Well, maybe not all that nigh. But when Lil’ Tim climbs high atop the Treasury Dept. building and stands on his tippy-toes, he can almost see something that somewhat resembles the end of the $700 billion government bailout program.
“We are close to the point where we can wind down this program and stop making new commitments,” Geithner told a skeptical Senate panel today.
How close? “We’re not quite there yet.” And certainly not in the next couple of weeks, when TARP is set to expire.
John Shazar
Posts by John Shazar
I give this new hedge fund my highest recommendation.Remember Old Lane Partners? You know, that hedge fund that Citigroup had to buy to get its hands on CEO of the Century Vikram Pandit?
Well, if you missed out on the chance to lose your shirt on it during its all-too-short two years of (mis)managing money, don’t despair. You may yet have another chance.
Guru Ramakrishnan–the last CEO of the doomed hedge fund–and five other former Old Laners are back, sans Vikram, of course. And despite the Old Lane’s disastrous run, they’ve managed to raise more than $200 million from outside investors eager to see if Old Lane Part Deux (officially called Meru Capital) can match Old Lane’s intoxicating mix of hubris, incompetence and extraordinary enrichment of its managers.
The salad days for CMBS are back!
Just a couple weeks after the first commercial mortgage-backed securities deal in a year went down, two more are on their way. It’s like 2007 all over again (and, in a related note, as if 2007 never happened).
Second to the market is Inland Western Retail Real Estate Trust won $625 million in fresh financing yesterday from JPMorgan Chase, which plans to turn the $500 million first-mortgage part into CMBS. Those who like to live on the wilder side can pick up some of the $125 million mezzanine debt in a private placement.
Deadlines come and deadlines go without a taker for the Worst Job on Wall Street. Bank of America’s board of directors is running through CEO candidates faster than Charlie Gasparino goes through creatine, but it doesn’t seem able to take a hint.
Already coming up with precious few names interested in succeeding the inimitable (and, according to the since-silenced Dick Bové, irreplaceable) Ken Lewis, the finely-honed machine that is the BofA board can’t help but drive away the ones it finds who don’t put out press releases making clear they don’t want the goddamned job. When two prospective told the board that Ken’s Kingdom needed to be cut down to size, the board broke out in hives, began sobbing collectively and had security remove the offending presence from the greater Charlotte area.
Years after every other securities exchange that matters gave up on the quaint idea of mutual ownership, the Chicago Board Options Exchange will finally be able to join them.
After agreeing to pay the last seven Chicago Board of Trade holdouts $4.2 million to settle their ownership claims–the CBOE settled with the CBOT, now part of the CME Group, last year–the options exchange is free to list itself or find a buyer.
But can it ever get over the fact that even the American Stock Exchange beat it to the punch?
CBOE settlement could clear way for IPO or merger [Crain's Chicago]
Quantitative hedge funds, which really stunk up the joint two years ago, are getting some tough love from a guy who knows just how bad it can get.
Robert Litterman is head of quantitative resources at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, which in 2007 watched its Cadillac of hedge funds, Global Alpha, turn into a Yugo. And as he sees it, from his alternately lofty and lousy perch, and with his many years of experience in the field, quantitative hedge funds have to do a better job of making money for their clients. And in Litterman’s considered opinion, they need to find new ways of making money. New and non-quantitative, apparently.
We’re putting together data that’s not machine-readable.
I am not a crookAccused hedge fund fraudster Helmut Kiener certainly has a knack for hitting it off with insignificant countries.
The K1 Group founder, last seen trying to bust out of a German jail by claiming to be an attaché of the embassy of Guinea-Bissau in The Netherlands, saw something in this pretty little thing, hiring her to sell his (allegedly) worthless products. Just nine months later, Aurelia Frick is serving as minister of justice, foreign affairs and cultural affairs for the august Principality of Liechtenstein, a country so small that a 34-year-old with no previous ministerial experience can be named minister of justice and foreign affairs, with time left over to handle cultural matters.
They may have their differences on other matters, but Jim Cramer and Dubai leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum are of a piece on the issue of what people understand.
In a word: Nothing.
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