Are you a hedge fund that’s made it a habit of doing right by your clients? Just barely justifying your fees? Doing your job? SEC director of enforcement Robert Khuzami is on to you. He knows the only way anyone could beat the market by 3 percent (or what he calls “aberrational performance”) is by being a genetic freak or criminal. So everybody just sit there with your hands in the air. You’re all suspect. Continue reading »
Archive for March 2011
Securities And Exchange Commission Announces Plans To Keep Close Tabs On Any Moderately Successful Hedge Funds
By Bess Levin
Brother In Alleged Galleon Coverup (WSJ)
In the hours after the 2009 arrest of the Galleon Group founder, Rengan Rajaratnam participated in an alleged coverup by removing notebooks with handwritten notes about stocks from Raj Rajaratnam’s office, according to filings in a Manhattan federal court.
BP Managers Said to Face U.S. Manslaughter Charges Review (Bloomberg)
Federal prosecutors are considering whether to pursue manslaughter charges against BP Plc managers for decisions made before the Gulf of Mexico oil well explosion last year that killed 11 workers and caused the biggest offshore spill in U.S. history, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Warren Faces Dimon, Hostile Chamber Agency (NYP)
Warren says regulation will bring clarity to financial services. Although she won’t be speaking at the same time as Bachus or Dimon, the US Chamber of Commerce’s fifth annual summit, entitled “Ensuring Competitiveness in a Post-Regulatory Reform Environment,” will give Warren a chance to make her strongest case yet in support of the new agency that she helped birth.
Not ‘joking’ with Rajaratnam says Rajiv Goel, former Intel exec (ET)
Former Intel executive and key government witness Rajiv Goel has said that he was not joking with Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam when telling him about the dealings of his company. The defence previously asked Goel whether he thought Rajaratnam was kidding about giving BMW cars to two women in Intel’s sales department who leaked information to him. The prosecution today went over several parts of secretly recorded phone. “Were you joking… was this idle chit chat?” asked Reed Brodsky, citing the line, “But yesterday, our board approved this deal.” “No”, said Goel, who has already pleaded guilty to telling Rajaratnam that Intel was planning to make a USD 1 billion investment in a new joint venture with Clearwire and Sprint to develop an ultra-fast wireless Internet service.
Cash-Paying Vultures Feast on U.S. Housing as Mortgages Dry Up (Bloomberg)
Delavaco Properties LP plans to spend as much as $30 million this year and $40 million in 2012 to buy bank-owned houses and condominiums in foreclosure-ridden South Florida. The private-equity fund will pay cash. “If there weren’t vultures out there, you’d have a city of dead carcasses,” Robert Theocles, an independent consultant for Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based Delavaco, said in a telephone interview. “It’s like the circle of life.”
Private Exchange Wants To Challenge NYSE, Nasdaq (Reuters)
BATS Global Markets plans to list U.S. public stocks by year end, opening the door for companies to float shares somewhere other than the Big Board or Nasdaq for the first time in years.
Man Group Doubles Managed Funds (WSJ)
The firm said it continued to refocus itself as a more-diversified business following its acquisition of GLG Partners and the sale of its stake in BlueCrest as it reported that funds under management of $69 billion, almost double the level last year. Man Group also announced Tuesday the acquisition of the remaining 50% stake in Ore Hill that it didn’t already own, which it would integrate into GLG. Ore Hill manages a series of hedge funds with total assets under management of $800 million and focused on U.S. credit markets.
Time for a Sequel to AOL-Time Warner? (WSJ)
This isn’t a joke.
