So there’s this guy. A mild-mannered professor who retired a decade ago and decided he would serve as an independent director of this new booming financial product called a CDO. He collected a few thousand bucks a year for basically signing some documents. Sounded like a decent gig and a good way to make some extra pocket change.
Fast forward to 2010. Most CDOs are near-worthless, but the retired professor, Donald Puglisi, had managed to get himself appointed as independent director for over 200 CDOs including Goldman’s famed Abacus CDO. As long as the CDOs are on life-support, they still pay out fees to Professor Don. In fact, he probably collects a cool $400,000 a year in fees from the CDOs and that doesn’t include the 100 or so CLOs in which he serves as an independent director.
Clearly, the professor is reveling in the fact that he’s probably got the best job in the world.
On a recent warm day in May, Puglisi, dressed casually in shorts, sneakers and a short-sleeve shirt, made no apologies for making money off badly tarnished securities that have become synonymous with big bank write-downs.
Seated in a chair in his small office in Newark, Delaware, a lively college town, Puglisi still sounds a little bit like a believer in the financial alchemy that Wall Street banks used to turn subprime mortgages into supposedly Triple A-rated securities.
“I don’t think the CDO market caused the crash in housing prices or the mortgage market,” said Puglisi, whose four-person shop, Puglisi and Associates, serves as an independent director to roughly 500 Delaware-based structured finance companies. “The deterioration in the housing and mortgage markets would have happened even if there had never been a CDO market.”
signing a some documents
G I G O
“garbage in, garbage out”
Kouwe, did you just try and rip on someone for “doing…not much”?
Have you ever heard of a concept called irony?
seriously Kouwe act like you’ve been here before….ok i need to go drop a pre-lunch Kouwe. be back later.
Newark, Delaware is the land of the White Devil.
- Cory Booker
I’m turning Japanese
I think I’m turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I’m turning Japanese
I really think so
I’m turning Japanese
I think I’m turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I’m turning Japanese
I really think so
Guy has his name on the inside of a building on campus, Lerner Hall. Which, when abbreviated, is ‘LEH.’ Is that irony?
“why didn’t I think of this” Seriously, Kouwe? Are you a glutton for punishment? You continually make it so easy for us…
Financial alchemy–makes sense. He looks like my local pharmacist.
Hell, I got paid more than that and my team had long gone off life support – not impressed.
-Isiah Thomas
Puglisi = TGFD
Just think, we could have had a few welfare mothers sign the documents and fast forward to 2010, they would have been set for life.
Kouwe, just when I think you’re turning a corner, you have to go and throw out a “Delaware!” tag. You really do suck at this.
So the guy and his 3 associates sit on roughly 500 boards, colect fees from each and evrry one of them, each containing from a couple hundred to thousands of mortgages or MBSs, etc, and noone wonders why these things blew up.
Either all the CDOs felt he was some sort of expert and could actually help them (which he clearly didn’t), or they looked for warm bodies to fillthe board seats they were required to fill, and lo and behold, they found a professional director! I’m sure all the investors in these CDOs are reassured that the director was looking out for them…
500 CDOs…sheesh…
Where is Bess, you piece of kouwe.
Kouwe
you, me, and a pocketknife in a primetime pay-per-view cage match – i will own your ass just like ashley dupree
all of these Kouwe rants are getting old, people please find something funny to post.
Kouwe keep up the good work, though Bess will be hard to catch
@9 You have a white male pharmacist? LIES.
dude doesn’t even sign sh1t. All docs have his e-sig.
My pharmacist is a white whale.
Goldstein doing a real reporter’s job unlike a certain someone.
@17 I bet you stroke it with a hand full of broken glass.
@11
Welp… yep, that explains a whole lot…
Where do I sign up?
Sounds like a dream job.
@14 – you really don’t know shit, do you?
we used to pay this guy out a few thousand each CDO Debt service payout…the guy made bank for doing nothing..helluva job
I ate way tooo much cheese today.
Charlie
@17 your mom is getting old…ZING
@13 is that you Angelo?
Kouwe. you owe me 2 minutes of my life back.
@25 not a comment on the industry, just the irony, oh the irony (this supposedly “professional director” sits on the boards of several hundred pieces of drek that are now worth squat)…anywho, I’m sure the investors/clients/suckers who bought these CDOs on whose boards this guy sat are real happy that this was BAU…
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
Does this dude have six fingers??
Magic Johnson gets paid more than that and he has the HIV
-kid who needs to stop ripping on MJ
Nice post Zach. Interesting you found this guy. these other comments are just flat out stupid. keep the stories coming.
-Joe
400k? Piker
Kouwe, really super you are keeping us up to date on the $400K crowd.
Zachy…. Dont mind the others , you can “mouth” off your frustrations about them on me tonight if you like.
Meet you at the usual place?
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