$$$ Is There a Whisper Campaign to Oust Larry Summers? [The Atlantic]
$$$ New Jan. 12 bail hearing date for Rajaratnam [Reuters]
$$$ Federal authorities scrutinizing Vicis Capital execs [SS]
$$$ Flashback: Dodd reminds us what’s “right and responsible” to help hedge funds [CTN]
$$$ The shortlist for worst takeover of the century [Telegraph]
Archive for January 2010
Dr. Doom gets down at Roman Abramovich’s New Year’s Eve party.
A lot people who work at Citi, relative to other banks and the finance industry at large, make shit money. Obviously, we’re not just talking about the first year rainmakers but up and own the food chain, Uncle Vikula included. But, as previously mentioned, there is one man who was compensated pretty nicely this year. Investment banking chief John Havens, who took home $9 million, making him the highest paid employee at the world’s largest diversified whorehouse. Those of you with the honor of working at the bank would probably like to know how you could break yourselves off a piece of that. The good news is, it doesn’t involve debasing yourself any more than you already have.
The bad news is it’s going to take some serious outside the box, revolutionary, cheapskate thinking, that will somehow translate to saving Citi tens, if not hundreds of dollars each year. ‘Cause that’s what John Havens did when he came up with the idea to ban color-copies and insist on using both sides, and that’s why he’s make making money money take taking money money, and his CEO buddy is getting paid a nickel.
Citigroup’s John Havens Was Paid $9 Million in 2009 [Daily Intel]
Forgot to mention this earlier, but it was thanks to his alpha grandma, a “serious equity trader,” and under her tutelage, that Michael Platt became the big-ish deal he is today, i.e. a guy who afford to sponsor an artist specializing in crucified animals just to fuck with people:
Platt credits his late grandmother with getting him started as a trader. He was born and raised in Preston, Lancashire, in the northwest of England. His father taught civil engineering at the University of Manchester. His mother was a university administrator. For his birthday one year, Platt’s grandmother helped him buy stock in trust savings banks that were selling shares to the public.
Superhuman Bank Of America Exec Conducted A Few Conference Calls In Slightly Less Than Desirable Conditions
By Bess Levin
Meet Lisa Carnoy. She’s the Bank of America lady exec who last month helped the company raise $19.29 billion. That makes her kind of a Big Swinging Deal (?), so the Observer spent some time getting to know her a little better. Here’s what they found out:
* Carnoy likes sports, and beer, ostensibly:
MS. CARNOY’S CORNER OFFICE in the Bank of America Tower on 42nd Street is decorated with a football, four tennis balls, a basketball, two Foster’s cans, a Mets lunch box, a Mets home plate and a Louisville Slugger baseball bat.
* Sometimes she laughs, and other times she doesn’t laugh:
She is an eccentric conversationalist, sporadically bursting into large laughter, then settling into long and odd silences.
* She puts personal touches on her deals:
…she included her team’s personal fitness programs and favored yoga positions in a pitch to Lululemon Athletica
* She worked late into the night a few times, and, on at least one occasion, over a holiday:
As you may have been aware, especially if you’re a Kensington and Wellington survivor, 2008 was a tough one for Ken Griffin. The losing of 55% was pretty brutal, as was the 20 pounds of weight gained through stress eating. Things obviously perked up in 2009, including but not limited to Citadel’s returns, and KG’s ass. But standing in front of the mirror, stark naked and dripping wet, admiring himself from the back and suggesting that the reporter from Men’s Health describe what he saw as “two scoops of butter pecan ice cream” while minions dried him off with hundred dollar bills only brought K to the G so much pleasure. He wanted to do something really nice for himself, which is why he bought a house in Hawaii right next to Cher, bringing him one step closer to Karaoke Tuesday with one of his favorite icons. He was so excited about the whole thing, and he even had matching jumpsuits made. He deserved that kind of happiness and everyone loved seeing the anticipatory joy it brought to his eyes.
