So, okay. A new E*Trade commercial has that day-trading baby two-timing a couple of girl babies. The one who is supposed to be his girlfriend (weird?) wants to know where he was last night, and doesn’t buy that he got busy “diversifying [his] portfolio.” She suggests he was banging “that milk-a-holic Lindsay.” Said milk-a-holic, who sort of has red hair, then pops on the screen all indignantly. And Lindsay Lohan is claiming this is supposed to be her, and wants the spots pulled and $100 million.
Lohan’s lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, said the actress has the same single-name recognition as Oprah or Madonna. “Many celebrities are known by one name only, and E-Trade is using that knowledge to profit,” Ovadia said. “They used the name Lindsay,” Ovadia said. “They’re using her name as a parody of her life. Why didn’t they use the name Susan? This is a subliminal message. Everybody’s talking about it and saying it’s Lindsay Lohan.” Ovadia wants an injunction to force the spot off the air, and the Lindsay camp wants every last copy of the commercial.
On the one hand, sounds like someone’s being a little paranoid. On the other? Yeah, it’s definitely supposed to be her. And she does need the money. Continue reading »
Log on to ladyboyjuice.com 348 times in one day? Yes. That, they’ve got a handle on. Words and stuff? Marko’s not yet convinced. (Yet another reason these people must die.)
Merkel Urges Regulation as Greece Takes Plea to U.S. (Bloomberg)
Merkel, speaking to reporters in Luxembourg today before Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou meets President Barack Obama in Washington, said the European Union must take the lead in curbing the “very speculative elements” of derivatives trading, going beyond previous Group of 20 nations agreements. The U.S. must also be on board, she said.
Carlyle Said to Hire Ex-Morgan Stanley Trading Chief Petrick (BW)
Mitch Petrick will head the company’s distressed debt and leveraged finance business.
Colony Capital To Take Over Leibovitz’s Loans (FT)
Under terms of their arrangement, Colony will become Ms Leibovitz’s sole creditor and help her market a library of photographs that includes such images as her Vanity Fair magazine cover of a naked, pregnant Demi Moore and her Rolling Stone photo of a nude John Lennon embracing Yoko Ono.
AIG’s Greenberg to Testify Wednesday on Gen Re (Reuters)
He didn’t want to, but he’s found the time to fit it in while pack for a vacay to China.
Former Deutsche Bank Saba Asia Head Said to Plan New Hedge Fund (Bloomberg)
Wang Bing’s firm, Nine Masts Capital, “is planning a hedge fund seeking to profit from mispricing of securities in Asia’s equity and credit markets”
Gunman, 2 others wounded in Dallas shootout (AP)
A gunman “apparently angry over business dealings wounded a father and son at their financial services company inside an office building Monday, then shot himself as police closed in, authorities said.”
Earlier today we brought you up to speed on Erin Callan’s life post-Lehman Brothers, which, as it turns out, is pretty sweet, as is her ass. She’s living in her $3.5 million home in the Hamptons, friends report she’s looking “better than ever,” she’s the best student in her spinning class, and she’s in love with a firefighter she’s known since high school. And not some shlub she’d be embarrassed to be seen in public with but maybe the seriously hot piece of A seen at left, who has the same name as the guy identified by Fortune as EC’s man (Anthony Montella). Continue reading »
And now it’s grown from $5 million to $1.6 billion in assets under management, and has offices in Minnetonka, Minnesota, New York, San Francisco, London and Hong Kong. I hope this gives hope to all of you opening up shop in a van down by the river.
Bitchy von Hair Streaks is gonna hurt me? I don't think so.
He may be the Andrew Tong to Wall Street/Washington/the neighborhood kids’ Ping Jiang (by which I mean people choke him out, and he doesn’t say anything), but damn it, if his time with the ladies has taught Tim Geithner anything it’s that he is a strong, proud woman whose self-worth will not be diminished by your bitchiness and faux-sincerity.
