Earlier this morning, Squawk Box invited Bob Vila on to discuss their brand new set. Having seen the old one (which Bob described as “a cross between a kitchen cooking show and Star Wars“), what did he think in comparison, Joe wanted to know? “Looks like a great job,” Bob told the gang. “Love the colors.” Having said that…”I wonder, when you tore down the old set, did you recycle any of the materials?” No one had any idea and BV wasn’t finished. “I noticed in the back of the new set you have a staircase that’s very sleek and modern but has no hand rails. I wonder how you got a certificate of occupancy there.” Continue reading »
Archive for April 2011
Are You Not Supposed To Use Client Funds On Private Jets, Move Money Between Onshore And Offshore Accounts?
By Bess LevinIf so, no one ever told Perry Gruss. Continue reading »
What do we know about Lynn Tilton? She runs the $8 billion private equity firm Patriarch Partners, and prior to that worked on Wall Street with a slightly lower profile with gigs at Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Amroc. She sports 5-inch heels to “look sufficiently fierce to make sure I garner the respect I deserve.” Her office is decorated with whips, handcuffs, and a portrait of her “stretched across the hood of a black Mercedes.” She only “strips and flips men, not companies.” And she once sent a Christmas card to customers that featured a stuffed tiger, a naughty Santa suit and a whip. But that’s all surface. Until now, we haven’t really gotten to the mystery underneath the Roberto Cavalli miniskirt and a fur-trimmed cape, or determined her motivations and what makes Tilton tick. Luckily, Lynn recently granted audience with New York and let it all out. Every burning question you’ve wanted answered. Like:
Why did she decide to start Patriach, when she’d retired from Wall Street, had “a good-looking man, great sex, a small island, and was still looking good in a thong bikini”? A vision.
One night, on vacation in Costa Rica, she woke suddenly. “I was laying there in this hotel room, and I saw my father and my Mayan teacher very vividly,” she explains. “They said this was not what was planned for me. I said, ‘Why did I go through this path, to empty myself out of any needs or material longings, only to be sent back to New York to be a businessperson?’ And the answer was: You’re not capable of leading until nothing can hold you back. Get your ass back to New York. So I got up in the middle of the night and left.”
Does she see herself as the female George Soros? Yes.
Tilton’s goal is “to be part of the intelligentsia. An enlightened thinker. One of the people who are called together to think through economic issues for America. You know, like how George Soros is called on issues.”
Why is she pissed at Obama, for whom she voted? He hasn’t called her and she highly suspects he’s plagiarised her work.
“Look, I am the largest female business owner in this country,” she says, coming out from behind the rack in a Herve Leger gown. “I own 74 midsize businesses, and Obama has not once called me into the White House on these issues.” More offensive, Tilton claims, as a female stylist reaches into the bodice of the dress to plump up her cleavage, the president has borrowed language from her articles. “I mean actually lifting pieces,” she says. “Literally, I can give you paragraphs. I got like twenty e-mails after his speech, when he was like, ‘We need to be innovators and the makers of things.’ ”
Obama Girds for Struggle With Republicans Over Debt Limit (Bloomberg)
The U.S. government is projected to slam into the $14.3 trillion legal cap on government borrowing sometime this spring. As the price of their vote to allow the government to go further into debt, congressional Republicans are demanding far deeper cuts than the $38 billion they got last week in the deal to fund the government for the last six months of the 2011 fiscal year. Failing to raise the debt ceiling would have much more dire consequences than a shutdown, with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner predicting last week that it would “call into question the willingness of the government of the United States to meet its obligations,” and “shake the basic foundations of the entire global financial system.”
PIMCO goes short US government debt, raises cash holdings (Reuters)
The portion of PIMCO’s $236 billion Total Return Fund held in U.S. government debt, including U.S. Treasuries, was -3 percent of total assets in the fund as of March, down from zero in February.
JPMorgan Accused Of Breaking Its Duty To Clients (NYT)
In the summer of 2007, as the first tremors of the coming financial crisis were being felt on Wall Street, top executives of JPMorgan Chase were raising red flags about a troubled investment vehicle called Sigma, which was based in London. But the bank chose not to move out $500 million in client assets that it had put into Sigma two months earlier. Sigma collapsed a year later. Now, new documents unsealed late last month as part of a lawsuit by bank clients against JPMorgan show for the first time just how high the warnings about Sigma went — all the way to the office of the bank’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon. While the clients lost nearly all their money, JPMorgan collected nearly $1.9 billion from Sigma’s demise, according to the suit.
