Archive for June 2011

  • 15 Jun 2011 at 10:39 AM

Twenty-Two Year Old Formula 1 Heiress Singlehandedly Saving California Housing Market

By Bess Levin

Petra and dad

As I’m sure many of you know, after 90210 creator Aaron Spelling died, his wife Candy decided to downsize. She put her house on the market and moved into a $35 million 15,555 square foot condo, figuring it wouldn’t be too long before the place sold. Unfortunately, at the end of 2008, not too many people were looking for homes that had names (“The Manor”), 57,000 square feet, rooms solely devoted to gift-wrapping and asking prices of $150 million. Though she was probably advised to knock a few zeros off, Candy, the little known inspiration for Heather Locklear’s Melrose Place character, held her ground and refuse to budge on the price. Recently it started looking like the house that shows about teenagers getting high and humping built would never get sold, until a little lady named Petra Ecclestone swooped in and saved the day. Continue reading »

  • 15 Jun 2011 at 9:43 AM

UBS To “Re-Establish Credibility And Professionalism” Via Jackets And Ties

By Bess Levin

The Swiss bank now has a dress code. Continue reading »

  • 15 Jun 2011 at 8:23 AM

Opening Bell: 06.15.11

By Sam Ro

Greece Bailout Prospects Darken as European Bickering Weakens Papandreou (Bloomberg)
An emergency session of euro finance chiefs in Brussels yesterday failed to break a deadlock on how to enroll investors in a second bailout without triggering a default, casting doubt on funds due from the International Monetary Fund next month.

Greece, Portugal, Ireland Hit Fresh Debt-Cost Highs (MarketBeat)
The cost of insuring Greek, Portuguese and Irish debt against default hit new, record highs Wednesday amid the lack of official consensus about what to do with Greece’s debt.

BNP Paribas, Societe Generale Ratings May Be Cut by Moody’s on Greek Debt (Bloomberg)
The reviews of Credit Agricole and BNP Paribas are unlikely to lead to downgrades of more than one level, Moody’s said. Societe Generale’s debt and deposit ratings may be cut as much as two grades because of the “uplift it receives from systemic support, which is currently higher than average for the French banking system,” it said.

Chinese Developers’ Outlook Cut at S&P as Government Curbs Housing Prices (Bloomberg)
Property sales may start to slow as the government’s policy “starts to bite,” leading to price cuts that may drive home prices 10 percent lower in the next 12 months, the credit rating company said. Hong Kong’s real estate market faces the risk of a “sharp correction,” S&P also said in the statement today.

White House wants business to aid in debt cap fight (Reuters)
Worried that Congress will not act in time to raise the country’s borrowing cap, the Obama administration is enlisting the business community to persuade lawmakers that a default will have dire consequences.

Wall Streets Need For Trading Speed: The Nanosecond Age (MarketBeat)
London-based trading technology company Fixnetix said Tuesday it has the world’s fastest trading application, a microchip that prepares a trade in 740 billionths of a second, or nanoseconds.

Roach Sees ‘Years’ of Growth Scares (Bloomberg)
“We had a growth scare last year about this time, we’re having another growth scare this year, and I think we will have growth scares for several years to come,” said Roach, non- executive chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia Ltd. Continue reading »

  • 14 Jun 2011 at 6:44 PM

Who Will Give Deutsche Bank’s Anshu Jain A Bank To Run?

By Bess Levin

Anshu Jain is the head of Deutsche Bank’s Corporate & Investment Bank, sits on the management committee and oversees operations that produce upwards of 90 percent of the firm’s profits in any given quarter. He’s considered a “star” at DB and among those who follow his work and with CEO Josef Ackermann’s contract expiring in 2013, many believe AJ should be named the successor. According to portfolio manager (and shareholder) Lutz Roehmeyer, “Mr. Jain deserves to run Deutsche Bank” and if you ask BlackRock’s Larry Fink, he’ll tell you “Anshu has done a fantastic job…He would make a very good chief executive at Deutsche.” Unfortunately, there are a few problems, not the least of them being Germany’s need to examine its motives.

“In Germany, no one can imagine an Indian working in London who does not speak German being the C.E.O. of Deutsche Bank,” said Roehmeyer.

There’s also the matter of Ackermann seeing it as “his legacy to crown a successor in his own statesman-like mold — perhaps Axel A. Weber, the recently departed head of the German central bank” and the board being “wary of choosing a bond and derivatives technician at a time when the practices of all major banks are still being scrutinized.” Regardless, this is his time, this is his moment, and this is going to happen for AJ. Continue reading »

  • 14 Jun 2011 at 5:28 PM

Cliff Asness Will Tell You Something

By Bess Levin

I will tell you the stimulus was wasteful and politicized, and the American people, not being idiots, know they will have to pay for it eventually…I will also tell you Dodd-Frank, with its enshrining of too big to fail and its large regulatory costs, is an albatross. I will add that ObamaCare’s gigantic new entitlement has hurt. I will throw in that massive additional regulatory costs being foisted upon business is an extra drain on the economy. I would definitely say that the disregard for law during the auto-company “bankruptcies” has long-lasting negative effects. I’d even throw in that the president’s demonization of business has been harmful. Finally, I’d say the expected tax increases, even if only on the “super rich”—defined as anyone still gainfully employed—weigh upon us. [WSJ]

  • 14 Jun 2011 at 4:12 PM

Will Scotts Largest Shareholders Increase Their Stakes After Hearing CEO’s Plan To Boost Sales With Weed?

By Bess Levin

If I’m a decision-maker at Earnest Partners, BlackRock, Vanguard, Fisher Asset Management, and Citadel, I’m thinking this…this, uh….wait I lost it…wait, no I got it– is genius.

In an unlikely move for the head of a major company, Scotts Chief Executive Jim Hagedorn said he is exploring targeting medical marijuana as well as other niches to help boost sales at his lawn and garden company. “I want to target the pot market,” Mr. Hagedorn said in an interview. “There’s no good reason we haven’t.”

He’s got numbers to back this up. Continue reading »

  • 14 Jun 2011 at 3:07 PM

Among The 7% Of Hedge Fund Employees Who Wear Ties To Work, Bigger Is Considered Better

By Bess Levin

According to a first year. Continue reading »

  • 14 Jun 2011 at 2:22 PM

Stephen Schwarzman Is Pretty Sure Larry Summers Could Be The Next Horatio Sanz

By Bess Levin

Morning Money hears that at yesterday’s executive meeting, Blackstone chief Steve Schwarzman took a shot at former NEC Chair Larry Summers’ FT column calling for a number of actions to spur job growth, including expanding the payroll tax cut to employers. “I thought I was looking at a Saturday Night Live script,” Schwarzman said, according to our source. “Who was in charge the past two years?” [MM via BI]

  • 14 Jun 2011 at 1:13 PM

JPMorgan Fires Mortgage Chief

By Bess Levin

You accidentally foreclose on a few people who shouldn’t be getting foreclosed on and all of a sudden it’s like you’re not welcome at the office anymore. Continue reading »

  • 14 Jun 2011 at 1:00 PM

Tim Geithner Gets A Shout-Out In Conan O’Brien’s Dartmouth Commencement Speech

By Bess Levin

Alongside other “fictitious graduates” like Meredith Grey of Grey’s Anatomy, Mad Men‘s Pete Campbell, Michael Corleone and Count Chocula. Continue reading »

  • 14 Jun 2011 at 12:28 PM

Danielle Chiesi Was Boss’s Insider Trading/Sex Slave, Says Boyfriend Billy

By Bess Levin

Let him explain. Continue reading »