Back when Raj Rajaratnam was first accused of insider trading, this was the initial hedcut the Journal went with:
Obviously, the paper only has so much leeway with these things, since people know what Raj, and most of their other subjects look like. But raw material they’re given to work with aside, the staff does have some influence over the direction in which they want to take things. In some cases, as previously discussed, these editorial judgments are based on the tone of the story. For instance, news that Citi was closing Vikram’s baby, Old Lane, got the Sad Face treatment, whereas as an article about Vickles getting to fire people, one of the most fun things a CEO gets to do, got a portrait of a jolly Uncle Vik. In other cases, it’s strictly a matter of whether the organization likes you or not (in which case they will have no problem using your high school yearbook photo as a reference portrait), and how they want to portray you. They can either encourage the readership to say “Hey, that looks like a pretty affable, non-criminal guy,” or “Look at that fat fuck. He’s gotta be up to no good.” Whether or not Raj actually looks like Jabba the Hut in real life doesn’t much matter: that’s the angle the Journal was going with, and they obviously took pains to nail the image, as evidenced by making sure each chin was just right, and that his neck was practically melting. Then they wrinkled his shirt a little bit, because everyone knows a slob is probably guilty of something.
So it was a bit shocking to see this, the drawing that accompanied today’s story:
I know it sounds crazy but just– hear me out. As you’re aware, nobody gets any real respect in this business until they’ve found themselves some eccentric artist, duped his/her friends/colleagues/peers in the field/just rich people in general into buying said eccentric artist’s pieces for an obscene number of clams, and then having people say you, like, discovered the guy or put his name on the map or something. Unfortunately, Damien Hirst is spoken for. And for that matter, so is his ‘animal-in-formaldehyde’ shtick, which is pretty much exhausted at this point, having done not just the suspended-killer fish for the BSD crowd, but the unicorn as well, for those whose tastes veer more toward the Renaissance Fair-inspired, gay works. It’s always easier to come up with a gimmick in the early days, of course, so the next guy’s really gonna have to think big. Like, animals nailed to a cross big.
In a darkened 19th-century former church near London’s Regent’s Park, Michael Platt sips white wine and contemplates an unusual altar display: a life-size wax gorilla nailed to a wooden cross. The sculpture is a new work by Paul Fryer, a young British artist whom Platt, co-founder of hedge fund firm BlueCrest Capital Management Ltd., has sponsored for the past three years. Like a modern-day Medici, Platt has recouped his investment by selling Fryer’s works to collectors such as French billionaire Francois Pinault.
Paul Batista Claims Patricia Cohen Left In The Middle Of The Night And Didn’t Even Have The Bedside Manner To Say Good-Bye
By Bess LevinOn Monday it was announced that Steve Cohen’s ex-wife, Patricia Cohen, had switched attorneys, from Paul Batista, a prominent RICO specialist, to Gaytri Kachroo, who is not a litigator. Supposedly the ex-Mrs. SAC did so because she felt her case “wasn’t getting the attention it deserved.” Apparently this came as a surprise to Batista, who, in a motion to withdraw, claims that Patty Cakes never once complained about the quality of his work (and in fact praised it), that he was in contact with her “virtually every day” since they started working together, and that he was informed his service would no longer be necessary when PC’s new lawyer called him up and identified herself as the lady of the night’s new representation (he also gets in a nice zing about having never heard of PC’s new squeeze I think– I think– implying the woman’s a nobody in the legal world.
Galleon’s Rajaratnam Paid Tipster, Filing Says (WSJ)
In a filing in Southern District of New York court, prosecutors said Mr. Rajaratnam made the payment in 2006 to an unidentified source for a tip about an acquisition of ATI Technologies Inc. by Advanced Micro Devices Inc., reaping $19 million in illicit profit.
Prosecutors: Expect more U.S. charges vs Rajaratnam (Reuters)
Prosecutors said that while the indictment in December “alleged that Rajaratnam was responsible for illicit profits of $17 million, at this time the government believes that the total illicit gains attributable to Rajaratnam’s illegal trading are at least approximately $36 million.” The memorandum went on to say that the government plans to file a superseding indictment “that will expand the charges set forth against Rajaratnam in the current indictment.”
Hedge Fund Goes ‘Mom and Pop’ (WSJ)
AQR is launching its seventh mutual fund.
Senator Chris Dodd Won’t Seek Reelection (Politico)
He and his hair are retiring at the end of the year.
Citi’s Havens Got $9 Million for ’09 (WSJ)
Ken Feinberg reviewed the structure but not the dollar amount of the investment banking chief’s pay package, because the executive wasn’t among the 20 highest-paid executives at the time of Mr. Feinberg’s review last year, according to a person familiar with the matter.
UK Treasury to cash in as bonus tax fails (FT)
Alistair Darling’s “allies admit the tax has not changed the behaviour of big financial institutions, but take comfort in the fact that the Treasury is set for a windfall of hundreds of millions of pounds just months before the election as a result.”
Comment Of The Day
By Bess LevinTags: comment of the day/decade, Lenny Dykstra brings out the best in all of us doesn't he, you get me