China Inflation Is `Somewhat Out of Control’ on Weak Currency, Soros Says (Bloomberg)
“It would be very advantageous to allow the currency to appreciate as a way of controlling inflation,” Soros said. “The authorities missed that opportunity. You now have inflation somewhat out of control, and causing some serious danger of wage-price inflation.”
NYSE Rejects Nasdaq Offer (WSJ)
In a statement Sunday, NYSE Euronext called the bid by Nasdaq and partner IntercontinentalExchange Inc. “strategically unattractive” and entailing “unacceptable execution risk.” The NYSE reaffirmed its commitment to a $9.7 billion merger with Deutsche Börse announced in February, itself fraught with political and antitrust issues in both Europe and the U.S.
Nomura’s Stock-Backed Loans Jump 50% as Japan Quake Spurs Demand for Cash (Bloomberg)
Daily loan transactions jumped to about 150 from 100 and credit volume also climbed 50 percent as customers sought funds following the disaster, Naoshi Sakai, an executive director of Tokyo-based Nomura’s banking and trust agency services unit, said in an interview.
U.K.’s ‘Moderate’ Bank Report Calls for More Capital, Sales (Bloomberg)
“The universal banks such as RBS and Barclays fare best from the report,” said Joseph Dickerson, a banking analyst at Espirito Santo Investment Bank. “The key negative in the report is the prospect of further branch divestitures at Lloyds which is currently unquantifiable.”
From Behind Bars, Madoff Spins His Story (FT)
He says he gets lots of mail from well-wishers, but no hate mail. “I spend most of my time in my room, reading,” he adds. “And – this is my secret – Danielle Steel.” We all laugh. “Yes, Danielle Steel.” Continue reading »
$$$ What a government shutdown means for Wall Street [Dealbook]
$$$ Treasury Could Furlough 92,000 [WSJ]
$$$ Platinum Equity Founder Gores to Purchase NBA’s Detroit Pistons [Bloomberg]
$$$ Lawyer Reveals Galleon Defense Strategy [WSJ]
$$$ Toxic Dollar: Why Nobody Seems to Want US Currency [CNBC]
$$$ Drinking Even a Little Bit Can Maybe Give You Cancer [Daily Intel]
$$$ If you’re looking for Saturday night plans and are hoping to run into a certain befleeced investor, this is apparently happening: Continue reading »
Wings. Continue reading »
The Legitimate Years, Part 2. Continue reading »
Securities And Exchange Commission Provided Bernie Madoff With Some Much Needed Comedic Relief
By Bess Levin“In 2002 I had a contact with the SEC, who were concerned that I was front-running,” he recalls, referring to the practice of using insider information to inform trades. “I started laughing to myself – I knew I wasn’t because I wasn’t doing the trades.” [FT]
When one is the chief executive of a bank or otherwise important person whose skills are in high demand, he or she needs to be available to pick up and move out of state at a moment’s notice, whether or not the the house is sold or the water is still running. This hasn’t posed a problem in time’s past, what with the most magnificent housing bubble the world had ever seen, but with the market having its teeth kicked in and left naked and bound in an alleyway with the words “Big Al” was here written in Sharpie across its chest, thing have been slightly more difficult of late. Tim Geithner, for instance, hasn’t been able to sell his Westchester house since taking the job of Treausury Secretary, despite cutting the price and retiling the bathroom, ultimately being forced to rent it out by the hour. Jamie Dimon too went through a similar problem unloading his Chicago home (where he lived as CEO of Bank One and held on to til his daughters graduated high school), despite fantastic art gracing the walls. Luckily for JD, the long wait is over. He reportedly sold his manse for $6.8 million (after having bought it for $4.7 million) and JPMorgan apparently picked up the relator tab. Continue reading »
Ahead of his trial for insider trading, the array of insider information that Zvi Goffer AKA Mr. Octopussy AKA Dances with Tracksuits allegedly dipped each and every one of his tentacles in has resulted in 6 extra charges, bringing the ex-Galleon trader and founder of Incremental Capital’s total to 14. Continue reading »
Let one fool’s impression that you’re free to discuss family business once released into the wild, or that the rules don’t apply in perpetuity, be a lesson to you all. Continue reading »
