his time there, and if he may, let everyone know that it’s a “great place to work,” obviously. One a, I don’t know, former alum with time on his hands wouldn’t thumb his nose at getting an offer from, if the price, and the lax policy on interior decorating was right. Just an FYI. Lloyd.
Thain Weighs In On Financial Reform [Dealbook]
So, remember the “sex-robot” we posted about not too long ago? It was mildly amusing when we thought that “Mature Martha,” one of the doll’s five personalities was a self-described “Cantor Fitzgerald bond trader with 7 years experience.” You know, just some slutty finance chick looking for a good time. It’s less hilarious when we were informed that Martha’s friend– “Frigid Farah”– is programmed to say stuff like “9/11 was an inside job,” “All the Jews got the call,” “I am an Anglo so I didn’t get the call,” and “I remember dying…ten thousand tons of molten steel and jet fuel crashing down on me…I remember my family… I had two daughters.” So unless you’re a necrophilia-loving, anti-Semitic, 9/11 conspiracy theorist, who also has a thing for screwing inanimate objects (there probably is a small, probably impotent market)…I’m gonna say take a pass on this one.
At the heart of their claim seems to be the belief that Steve’s ex-wife, Patricia, is crazy, and by extension, so is her ex-lawyer, for filing her suit, which essentially accuses the big guy of being a mobster.
Lawyers for Steven A. Cohen, the founder of SAC Capital Advisors LP sued by his ex-wife last month for racketeering, said they will ask a judge to sanction the attorney who filed what they called a “frivolous” suit.
The lawyer, Paul Batista of New York, asked to withdraw from the case three weeks after he filed it. Steven Cohen’s lawyers said in papers filed Jan. 8 in federal court in New York that Batista should be sanctioned under a federal-litigation rule.
“We believe there is a very serious question about how any competent lawyer, consistent with his or her obligations under Rule 11, could have filed such a pleading, and we intend to pursue a Rule 11 remedy,” Steven Cohen’s lawyers wrote. “Given Mr. Batista’s request to withdraw, and the fact that new counsel has not yet appeared, someone must remain responsible for this frivolous pleading and the maintenance of this action.”
I ask because the makers of the world’s first sex robot seem to think so. “Martha” is one of the five different personalities the inflatable lady friend comes with and describes herself as a care-giving, matriarchal woman who’s “been around the block” and has “seven years experience as a Cantor Fitzgerald bond trader and a lifetime of experience in eroticism.” (The other pre-programmed personalities include an under-18 year-old, Wild Wendy, who will be “more accommodating to you if you’re more ambitious about what you want to do, and S&M Susan. The Cadillac of sex robots– the Ping Jiang model– is slated for an early 2011 release, for those of you who couldn’t bring yourselves to ask.) Before any of you laying down some serious coin (and pipe), I want to get a consensus here as to whether or not this thing’s true to life. Still waiting on a comment from CF.
So, I don’t have an official word from GS on this yet but needless to say, two and two have been put together. First, you have Goldman Sachs, which has had a pretty rough go of it lately vis-a–vis people hating their guts, which would explain the apologizing, the kitten adoption program, the banning of parties, the touching of trash, and the enforced charity. Obviously, they could use some good press, real bad. Then, you have a bunch of MBA students, looking for summer internships. The competition is fierce and everyone could use a leg up. So what’s the harm in, you know, maybe just telling some reporters how great they, non-Goldman employees but future business leaders of America, think GS is? The answer is there’s no harm at all. No money passes hands, no actual BJs are given out, and everyone goes home happy. You scratch Lloyd’s back, he’ll scratch yours. I bet we could round up a couple willing if we tried. Such as, say:
