Just, let him run with this. Continue reading »
Archive for April 2011
Bill Gross: Congress Is Like That Bastard In Your Life Always Promising He’ll Change Even Though He NEVER DOES
By Bess LevinFeel Free To Treat This April Fool’s Day Story As Either A Cautionary Tale Or Inspiration
By Bess LevinWiedman was an assistant manager at a fast-food joint at the time, and wearing one of those flimsy paper hats. His colleague Rick thought it would be a riot — and a fitting tribute to April Fools’ Day — to sneak up behind his buddy and set his cap aflame. Rather than creating a slow burn, though, the gag made the manager’s hat go up like a bonfire on the Fourth of July. “He had to pull it off, throw it on the floor, and stamp out the flames,” remembers Wiedman, who’s now a business professor in Lincoln, Nebraska. “I’d been singed, and for several weeks, it looked like I was going bald.” [Reuters]
Bank of America To Celebrate Start Of Baseball Season By Dispatching Players To Sneak Up On Customers While They’re At The ATM
By Bess LevinDo not be fooled by Lenny Dykstra, who will surely be using the campaign as a part of a scam to force people into giving over their pin numbers. Continue reading »
SAC Capital is reportedly close to signing a lease at 510 Madison that would give the firm the second through fifth floors, 66,000 square feet, and naming rights to the building (which comes with a health club and pool, meaning everyone will be required to pass a swim test- if you never learned how, I highly suggest you start dunking your head underwater during tonight’s bath to get yourself used to it, as floaties will not be permitted). While the Stamford office will always be number one, this much space and responsibility cannot be ignored and means we need to get to work. Continue reading »
Almost exactly a year ago, if you happened to be walking down East 67th Street toward Fifth Avenue, you probably stopped to peer through the window of a certain $49 million townhouse. Specifically the one belonging to Phil Falcone. There, a piano playing pig name Wilbur was pulling out all the stops (“Memory” from Cats, his infamous Bette Midler), in celebration of his boss making AR Magazine‘s annual list of the 25 highest paid managers, having taken home $825 million in 2009. The good spirits and the gin were running high that night and the party didn’t stop ’til the early hours of the morning. This year, things will be different. The lights will be dimmed and Wilbur will be in his room, digging out the cocktail napkin with the number of the hedge fund manager he’d met last summer in Connecticut. He told himself he wasn’t going to do anything with it but…things have changed. Continue reading »
Don’t be! Continue reading »
March performance (funds are up between 8 and 11 percent YTD). Continue reading »
In 2009, the 25 best paid hedge fund managers made a combined $25.33 billion. To score a place on the list, you had to make at least $350 million. This time around? The group took home a collective pool of $22.07 billion (down 13 percent) and a mere $210 million got you access to the VIP lounge. We’re not mad, we’re just…disappointed. And hope game will be upped next year, whether it’s through improved performance, increased fees, or a trimmed staff. Here’s the Top 10, as ranked by AR Magazine: Continue reading »
Nasdaq, ICE, Make NYSE Bid (WSJ)
Nasdaq OMX and ICE said Friday that they are proposing to buy NYSE Euronext for $42.50 in cash and stock per NYSE Euronext share, or about $11.3 billion, based on the respective Nasdaq OMX and ICE closing share prices on Thursday.
Berkshire’s Abel Advances in Buffett’s ‘Top 4’ After Sokol Exit (Bloomberg)
Buffett introduced Abel to Berkshire shareholders in the billionaire’s 2002 annual letter, calling the manager Sokol’s “key associate.” In subsequent letters, Abel’s name always followed Sokol’s as Buffett praised “Dave and Greg” for their work expanding the energy business. Sokol said in an interview last year that Abel began working with him at MidAmerican in the early 1990’s when the company was independent. Sokol, previously MidAmerican’s CEO, sold the company to Buffett for about $9 billion. Sokol said it was his idea to promote Abel three years ago. “I went to Warren and said, ‘Greg is doing a fantastic job,’” Sokol said on Aug. 16 at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “Warren said ‘If that’s what you think is the right thing to do, then that’s fine.’ So I turned the CEO title over to Greg.”
U.S. Payrolls Grew 216,000 in March; Unemployment at 8.8% (Bloomberg)
Payrolls increased by 216,000 workers last month after a revised 194,000 gain the prior month, the Labor Department said today in Washington. Economists projected a March gain of 190,000, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. The jobless rate dropped from 8.9 percent in February, the fourth straight decrease.
Warren Buffett’s Halo Tarnished, By Charlie Gasparino (TDB)
“I can tell you that this entire episode shows why investors and the media should stop portraying Warren Buffett as a saint, who never lies, cheats or equivocates and surrounds himself with similar heavenly characters. Instead, Buffett should be seem for what he is: A great investor and businessman motivated by greed and ambition and like his unheavenly deputy.”
Morgan Stanley Venture Struggles (WSJ)
A joint venture between Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley will likely report an extraordinary loss of about ¥80 billion ($956 million) for the just-ended fiscal year, due to unrealized losses from bond trading, people familiar with the matter said Friday. Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. was set up by MUFG and the U.S. investment bank in May last year by merging Morgan Stanley’s Japanese investment banking operations, including its merger and acquisition business, with Mitsubishi UFJ Securities.
Subprime Bonds Are Back (WSJ)
The prices on a representative slice of the subprime bond market have doubled from 30 cents on the dollar at the low point of the crisis to roughly 60 cents today.
TPG to Sell Stake to Kuwait, Singapore (WSJ)
TPG Holdings has reached a deal to sell nearly 5% of itself to sovereign-wealth funds operated by Kuwait and Singapore. The deal values the firm at about $11 billion and allows it to raise several hundred million dollars, according to people close to the matter.
Marc Faber: Still a Bear, and He Has His Reasons (CNBC)
“I know I will die, but I’m still living,” Faber says. “What do you want me to do about it? Should I kill myself in anticipation of certain death in 10 or 15 years time?” The same kind of logic applied to his run on Wall Street, which began in 1970 at the firm White Weld & Co. with a role summarizing economic research to send to overseas offices, in the pre-Internet days. He got to know future U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who gave a briefing to the firm every two weeks. “At the end I was the only person attending because all he did was summarize the Wall Street Journal of the previous day,” Faber says. Continue reading »
