Thinking a few steps ahead here but based on a recent interview in which Flava Flav discussed getting into the restructuring business (starting with his chicken chain), it seems obvious that’s where he’s headed. Schwarzman, Kravis, Peltz? Watch your backs. Continue reading »
Archive for May 2011
Chuck Grassley Under The Impression The SEC Would Know Whether Or Not It’s Doing It’s Job
By Bess Levin“What we’re trying to do is get information from the SEC on whether or not the SEC is doing its job,” Grassley said on Bloomberg TV today of his current investigation. [Bloomberg]
Last week, accused rapist and former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn was granted bail, on the condition in remain in New York and be monitored 24/7. He was originally slated to stay with his wife at the Bristol Plaza, which bill itself as “better than a hotel” and comes with daily maid service, but the tenants said not on their watch. He’s since found a home in Tribeca and while he’s not allowed to leave legal and medical appointments, plus weekly worship, the 6,800-square-foot townhouse, which is setting his wife back £30,000 a month, should provide plenty of room to stretch his shit out. Also included: Continue reading »
Until recently, when a London-based financial services employee got off work and had a special kind of hankering to get off with multiple ladies while taking in some well-known monuments like Big Ben, he need look no further than Whites Gentlemen’s Club. Apparently WGC offered “chauffeured sight-seeing tours around London’s top attractions [and] offered full sex with two busty hookers and champagne while on board,” for the price of £850/hour. Well no longer. After a sting operation that for some reason took two months, the authorities have shut the business down. Continue reading »
“Having an opportunity to become part of the Mets franchise is exciting beyond my wildest childhood dreams. I spent my first seven years living in New Jersey and rooting for the Mets. In 1975, I even dressed in a homemade jersey as a Met for Halloween. I have been a baseball fan for my entire life and have enjoyed teaching the game as the coach of my daughter’s little league team. I look forward to partnering with the Wilpon and Katz families through the good seasons, the tough seasons and especially the championship seasons.”
Yesterday at the end of his Ira Sohn presentation (after telling Steve Ballmer to do the right thing and quit Microsoft), David Einhorn added “Go Mets!” with little grin on his face, like he had a secret…which apparently was that he just bought a minority stake in the team.
The New York Mets have agreed to sell less than 49 percent of the club for approximately $200 million to David Einhorn, president of Greenlight Capital Inc., sources close to the deal tell ESPN’s Karl Ravech. The sale will not include a stake in SNY, the television network owned by the Mets, the sources said.
This kid is probably pretty pleased with the news: Continue reading »
NY Fed investigates Goldman unit (FT)
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is investigating allegations that the mortgage servicing arm of Goldman Sachs failed to conduct appropriate reviews before denying borrowers a chance to lower their payments through a government loan modification programme. A person familiar with the Goldman unit concerned, Litton Loan of Houston, Texas, said loans were denied without the proper review under a “denial sweep” strategy devised to clear a backlog of applications.
Fed Gave Banks Crisis Gains on $80 Billion Secretive Loans as Low as 0.01% (Bloomberg)
Credit Suisse Group AG, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc each borrowed at least $30 billion in 2008 from a Federal Reserve emergency lending program whose details weren’t revealed to shareholders, members of Congress or the public. The $80 billion initiative, called single-tranche open-market operations, or ST OMO, made 28-day loans from March through December 2008, a period in which confidence in global credit markets collapsed after the Sept. 15 bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
SEC Investigates Hybrids for Insider Trading (Bloomberg)
U.S. regulators are examining whether investors made illegal trades in Fifth Third Bancorp. (FITB)’s trust preferred securities after the volume of transactions spiked 54-fold before the bank said it would redeem the instruments, a person with knowledge of the inquiry said.
HSBC, Goldman Held $335 Million of Libya Funds (Bloomberg)
HSBC Holdings Plc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. are among banks that held funds for Muammar Qaddafi’s government investment fund, according to U.K. advocacy group Global Witness. HSBC held $292.7 million across 10 accounts and Goldman Sachs had almost $44 million in four accounts as of June 30, 2010, according to a document on the Libyan Investment Authority posted on London-based Global Witness’s website.
Libya sovereign fund suffers big losses (FT)
Banks and hedge funds led by France’s Société Générale are named in about $5bn (£3bn) of deals involving the oil-rich nation, some of which had resulted in heavy losses by the middle of last year. One of the most striking losses, outlined in an internal report for the Libyan Investment Authority, was a 98.5 per cent fall in the value of the sovereign wealth fund’s $1.2bn equity and currency derivatives portfolio.
Deutsche Bank rejects succession fears (FT)
Deutsche Bank has dismissed calls to speed up a decision on who will succeed Josef Ackermann as chief executive, potentially increasing concern among investors who are calling for the issue to be settled to avoid damage to the bank. Clemens Börsig, chairman of Deutsche’s supervisory board, told the bank’s annual shareholder meeting that the decision would be made “at the appropriate time”.
Citigroup Lags in Debt Deals as Pandit Rebuilds (Bloomberg)
JPMorgan Chase & Co. now dominates the so-called league tables, reporting $971 million of debt underwriting revenue in the first quarter, almost double that of fourth-place Citigroup, the market leader for nine years before the 2008 financial crisis, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The bank has dropped to fifth in U.S. speculative-grade debt, after ranking second in all but two of eight years before 2007.
Peter Thiel Gives Whiz Kids $100K To Quit College, Start Businesses (Fast Company)
One climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Another started college in third grade… Now they’re all getting two years of mentoring from a network of tech and entrepreneurial experts and $100,000 to start a business. The benefactor? PayPal founder, early Facebook investor, and Stanford’s least favorite alumnus, Peter Thiel. Least favorite because Thiel has been making waves by arguing that college is an overhyped, overpriced bubble, and that the world needs better ways to recognize young talent. Continue reading »
$$$ Rajaratnam seeks to throw out guilty verdict (Reuters)
$$$ Ex-Galleon Trader Tells of Tips, Cover-Up (Bloomberg)
$$$ AIG stock dips after $8.7 billion share sale (Reuters)
$$$ S&P 500 Crash in Our Future, Says Albert Edwards (MarketBeat)
$$$ US default ‘more likely than in Indonesia’ (FT) Continue reading »
Live-Blogging The Ira Sohn Conference: David Einhorn Thinks Steve Ballmer Is The Fucking Rake, Carl Icahn Is Recommending Carl Icahn
By Bess Levin
5:42 Speaker 14, David Einhorn, Greenlight Capital
5:43 Presentation: “Two Longs And Two Types Of Overhang”
5:43 David wants to start with a quote by Jean Claude Juncter: “When it becomes serious you have to lie”
5:44 Einhorn’s first long idea is… Continue reading »
On tap: Ackman, Joel Greenblatt, David Einhorn, Eike Batista, Carl Icahn
4:55 Speaker 11, Bill Ackman, Pershing Square
4:56 “A lot of people think of Pershing Square as an activist fund- well this is going to be a passive idea”
4:57 Bill is recommending… Continue reading »
Ken Langone just gave a speech at this year’s Ira Sohn conference on why the hedge fund industry should be writing checks to charitable causes. Why? KEN LANGONE TELL YOU WHY! Continue reading »