[CNBC] a notorious cheerleader for the stock market, seemed a cinch to celebrate any Dow milestone. So Bartiromo’s sharp interrogation was jolting. She laced Geithner with questions about whether the Obama administration was “anti-business,” plotting to raise taxes and bullying banks to cut dividend payments, and she even suggested he might be engaging in “class warfare” against the rich. Bartiromo didn’t outright call Geithner an agent of Obama’s socialist agenda, but that was the spirit of the affair. Geithner held firm to the issue of growth, and persevered. Bad as it looked, this was a mere dusting: he’d endured worse. When the cameras stopped rolling, the pair stood up and briskly shook hands, and Geithner headed for the door. Then, suddenly, Bartiromo spun around and called out after him, in a tone that expressed something between self-justification and apology, “I know you have an impossible job!”
Tim Geithner: Inside Man [The Atlantic]
Oh, hi. I didn't see you there.
A few weeks ago, it was reported that Erin Callan had officially retired from Wall Street, which was something of a formality, as she’d left her post-Lehman gig at Credit Suisse over a year ago, and we’d heard nary a peep from her since. What was she up to? We had no idea! Was she ensconced in her Upper East side pad, watching trashy daytime TV? Was she out in Greenwich, keying Dick Fuld’s Benz? Was she stepping out of black cars, momentarily pausing for a camera that was no longer there? Had she let herself go? No one knew. Until now. Fortune did a little investigative reporting and it turns out things are going pretty swimmingly for EC. Before we get into what’s been a’ poppin’ for the former Lehman CFO, though, let’s take two to go back. Way back.
Even as a child, Callan was not only talented but also disciplined and self-motivated. Midge Stack-Lennon, who was Callan’s high school gymnastics coach, remembers her as “this adorable, teeny little thing with the strength of a man.” Football players used to troop into the gym to watch Erin practice, and she was happy to perform for them. “She would get up on the bars with hands that were ripped and go through her routine,” Stack-Lennon says. “Her hands would be bleeding. She would think nothing of it.”
So, just file that image away for now while we talk life, post-Dick. First off, Erin’s been living in East Hampton, at the house she bought for $3.9 million in 2005. She’s been seeing firefighter Anthony Montella, who she met in high school at St. Francis Prep. People say the two “seem to be in love,” and that Callan “looks better than ever,” likely a product of 1) getting laid on the reg and 2) the fact that she’s been working on her ass, an effort that has not gone unappreciated, according to those who’ve been staring at it.
We get it, you have a cell phone.
Gang, I want you to meet Ben Bloomfield, a first-year at University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. Why is Ben so excited to be holding a phone to his face that presumably has no one on the other line? I’m guessing it has to do with the fact that Ben’s pretending his new colleague, Brian Moynihan, is on the other line, talkin’ deal-making, acquisitions, and lunch with Angelo Mozilo, cause Mr. Bloomfield? Just scored himself a summer internship at Bank of America. This is apparently not an isolated incident: Kwame Yankson, who last year had to settle working for an education nonprofit organization but come this June will be able to proudly tell people he’s a member of the Wells Fargo team. And they’re not alone.
With banks climbing out of the recession, more business students across the country are finding banking jobs and internships, enrolling in finance clubs and going on class trips to Wall Street, universities say. “The banks this year kept saying, ‘It’s a good year,’ ‘We just approved a lot of hiring,’ ‘The market is clearing up,’ ” Mr. Yankson said. “It was a completely different experience.”
Exciting! But how do these MBA’ers deal with their peasant friends who just don’t get it? Continue reading »
The gang.
