$$$ Prosecutors Expect to File New Indictment In Rajaratnam Case [WSJ]
$$$ The ad people who run this asylum would like you to please take this survey. Do it now, and then we don’t have to speak about it again. Apparently there’s a monetary incentive, too. [DB]
$$$ UBS whistleblower seeks probe of government lawyers [Reuters]
$$$ Buffett’s Kraft Stance Conjures Coke’s Quaker Retreat [Bloomberg]
Archive for January 2010
Previous coverage of the most important story of our time found here.
From Katherine Burton:
Chris Shumway sold an 8 percent stake in his hedge-fund firm to a leveraged-buyout fund run by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., according to a letter sent to investors today.
Shumway Capital Partners LLC will use proceeds from the sale to help finance a partnership to include senior executives of the Greenwich, Connecticut-based firm, the letter said. Terms of the agreement with Goldman Sach’s Petershill Fund were not disclosed.
What Sort Of Horrors Did Lenny Dykstra Leave Behind After Getting Thrown Out Of His House?
By Bess Levin
Not sure how we missed this but apparently the company charged with maintaining the upkeep of Nails’ Thousand Oaks manse is none too pleased with the condition in which the place was left.
“The house was left by Mr. Dykstra in an unshowable state, with raw sewage escaping from the main drain line left undone,” Brian Dubois of American Holdings & Land said in court papers. “The home was littered throughout with empty beer bottles, trash, dog feces and urine and other unmentionables,” said Dubois.
From: [redacted at Citi]
To: DealBreaker
Subject: Today’s the day I might have to kill myself
I shit you not, Linens ‘N Things is having a sale in the building cafeteria. What the fuck has my life and career come to?!?
In our last installment of The Secrets To David Tepper’s Success we learned that the Appaloosa founder rubs a pair of brass balls at various points throughout the trading day for good luck and also to keep his team in good spirits. Today it’s the bit with the twenty:
David Tepper often throws a $20 bill on the floor when he’s weighing a big investment with analysts at Appaloosa Management LP. “Would you pick that up?” Tepper, founder and president of Appaloosa, asks them. His point: The best trades can be like found money.
Obviously this has worked out pretty well for D.Tepp, as evidenced by his fund gaining about 120%, after fees, through early December but really? He does this quasi-amusing trick “often,” without it getting old after the first time? And his employees are still always like “ah-ha, we see what you’re getting at, Big D” the 100th time around? The thing with the sack we get. Watching someone have his way with a replica of testicles he keeps on his desk is never not uproarious. But this? Meh. In fairness, maybe it’s just that we read the first couple lines and got overly excited that this was going to go down the way it does up in Stamford, where the trick has been perfected and goes something more like, “Would you bend over and pick that up? Yeah, really put your back into it, just like that. That’s a good girl. Oh, I see you’re wearing the crotchless panties today, very nice. [sing-songy voice] Someone’s gonna get to execute his trade todayyyy. Okay now take that $20 and stick it in your mouth. Yeah, just like that. Don’t think I’m not doing this to make a point here, I am, and it will reveal itself right after you put this ball gag on.”
But whatever! The team seems to like it (or put up with it) and has only great things to say about the big man, like that a certain investor/aberrant sex fetishist doesn’t hold a candle to the guy.
“When he sees a fat pitch, he just keeps swinging and swinging,” says Alan Fournier, a former Appaloosa partner and founder of Pennant Capital Management LLC. “I don’t think Warren Buffett holds a candle to him,” Fournier says.
Bernanke Should Start Exit Now If He Thinks Recovery Is Strong, Roach Says (Bloomberg)
“There is never an easy time to do it,” Roach said on Bloomberg Television today. “The longer they wait, the greater the chance they sow the seeds for the next bubble. So I’m in favor of an early exit strategy.”
