Carsten Kengeter, head of UBS’ investment banking division, sent a rallying message to staff on Sunday night urging them to “move forward forcefully and decisively” following the disclosure of $2.3bn of losses from unauthorised trading…Mr Kengeter e-mailed staff saying the incident should not “undermine our hard won achievements since the crisis.” [FT, related]
Archive for September 2011
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Posted in:
Banks
Bonus/Layoffs Watch ’11: UBS Failing To See The Considerable Upside To $2.3 Billion Loss, Says Analyst
By Bess Levin
As you may have heard, UBS announced last week that it’d lost about $2 billion, a ballpark figure that the bank said today is actually closer to $2.3B. Separately, you may have also heard that the past several years? Have not been the best of times for the Union Bank of Switzerland, which has been plagued by layoffs, shitty bonuses, and mandates where, for instance, employees have been forced to run out and buy ties and then told “nevermind, you don’t need them” after it’s too late to make a return for anything but store credit. The news that a rogue trader named Kweku Adoboli had racked up a loss massive enough to potentially wipe out third quarter profits would be viewed by most as the latest kick in the pants for the Swiss bank, and presumably not something management would be pleased to hear. Or would they? According to one analyst, Adoboli may have just solved their problems. Continue reading »
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Posted in:
taxes
Oracle Of Omaha Was Saving ‘Buffett Rule’ To Describe Phenomenon Wherein Hot Young Things Are Attracted To Sagely Grandfather Types But Sure, You Guys Can Have This One
By Bess Levin
Warren Buffett says he’s absolutely “fine” with President Obama calling the new plan to establish a minimum tax rate for individuals making more than $1 million a year the “Buffett Rule.” Reached Sunday in Omaha, Nebraska, the outspoken billionaire said the administration “asked me if they could use my name (on it) and I said, ‘Sure. It’s what I believe.’” [FBN]
$$$ UBS Trader Hires Firm That Advised Leeson [Bloomberg]
$$$ Arrest of UBS Trader Rattles Banks In Europe [Dealbook]
$$$ Stimulus Fatigue Stymies Obama in Rounding Up Votes for Full Jobs Package [Bloomberg]
$$$ Ms. Romer, the book says, once passed a note to Mr. Summers threatening to walk out of a dinner with Mr. Obama and outside economists after the president polled his guests for their recommendations but failed to recognize her. “It was lighthearted. It was not me threatening to walk,” Ms. Romer said in an interview from Berkeley, Calif., where she is a professor at the University of California. [NYT]
$$$ Denny Hardin’s weapon against the U.S. government: his own private bank [Pitch] Continue reading »
From: Richard Bove
Subject: Regulator role in UBS lossDid regulators play a role in the UBS loss?
Richard X. Bove
Let’s hear him out. Continue reading »
The fact that one lovable rogue in London misplaced UBS’s bonus pool for the year has people talking again about the Volcker rule, which would ban proprietary trading at banks. I still don’t really understand that, and I’m not alone. Here is a thing about the Volcker rule and “Delta desks” (what?):
Yet the definition of what constitutes proprietary trading can be fuzzy. Many on Wall Street consider proprietary trading, or prop trading, to involve only trades made by dedicated traders who are using the bank’s capital and do not have access to client information. The trading done on Delta desks, they contend, is done on behalf of clients.
Those boundaries, however, can blur. A bank may buy a derivative or security from a client in order to make a market, then decide it is worth hanging onto, turning it into a proprietary bet.
The Volcker rule of the Dodd-Frank act is named after Paul A. Volcker, the former Federal Reserve chairman who proposed it. It is intended to prevent American banks from taking on too much risk. The fine print, however, has yet to be worked out, and regulators are debating just how comprehensive to make the definition of proprietary.
This is sort of correct but nicely embodies the conceptual confusion that I suspect lies behind the Volcker rule. Let’s spend four hours talking about it, shall we?
Continue reading »
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Posted in:
legal
Jury Rules Jeffrey Gundlach Used Trade Secrets Snuck Out Of TCW In Secretary’s Bra, Though Not In A ‘Malicious’ Way
By Bess Levin
“Gundlach was found today to have breached his fiduciary duty to TCW and misappropriated its trade secrets.The Los Angeles jury awarded the company no damages on the breach claim…The jury found that Gundlach and DoubleLine didn’t act willfully and maliciously in misappropriating trade secrets.” [BW, earlier]
Mayor Bloomberg warned Friday there would be riots in the streets if Washington doesn’t get serious about generating jobs. “We have a lot of kids graduating college, can’t find jobs,” Bloomberg said on his weekly WOR radio show. “That’s what happened in Cairo. That’s what happened in Madrid. You don’t want those kinds of riots here.” Bloomberg’s unusually alarmist pronouncement came as President Obama has been pressuring reluctant Republicans to pass his proposed job creation plan. “The damage to a generation that can’t find jobs will go on for many, many years,” the normally-measured mayor said. Bloomberg gave Obama kudos for coming up with a jobs plan. “At least he’s got some ideas on the table, whether you like those or not,” he said. “Now everybody’s got to sit down and say we’re actually gonna do something and you have to do something on both the revenue and the expense side.” [NYDN]
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Posted in:
Europe
Vladimir Putin Tells Investment Forum Berlusconi Haters Wish They Could Slay Half The Hookers Bunga Bunga Does In A Weekend
By Bess Levin
Something you may have picked up about Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi is that he loves to get with prostitutes. Bonus points if they’re underage and no points if they’re unfuckable lard-arses, who are by definition an exception to his rule. Some people have taken issue with Sil’s penchant for sleeping with women 57 years his junior, with several suggesting that Italy’s economic woes can in part be attributed to the premier’s inability to focus on anything but his next fix. According to Vladimir Putin, such accusations are without merit and you want to know something else? Continue reading »
Cuts apparently continued at Moyhinan’s House of Fun yesterday. Continue reading »
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Posted in:
business school
Stern B-School Students Offered Second Chance At Once In A Lifetime Opportunity
By Bess Levin
Having said that, the chance to soak up the market moving insight of a one Professor $Honey will not last. Continue reading »