‘Spiderman’ Alain Robert scales Burj Khalifa in Dubai (BBC)
It took him six hours to ascend the 828-m (2,717-ft) tower in the United Arab Emirates city, including the tapered spire above the top floors. Unusually, he used a rope and harness, to comply with safety requirements. Continue reading »
$$$ JPMorgan’s decision to be the sole lender on a $20 billion loan to AT&T Inc. is a “credit negative” for the bank and may encourage other lenders to take on more risk, Moody’s Investors Service said. [Bloomberg]
$$$ Obama’s new gadget: an iPad [MarketWatch]
$$$ D.E. Shaw, Indian Billionaire Plan Financial Services Venture [FINalternatives]
$$$ GE Defends Tax Record, Attacks New York Times In Twitter Campaign [HP] Continue reading »
Venture Capitalist Chris Burch Has The Audacity To Think Anyone Is Buying His Reason For Putting A 10-Foot Tall TV In His Hamptons Backyard
By Bess Levin
Christopher Burch is a venture capitalist (and ex-husband of designer Tory Burch) who’s got a Southampton vacation home and a dream: to build a 10-foot tall, 16-foot wide TV in his backyard. The contraption- which will be designed to last at least a decade, be positioned so it’s in view of the master bedroom, and come outfitted with a remote-controlled door in the event of rain- is so big Burch must gain approval from a zoning board, which his neighbors are trying to block. They’re pissed, as people tend to get over such things. “I’m totally against it,” shared Jonathan Foster. “It’s a shame when people have that kind of money,” Keith Tuthill said. Their fury, however, is misplaced. What their gears should be grinded over is the story Burch is trying to feed them re why he needs this TV.
Scott Casselman, a rep for the screen’s maker, Multimedia LED, insisted that the TV will not be used to create the ultimate man-cave — it would be put solely to the highbrow pursuit of displaying images of famous art works.
RIGHT. Continue reading »
Pool Manager NakedShort has a few things to say. Continue reading »
A Prosecutor’s Love Of Water Sports May Be The One Thing That Can Save Raj Rajaratnam From Jail Time
By Bess Levin
If you’ve been keeping up with the Raj Rajaratnam insider trading trial, you may have come to the conclusion that things have not been going so hot for the Galleon founder. Though he is of course innocent until proven guilty, so far jurors have heard that Raj’s brother felt the need to destroy his big brother’s “private notebooks,” tapes of Raj telling Danielle Chiesi to keep their dealings on the down low, tapes of Raj telling a friend he knew to buy shares of a company because “one of our guys is on the board,” and testimony from former McKinsey exec that Raj paid him $1 million for his tip about AMD’s acquisition of ATI, leaving one to conclude Rajaratnam doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting off. Unless, of course, some sort of improbable information emerged, like evidence that it wasn’t actually Raj on all those taped phone calls, or the 7-man defense team caught a lucky break. A tip, if you will, that they’d be fools not to trade on. Continue reading »
Or, alternatively, that they’re free to leave but not then allowed to come back? According to John Carney, yes. Continue reading »
Raj Rajaratnam Defense Team Would Prefer Jury Not Hear About His Brother (Allegedly) Destroying Evidence Of (Alleged) Insider Trading
By Bess Levin
Shortly after Raj Rajaratnam was arrested on Oct. 16, 2009, his brother Rengan went into the Galleon Group LLC’s co-founder’s office and removed his sibling’s private notebooks, former Galleon trader Adam Smith told prosecutors, according to a court filing made yesterday. Raj Rajaratnam’s lawyers yesterday filed a legal request asking a judge to bar Smith from testifying about Rengan Rajaratnam’s actions on Oct. 16. Prosecutors wanted to offer the account from Smith, who may testify for the government this week, “to prove the existence of the charged conspiracy and Rengan’s membership in it,” they wrote in court papers. [Bloomberg, earlier]
The following post is by Dealbreaker reader and commenter Infinite Guest.
“Margin Call” is not “Wall Street,” “Boiler Room,” or “Glengarry Glen Ross.” It’s not trying to be any of those. There are no fistfights, car chases or explosions. There are no dick jokes. Strippers, hookers and blow are alluded to, but remain off-screen. Despite the short time line and urgency of the situation, nobody races against a literal ticking clock. And the kind of person who hates “Star Wars” because sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum or who gave up on “Full Metal Jacket” when Pyle somehow managed to get a loaded gun off the range will not be able to sit through “Margin Call:” it requires some suspension of disbelief.
On the other hand, if you want to spend two hours reliving the feelings of despair and helplessness from 2008, this might just be your movie. Continue reading »
Now would be a good time to start counting those coins. Continue reading »
