Earlier this week, Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote that after speaking with executives at Goldman Sachs and officials in Washington, and “poring through” the Levin Report, he’d come to the conclusion that “Lloyd Blankfein wasn’t lying” when he testified last year that Goldman “didn’t have a massive short against the housing market.” Matt Taibbi read the column and he did not like it. In fact, it made him so angry-stinkin mad, in fact- that he was forced to lift his ARS fast (“I’ve been trying not to say anything bad about Andrew Ross Sorkin,” he said last night). As Taibbi scholars, please guess at this time what the defense of Goldman made MT want to do:
As you may have noticed, UBS has been going through some what of a rough patch. Profits are not what they once were, the IRS won’t let them help people evade taxes anymore and management has had a very difficult time convincing people not to quit, with a decent amount of senior departures occurring in the last several months. The deflections for the most part have to do with people wanting to get paid (there hasn’t been a lot of that in a while at UBS, though some staff recently received raises and higher-ups have pinky-sworn future pay will be competitive with other firms), but the bank is thinking the problem lies less with compensation and more with geography. Specifically, Stamford, CT, where the largest trading floor in the world is located. As we have reported, the equities team will be moving to New York later this summer and after casually mulling over the idea, management is now seriously considering moving the whole shebang, which they believe will solve all problems. Continue reading »
$$$In one of the very rare interesting moments of today’s Q&A session with Ben Bernanke in Atlanta, J.P. Morgan’s Jamie Dimon got a chance to ask Mr. Bernanke a question. “I have a great fear that somebody will write a book that the things we did in the crisis will slow down the recovery,” Mr. Dimon sniffled. He ran through a list of the ways markets have changed since the crisis, saying “most of the bad actors are gone,” that exotic derivatives are gone, lending standards are higher, banks have more liquidity and capital, and boards and regulators are tougher. Hey, Mr. Dimon seemed to suggest, enough is enough. And now on top of it all there are higher capital requirements and 300 new rules coming, and maybe it will all be too much for banks to take. Nice economy you’ve got there, he seemed to say. Shame if anything happened to it. “Has anyone bothered to study the cumulative effect of these things, and do you have the fear, like I do, that when we look at it all, it will be the reason” why banks aren’t lending, he asked. “Is this holding us back at this point?” [WSJ]
Or you can get a replica of this outfit. Your call.
Pop quiz: you’re a hedge fund manager named Philip Falcone. Last year investors got pretty bent out of shape when you loaned yourself $113 million in order to pay personal taxes, from a gated fund. Many of them, including Goldman Sachs and Blackstone, redeemed, and among the ones who stayed, well, they’re still not so happy, on account of the fact that you’ve tied up most of the fund’s money in a side project building walkie-talkies. A bunch of them put in requests to get their money back a couple months ago and you know they’re gonna just fa-reak (like they always do) if they don’t get it but you don’t have the scratch. You’ve been hoping the problem would just go away but it hasn’t and you need to think of something fast! What do you do? Whereas most managers wouldn’t have the foresight, you come up with something so genius you can’t wait to tell everyone about it.
“In light of my high conviction in LightSquared, its size within our portfolio and the necessity of maintaining a controlling position while we join forces with a strategic partner, we have determined to distribute a portion of the withdrawal proceeds for March 31, 2011 withdrawal requests in-kind,” said Falcone in a June 6 letter to investors…”While we have had opportunities to monetize a portion of our LightSquared position in recent months, I feel strongly that any sale by our funds of an interest in LightSquared would have been premature and would not only have jeopardized the ability to join forces with a strategic partner, but also would have limited the substantial upside that I am convinced will come to all of our investors as our plan is executed.”
The Congressman from Massachusetts is fine with SIFMA holding a $1,000/seat fundraiser for him but his spokesman wants to make it clear that “if Wall Street is trying to buy influence with him, it has been a dramatic failure.” Consider yourselves warned. [MarketPlace]
Zucosky said that Einhorn could read deeply into balance sheets to understand what makes companies — and teams — tick. “If you’re a hedge fund manager, you understand how to manage risk,” Zucosky said, and added: “He’s not stupid. He’s not going to flush his money down the toilet.”Continue reading »
Earlier this week, Andrew Ross Sorkin wrote that after speaking with executives at Goldman Sachs and officials in Washington, and “poring through” the Levin Report, he’d come to the conclusion that “Lloyd Blankfein wasn’t lying” when he testified last year that Goldman “didn’t have a massive short against the housing market.” Matt Taibbi read the column and he did not like it. In fact, it made him so angry-stinkin mad, in fact- that he was forced to lift his ARS fast (“I’ve been trying not to say anything bad about Andrew Ross Sorkin,” he said last night). As Taibbi scholars, please guess at this time what the defense of Goldman made MT want to do:
