In assessing his performance this year, Oswald Gruebel said he added no value. Continue reading »
Archive for March 2011
The decision was presumably made after hearing about former Goldman Sachs board member, Rajat Gupta, calling up Raj Rajaratnam with earnings information 23 seconds after getting it from GS management. NOBODY PLAYS LLOYD LIKE THAT! Continue reading »
Insider Trading Probe Sends Clients Fleeing Without Arrests (Bloomberg)
“The practical reality is that if everyone else is going to pull out, then you have to pull out,” said Craig Slaughter, executive director of the West Virginia Investment Management Board, which had $50 million of its $12.5 billion in assets invested with Level Global. “When the feds knock on your door, it’s game over,” said Brad Alford, head of Alpha Capital Management LLC in Atlanta, which invests in hedge and mutual funds on behalf of wealthy clients. “Integrity is all you have in this business.”
Roubini: ECB April Rate Hike Would Be A ‘Mistake’ (CNBC)
ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said Thursday a rate hike in April was possible but not certain and revived the bank’s old coded warning of monetary tightening by using the phrase “strong vigilance,” often heard during the tightening cycle between 2005 and 2007. “In my view that’s a mistake … I think that the ECB is rushing too fast into hiking rates,” Roubini said in an interview.
Madoff Trustee, ‘Net’ Winners Face Off (WSJ)
Former investors of Bernard Madoff and a trustee recovering money after his giant Ponzi scheme argued before an appellate panel Thursday over who constitutes a victim entitled to claim losses in the fraud. The judges grilled attorneys for the investors on whether to uphold a decision by the trustee, Irving Picard, to approve claims based on how much of an investor’s principal deposits with Mr. Madoff were lost, or whether Mr. Picard should instead use the much higher final account statements fabricated by Mr. Madoff.
Fired workers burn Indian executive to death (AP)
Indian police detained two people after an angry mob of fired workers burned to death a senior executive of a steel factory, an official said Friday. After learning they were laid off, about a dozen workers attacked a vehicle carrying Radhey Shyam Roy as he was leaving the factory in eastern Orissa state on Thursday, dousing the Jeep with gasoline and setting it on fire, said police Superintendent Ajay Kumar Sarangi. Continue reading »
Michael Moore: “This Country Is Not Broke…There Is Still A Ton Of Cash, Trillions Of Dollars Of It”
By Bess Levin
“But we’ve allowed a vast majority of it to concentrate in the hands of just a few people. It’s not theirs- it’s a national resource. It’s ours.” Continue reading »
As you may have heard, earlier this week Charles Sheen (née Carlos Irwin Estevez) joined Twitter, gaining approximately five trillion followers in under an hour. So far the pearls of wisdom proffered from Sheen’s firebreathing fists/fingers have included: “Face it folks, you just feel better when you say it. #WINNING,” “I’m here for my people..!” and, in response to one from P. Diddy (“can u please send me the address to ur house? Ive been dreamin about a party like this all my life! See u soon! Lol”), “Get dressed my man… sending the driver..!” Most people probably assumed Chuck signed up to add another dimension to his latest bit of performance art but that’s actually not the case. Sheen, who also this week demanded a 50% pay raise to return to the show he’s been fired from, did it from the cash money. Continue reading »
Raj Rajaratnam Tried To Stop The SEC From Charging His Goldman Buddy With Insider Trading
By Bess Levin
Earlier this week, former Goldman Sachs board member Rajat K. Gupta was charged with passing material non-public information about GS to Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam, 23 seconds after he heard it from Lloyd Blankfein. It’s been noted that in addition to being colleagues Rajat and Raj were also friends. Thick as thieves, if you will. And as friends, Rajaratnam went to bat for his bro, requesting that the SEC not file the “administrative order” against Rajat at all, or at least hold off a li’l while, he was worried about how bad it’d make his friend look (nobody dare say this was actually an attempt by Raj to save his own ass–we’re talking about friends helping friends here). Continue reading »
Men too! According to Fortune‘s annual ranking of the “50 most admired companies,” Blankfein’s Goldman is 25 overall (the top 50 also includes JPMorgan and Wells Fargo) and number one out of the “megabanks.” In that category, here’s how the rest stacked up:
16. Royal Bank of Scotland
15. Mizuho Financial Group
14. Citigroup
13. Bank of America
12. Sumiomo Mitsui Financial Group
11. Unicredit Group
10. BNP Paribas
9. Deutsche Bank
7. UBS
7. Morgan Stanley
6. Barclays Continue reading »
James Gorman Invites Morgan Stanley Employees To Help Educate, Elect Politicians Who Support The Bank’s Business Objectives
By Bess LevinEmail to all staff from the Morgan Stanley CEO sent today:
By law corporations cannot contribute directly to candidates for federal office. However, we are permitted to maintain a political action committee, MSPAC, which pools together employee contributions to support candidates. By banding together to participate in the political process, we can educate lawmakers as they prepare to draft new rules addressing taxes, wealth management and other critical financial services issues. MSPAC helps elect candidates who support our business objectives.
Suggested giving levels:
Morgan Stanley Exec Who Bit Off A Colleague’s Ear “Mike Tyson-Style”: Current Vice Chairman Of Deutsche Bank Securities
By Bess Levin
Earlier this morning we briefly mentioned an anecdote from a new book by Nina Godiwalla called “Suits: A Woman On Wall Street,” about a Morgan Stanley official who, during an argument at a team dinner, leaned over “as if to whisper something in his junior colleague’s ear and then took a bite out of it, Mike Tyson style.” Some doubted the truth to the story but luckily, a few readers who were there at the time assured us that in fact true. Also, apparently some of you may know this guy, as the ear biting incident didn’t hurt his career, which, following MS, included being the CEO of Thomas Weisel and Vice Chairman of Deutsche Bank Securities, a position he currently holds. Continue reading »
As you may have heard, a Manhattan judge sentenced Kenneth Starr to 7.5 years in prison yesterday, for his $33 million scam that took money out of the hands of Uma Thurman, Al Pacino and Carly Simon, among others. Starr told the court that he “can’t believe what he did,” saying that he “lost” his moral compass. US District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin agreed, and went so far as to pinpoint the moment Starr lost his compass– the second he laid his eyes on the assets pictured at left. Continue reading »