Investors sue Credit Suisse for $24B (NYP)
Resort property owners L.J. Gibson and Beau Blixseth are demanding that the bank and real estate group Cushman & Wakefield fork over a whopping $24 billion to make up for the money they lost on Ginn Sur Mer Resort in the Bahamas, the Tamarack Resort in Idaho, the Lake Las Vegas resort in Nevada and the Yellowstone Club in Montana.
BofA CEO Disagrees With Bank Break – Up Calls (Reuters)
Brian Moynihan said “the financial industry needs to embrace a looming regulatory overhaul instead of fighting it, but added that breaking up the biggest U.S. banks would be a mistake.”
Moore Hires Brevan Howard Founding Partner Blochet as Manager (Bloomberg)
Blochet will start at Moore in a couple weeks. Also: “He completed the Marathon des Sables, a six-day, 151-mile (243 kilometer) foot race across the Sahara desert, in 2006. Competitors cover the equivalent of five and a half marathons over six days in temperatures reaching 120 degrees Fahrenheit (49 Celsius), with packs for food and sleeping gear on their backs. The race, which raises money for charities, was described as “The Toughest Footrace on Earth” in the 2007 book “Seven Days in the Sahara” by an event competitor. Blochet finished the race 157th out of 800 participants, according to Marathon des Sables’ Web site.
Morgan Stanley Shuffles Leadership (WSJ)
Morgan Stanley has named Jonathan Pruzan and Eric Bischof coheads of its financial institutions group.
NY SEC Head Gives Perspective on Hedge Fund Exams (HedgeFund.net)
“We have planned a number of significant sweeps of investment advisors,” George Canellos, the N.Y. SEC Regional Director tells HedgeFund.net. “In the last few months — really in the last year or two — we have tried to orient our program, especially the investment management program, more toward cause- and risk-based exams.”
Continental CEO: Don’t Pay Me Unless We’re Profitable
Taking a page from the John Mack playabook.
$$$ Goldman Director Bill George: Bankers Are Like Movie Stars And Deserve To Be Paid Like Them [BI]
$$$ Thomas Lee Down One Stalker
[NYP]
$$$ “The worst is behind us in the sense of credit,” Moynihan, 50, said today during an interview on Bloomberg Television in Raleigh, North Carolina. “As an industry, we over-lent and customers over-borrowed. If you could rewind the clock, you wouldn’t do those things again.” [Bloomberg]
$$$ Cablevision’s Dolan spins spinoff into a lucrative deal [Crain's]
$$$ “Last month the Associated Press published a poll of 158 sports editors for Female Athlete of the Year. Two of the top 10 were horses.” [The Age via Heidi Moore]
$$$ Goldman To Foot Bonus Tax Bill [Sky News]
$$$ The ad people who run this asylum would like you to please take this survey. Do it now, and then we don’t have to speak about it again. Apparently there’s a monetary incentive, too. [DB]
$$$ Tiger Woods: Prison Yard Thug [VF]
Breaking Media LLC is looking for a reporter/editor for Dealbreaker. This is a high-profile position on one of Wall St.’s few true must-read news sites. As such, the price of admission is deep knowledge of financial markets and key players and the ability to work quickly in a fast-paced digital news environment. But what will set the ideal candidate apart is a writing and reporting style that will break through the din of today’s financial information. Rote aggregators need not apply. We need a writer who can break news and pen agenda-setting analyses. This is a full-time position with benefits that includes health insurance.
Interested candidates should email a resume and a cover letter to jobs@breakingmedia.com.
Not my problem anymore, Brian.When he’s not wreaking havoc on the Raj Rajaratnam trials, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff is giving newly-minted Charlotte-booster Brian Moynihan a headache.
Seems that you can’t call “experts” whose sole source of information are media reports you told your investors to ignore.
In effect the bank is arguing that, even though it expressly warned its shareholders to disregard the media, it can now defend itself by asserting that a reasonable shareholder would have disregarded these warnings and, by consulting the media, perceived that the bank’s alleged lies were immaterial. Even a zealous advocate might perceive that such an argument hints at hypocrisy.
