Archive for February 2011

  • 28 Feb 2011 at 6:22 PM

Write-Offs: 02.28.11

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$$$ Warren Buffett said buying a home was the third-best investment he ever made, after the rings he bought for his first wife, Susan Thompson, and, after her death, his second wife, Astrid Menks. “For the $31,500 I paid for our house, my family and I gained 52 years of terrific memories with more to come,” Buffett wrote to shareholders of his Berkshire Hathaway. [Bloomberg]

$$$ “Thus, the lingering question in our mind is why Citi signed off on its 2007 10-K as having effective controls in light of such problems,” said Mike Mayo. “This information is still relevant today because it reflects on the magnitude of the risk shortfalls and what we feel is the higher-than-perceived task of turning them around.” Citi spokeswoman Shannon Bell said the bank has no comment on Mayo’s report, but implied that his accusations were incorrect in discussing the company’s accounting procedures. [TSC]

$$$ Americans Earn a `D’ on Understanding How Credit Scores Work [Bloomberg]

$$$ Fed’s Dudley Sees US Weather Oil Shocks [WSJ]

$$$ JPMorgan May Need Another $4 Billion For Legal Losses [CNBC]

$$$ “I put a billion dollars in the studio’s pockets and I put a half a billion dollars in creator Chuck’s pocket,’ Sheen ranted. “I should of been walking in to sandwiches, massages and hand jobs. Yeah, I said it!” [DM] Read more »

  • 28 Feb 2011 at 5:10 PM

Hedge Fund Manager/Big Short Character Sues Michael Lewis, Steve Eisman For Making Him Look Like A Guy Investors Might Want To Think Twice About

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Wing Chau, a manager of collateralized debt obligations, according to a complaint filed Feb. 25 in Manhattan federal court, claims the book unfairly casts him as one of the “villains” responsible for the 2008 financial collapse. The book “depicts Mr. Chau as someone who ignored his professional responsibilities, made misrepresentations to investors, charged money for work that was not performed, had no stake in the CDOs he managed, was incompetent or reckless in carrying out his responsibilities, and violated his fiduciary duties by putting the interests of ‘Wall Street bond trading desks’ above those of his investors,” according to the complaint…Steve Eisman is described in the complaint as “one of the principal sources Lewis relied on in writing ‘The Big Short.’” [Bloomberg]

  • 28 Feb 2011 at 4:39 PM

Can Goldman Sachs Help Facebook Expand Its Hooker Base?

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According to a new study, prostitutes are “flocking” to Facebook to peddle their services in record numbers, with an estimated 83 percent of working girls using the website to reel in clients and projections that by the end of 2011 Facebook will be “the leading online recruitment space” (for those looking to pay to lay). Still, for every, “Molly Ravish,” who says she charges $200 “for an hour of passion, including deep french kissing and oral sex,” and suggests potential customers remember her name because they’ll be “screaming it later,” or Fordham student “Beva Langoria,” who describes herself as an independent escort, or an NYPD spokesman who shrugs and says “everybody is using the internet,” there’s a hooker saying no way, no how. Now that Goldman Sachs has a vested interest in getting as many Facebook users signed up as possible, in addition to making it the premier destination for everything from catching up with old friends to buying ass, will they help change some minds? Read more »

  • 28 Feb 2011 at 2:47 PM

Bernie Madoff Doesn’t Think Much Of Dodd-Frank

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[Madoff] sees himself at this stage as a kind of truth-teller. He has disdain not only for the industry but for the regulators. “The SEC,” he says, “looks terrible in this thing.” And he doesn’t see himself as the only guilty party on Wall Street. “It’s unbelievable, Goldman … no one has any criminal convictions. The whole new regulatory reform is a joke. The whole government is a Ponzi scheme.” [NYM, earlier]

  • 28 Feb 2011 at 2:32 PM

Unfounded Rumor Of The Afternoon: Departures At Highbridge?

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Head of the Asia portfolio is said to be on the way out. Read more »

  • 28 Feb 2011 at 2:09 PM

Charlie Sheen: ‘These Insults Are The Rocket Fuel That Lives In The Tips Of My Saber”

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Say what you will but this is helpful advice for not just people in Chuck’s circles but those in business as well, perhaps getting unfairly beat up in the press. Goldman? Use this. [Slate]

  • 28 Feb 2011 at 1:31 PM

Bank Of America’s Global Head Of M&A Gets A Career Upgrade

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Jeffrey Kaplan will now be working for David Tepper at Appaloosa, overseeing “the fund’s relations with investors and Wall Street.” Kaplan presumably got to know Tepper while advising on “a host of corporate, private-equity and hedge-fund clients on leveraged buyouts and other deals.” [WSJ]

  • 28 Feb 2011 at 1:05 PM

Legendary Investor Lenny Dykstra Makes A Few Predictions About The Banks Who Stole From Him, The Asses Of People Who Mock Him And Charlie Sheen

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Nails laid it all out on the table during an interview with Howard Eskin, who he last told, “I’m a lightning rod for money; after we’re done talking today when you’re walking to your car you’ll probably find 100 bucks.” Read more »

  • 28 Feb 2011 at 11:44 AM

Bernie Madoff Would Like A Little Credit For All Of His ‘Legitimate’ Achievements In Life

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Bernie Madoff recently called New York reporter Steve Fishman collect, from prison. Berns had rebuffed Fishman’s previous attempts to chat but apparently had been feeling like there were a few things he wanted to get off his chest and in print, for all the haters to see. Lately, you see, the Ponzi Master is feeling a bit misunderstood. Angry. Cheated. He takes the blame for what he did (though he thinks the banks that enabled him should take a little themselves) and admits that Ruth is pretty ticked off with him of late. That’s not what’s getting his goat though. What he’s feeling miffed about these days is the fact that okay, yes, he ran a multi-billion dollar scam that had some pretty serious consequences. Fine. But what about all those years he was doing things by the book? People rightfully thought he was pretty great then but do we ever hear about that? No! All we hear is monster this and criminal that. What gives? Read more »

SAC Capital’s Private Equity Guys Are Raising Cash, Leaving The Mothership

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Frank Baker, Peter Berger and Jeffrey Hendren need $400 million for their new buyout shop, which will be independent of SAC though Mr. Cohen will get a piece of the action ’cause that’s how he rolls. Read more »

  • 28 Feb 2011 at 9:30 AM

Warren Buffett Claims To Only Like One Kind Of Box

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When Charlie and I met Todd Combs, we knew he fit our requirements. Todd, as was the case with Lou, will be paid a salary plus a contingent payment based on his performance relative to the S&P. We have arrangements in place for deferrals and carryforwards that will prevent see-saw performance being met by undeserved payments. The hedge-fund world has witnessed some terrible behavior by general partners who have received huge payouts on the upside and who then, when bad results occurred, have walked away rich, with their limited partners losing back their earlier gains. Sometimes these same general partners thereafter quickly started another fund so that they could immediately participate in future profits without having to overcome their past losses. Investors who put money with such managers should be labeled patsies, not partners. As long as I am CEO, I will continue to manage the great majority of Berkshire’s holdings, both bonds and equities. Todd initially will manage funds in the range of one to three billion dollars, an amount he can reset annually. His focus will be equities but he is not restricted to that form of investment. (Fund consultants like to require style boxes such as “long-short,” “macro,” “international equities.” At Berkshire our only style box is “smart.”) [Berkshire Hathaway Annual Letter]