A few months ago there was a tear-jerker of a story about unemployed Americans having difficulty finding new jobs. It highlighted two in particular, who’d been out of work for over a year, due to the shuttering of their company. Their names were Mark and Andy Madoff and they were having a real tough go of it lately. Nobody wanted to hire them out of fear they’d stink up the place with the smell of fish. And, you know, the taint of their former employer. It was depressing as shit, and Mark had taken to crying during interviews. Recently, Andy, along with his girlfriend Catherine Hooper, started a ‘disaster recovery firm,’ the goal of which is to help people get their affairs in order in the event of a crisis, be it natural or the kind that comes at the hands of a small dick, like losing everything to a Ponzi scheme (just a for instance!). Then there was Mark, who had all but given up asking people to keep him in mind for jobs on a trading desk or in trading technology. By this point even the fish were gently suggesting he pack it in– but the little Madoff that could would not be defeated. And finally, his persistence has been rewarded! Continue reading »
AIG Agrees to Sell Alico to MetLife for $15.5 Billion (Bloomberg)
MetLife will pay $6.8 billion in cash and $8.7 billion in equity securities for American Life Insurance Co., the buyer said today in a statement. “This is a sizeable transaction,” Robert Haines, an analyst at CreditSights Inc. in New York, said in an interview before the deal was announced. “It demonstrates they’re making some tangible progress on their plan to divest assets.”
Hedge fund ranking reveals nasty scars from financial crisis (Pensions And Investments)
Hedge fund assets of three prominent firms — Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Renaissance Technologies Corp. and Citadel Investment Group — fell below the $20 billion cutoff, dropping the three from the ranking.
Battle Inside Fed Rages Over Bank Regulation (WSJ)
Cat fight: “Fissures at the central bank boiled over last year in a meeting in the boardroom of a Fed branch office in Memphis. The presidents of the regional banks, which dot the country from Boston to San Francisco, complained to Fed Vice Chairman Donald Kohn that the Fed’s Washington bank-supervision group was adrift and not providing the district banks needed guidance on how to navigate a worsening banking crisis. Soon, though, Washington was more involved than ever. In one example: The Atlanta Fed was subjected to an especially thorough critical review of its performance as a regulator because of the large number of bank failures in the Southeast.”
Citi’s Gary Shedlin goes to Morgan Stanley (NYP)
The chairman of Citigroup’s global Financial Institutions Group will join Morgan Stanley as a vice chairman,
Why Does JPMorgan Trade at Book Value? (Reuters)
BreakingViews would like to know.
Continue reading »
Greece Braces for Strikes, Vote on New Austerity Plan (WSJ)
One poll released by privately owned SKAI television Friday, shows that 62% of Greeks expect social unrest in the country to rise. But the same poll shows that 78% of respondents think the austerity measures will be implemented nonetheless.
Singapore Plans Greenwich-Style Hedge Fund Home in Nepal Hill Neighborhood (Bloomberg)
The Monetary Authority of Singapore and JTC Corp. — the government agency developing and marketing the project in Nepal Hill — quietly asked hedge fund managers in January to visit the district’s so-called black-and-white bungalows, named for their white-washed walls and dark timber frames, according to a copy of the invitation obtained by Bloomberg News. “I’ve visited and think it’s a very interesting development and a great alternative to a traditional office,” said Michael Coleman. “You’re surrounded by greenery, have your own garden to enjoy and the area is rapidly developing.”
Supertax pulls in £2.5bn for UK Treasury (FT)
“Clearly there has been the kind of restraint the exchequer was looking for,” said Rob McIvor, spokesman for the Association for Financial Markets in Europe, which represents the securities industry.
Papandreou: ‘We Don’t Want to Be EU’s Lehman Brothers’
(DealBook)
The EU’s Jimmy Cayne would be okay though.
Soccer — Not Sovereign — Debt Crisis Hits Home (CNBC)
This is serious.
Oversight group: Citigroup should downsize itself (MarketWatch)
“If you break up, you won’t have as big a company to run and we will reduce systemic risk,” Elizabeth Warren, chairwoman of the congressional oversight panel told Pandit, arguing Citigroup is the poster child for “too big to fail” institutions whose collapse could damage the markets.
Feinberg: Criticism of Executive Pay Rules Is Just ‘Spin’ (CNBC)
As for the suggestion that people will go elsewhere to flee compensation rules, the Czar is “not buying it.”
