$$$ Charlie Gasparino wants to see the Goldman CEO/Chairman role split. [TDB]
$$$ He’ll Take Manhattan [Crain's]
$$$ Man prospers in recession by scooping shit [UPI]
$$$ Diary of a private investor: ‘My raciest and riskiest shares are off to a flier‘ [Telegraph]
$$$ The WSJ may have gotten a few details wrong on this weekend’s insider trading outing.
Archive for January 2010
Richard Garaventa, a New Jersey former VP in the operations division of Morgan’s institutional securities business, was sentenced today to between two to six years prison for stealing $2.5 million from the bank.
Here’s your hint: the question came from someone not only known by colleagues as a dick, but a lover of dick as well. Chrome, rubber, glass, whatever. Okay, guess.
“Spotted ice-skating at the town rink in Greenwich on Sunday: Cliff-y Asness, huge and bearded, with a “team” sweatshirt with the formula “A = A” on the back. Spent more time in the warming room than on the ice, but hey. Sight of Mr. AQR teetering around on skates = priceless.”
Earlier today, we discussed David Slaine, who the Journal claimed over the weekend is the key cooperating source in the Galleon insider trading case, having allegedly ratted out several of his friends and co-workers, including nightclub bouncer-cum-hedge fund employee, Craig Drimal. For our purposes, we were mostly interested in exploring what appears to be the the Slaine Approach to dealing with perceived slights, be it a faulty keyboard, someone not sharing his French Fries with the Slaine-meister, or suggesting that an improvement in performance was necessary. In each case the response from from Big D was to lose his shit and throw down fisticuffs. Or was it? A commenter using the name “Elyse” came along and left a thousand word rant decrying the lack of fact-checking by Wall Street Journal reporter Susan Pulliam, entitled “Junk In The Journal: Journalist Fails To Fact Check.” I don’t know who left it (it would be hard to believe “Elyse” is actually David’s ex-wife, Elyse Slaine, though some people aren’t so good with the internet), and can’t find it anywhere else online. But I think we should talk about it anyway. First off, according to “Elyse,” the bit with the keyboard being smashed in a rage? Was because the thing didn’t work, and Slaine apparently had no other choice but to destroy it (E conflates two separate stories in question– the smashing of a keyboard and a fight fight resulting from someone not sharing his fries– so I’ll assume the latter was true).
Pulliam wrote that Slaine had a history of violence, stating that he smashed his computer keyboard while at Morgan Stanley over not wanting to share French Fries. The fact was that Slaine pulled out his keyboard when the technology broke down for the fifth time that day, leaving Slaine to trade without knowing his trading positions.
Elyse then addresses the anecdote about Slaine supposedly punching his boss, Gary Rosenbach, in the face, while the two were in the steam room at Equinox, after Gary told Slaine he needed to improve his performance. Elyse claims that while yes, the tiff went down while the two were ass-naked taking a steam, no punches were thrown, and what she says happens instead makes it so much better (in this scenario bitch fight > fight fight).
You think you have it hard with the recession? Well think again- it might be just time to stock up on canned goods. Gloom-and-Doomer Jim Rogers told CNBC that the financial crisis might lead to food shortages in a few years as “the inventories are now at the lowest they’ve been in decades, not in years.”
Sleeping late, stepping on grapes, and attending Cher concerts– as a VIP, natch– mostly.
As Mr. Gorman continues to get his stride, he will have Mr. Mack peering over his shoulder as chairman for at least the next two years. Mr. Mack says he’s looking forward to spending more time at his Tuscan vineyard and shows off a picture of himself standing beside Cher backstage in Las Vegas, as well as other mementos from a 40-year career. “I really like my new role,” he says. “I didn’t come to work until 9:30 today!”
EU Joins Team US Regulators In ‘We Have No Idea What High Frequency Trading Is But We’ll Just Regulate The Hell Out Of It Anyway’ Game
By DealbreakerThe EU is hopping on the let’s get after the-high-frequency-trading bandwagon and has started to investigate the practice. Bloomberg reports that the European commission met with industry representatives in Brussels on Jan. 11 and that the talks are part of an information-gathering exercise. In the US, the practice, which accounts for 50% to 60% of equity market trading volumes, has been under fire in the past months as regulators are calling for more stringent oversight.
Nothing about Ken Lewis (not ready to open that wound just yet), though he does note that he’s very excited about Gorman at Morgan, having “never been a fan of John Mack.”
Yael will be guest-contributing to DealBreaker for the next couple weeks. She’s worked as an editor for Investment Dealers’ Digest and Dow Jones. Welcome her!
Maybe AIG and Blankfein should just team up to do God’s work, because each week brings more proof that the bailed out giant mess of a company works in mysterious ways. AIG is trying to work out a plan to repay only $26 million out of the $45 million in 2009 bonuses it said it would return, by paying 2010 retention bonuses early if employees agree to have them cut by 10% to 15%, according to reports today.
Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal outed trader David Slaine as one of the cooperating sources in the Galleon case (although when reached at home and confronted about his role in the ring, Slaine told reporters “you’ve got the wrong guy”). Big D was first approached by the FBI in 2007, when authorities came to him with evidence he’d traded on inside info. Hoping to save himself, Slaine told prosecutors that his friend, Craig Drimal, was part of an “insider-trading conspiracy involving a wide ring of other hedge-fund managers and lawyers.” Obviously, throwing one’s colleague under the bus is no easy thing to do, especially when the guy also happens to be one of your close friends. Drimal and Slaine go way back– they were not just buds, but weight-lifting partners, too, which is probably the tightest bond of all (the two originally met during Slaine’s clubbing days, when Drimal was a bouncer at Vertical and “quickly formed a friendship based on a shared passion for weight lifting and their mutual ability to bench-press 400 pounds”). They were so close, in fact, that soon after taking a gig with Galleon, Big D convinced his bosses to give Drimal– then working as a bouncer at the Roxy– a job as an assistant at the firm. But along the way something must have happened. A confrontation. A blow-up. Something dark, at the gym, involving spotting, for Slaine to rat his special friend out like this. One thing I can tell you about Slaine is that he wouldn’t have done it unless provoked. Like the time at Morgan Stanley, in the nineties, with the French Fries.
In 1993, Slaine triggered a fist-fight with a colleague on the trading floor after needling him because he wouldn’t share his french fries. Others broke up the fight.
You just can’t do that, okay? You can’t not share your fries and expect the Slaine-ster to just sit back and take it, no you cannot. Similarly, you can’t expect to confront Slaine about his unsatisfactory performance and think you’re not going to get your teeth knocked out by a sweaty, glistening, stark-naked Big D.
