So, about the 10 dudes who were arrested yesterday for running a boiler room operation in Manhattan that swindled some elderly Florida folks out of $12 million. One of the guys arrested, Steven Kimmel, (no relation to Jimmy) told investors he used to work at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Now, we’re not sure if this is BS or not and the SEC hasn’t commented. We talked to a few veteran SEC folks who said they’d never heard of Kimmel. But the FBI did note it in its press release. Continue reading »
Zachery Kouwe
Posts by Zachery Kouwe
Wall Street Journal columnist David Weidner has some choice words for Phil Angelides and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission this morning. In short, he thinks the commission is just spinning its wheels, issuing worthless subpoenas and basically sputtering out. Perhaps they should take up Debrahlee’s cause. Continue reading »
May was the worst month for hedge funds since October 2008. The HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index lost 2.6 percent and Louis Moore Bacon got hammered. Not Boaz Weinstein. Yeah, he might have lost $1 billion at Deutsche Bank, but that’s old news. Boaz’s Saba Capital (Hebrew for grandfather) bucked the trend in May, up 1.6 percent for the month and 5.8 percent for the year.
Here’s some other winners and losers from May: Continue reading »
Damn, that’s harsh. If you’re thinking about starting a Ponzi scheme, it’s probably not a good idea to forge the signatures of several judges on fake federal court documents. For Scott Rothstein, that move (and the fact that he defrauded some folks) landed him a 50 year sentence today for running a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme out of his South Florida law firm office.
“I am truly and deeply sorry for what I have done,” Rothstein said, addressing the court wearing cuffs on his wrists and ankles. “I don’t expect your forgiveness.”
Charles, in an “undisclosed location,” reporting: Continue reading »
Working in the investment business is tough these days. Clients are screaming about the markets, multiple boob jobs are no longer tolerated and clogged toilets are shutting the computers down.
Now, it appears you can also get fired for having cancer. Just ask Stephen Fredericks, a former MD at Raymond James, who filed a lawsuit today against his former employer. Continue reading »
NEW YORK – The FBI says it’s raided a Manhattan boiler room brokerage with links to the mob.
Agents arrested several people Wednesday at an office building on West 36th Street. The FBI said one of the suspects was a member of the Bonanno organized crime family.
Authorities said the illicit brokerage was artificially inflating the value of a stock in a company with misleading sales pitches.
The suspects were expected to appear in court later Wednesday.
FBI Raids Boiler Room Brokerage [FoxNY]
FBI Raids ‘Boiler Room’ Stock Promotion Operation [Bloomberg]
Attorneys for Raj Rajaratnam have filed a brief to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals seeking to reverse an order compelling them to turn over wiretap evidence to the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Galleon civil case.
The SEC wants the FBI’s wiretap evidence to bolster its civil suit against Raj and the other defendants but, the defendants are resisting, in part, because they say it was obtained illegally and are trying to suppress the evidence in the criminal case. Continue reading »
Update 12:49 pm: The Aussies have filed suit against Goldman seeking $56 million in losses and $1 billion in punitive damages.
The Crisis commission is up their ass, the SEC’s civil suit is lingering and the pundits won’t let up.
Now, Goldman Sachs may have to deal with another lawsuit from a bunch of blokes at an Australian hedge fund. Goldman has been tussling behind the scenes with lawyers from the firm, called the Basis Yield Alpha Fund, over a $100 million slice of the Goldman-sponsored Timberwolf CDO that the Aussies bought right before the shit hit the fan. Continue reading »
Turns out mortgages weren’t the only toxic assets Wall Street decided to package into CDOs. Small community banks issued billions of dollars in trust preferred securities before the credit crunch as a way to prop up their capital cushions. Problem was, the only way they could sell the so-called TruPS to investors was to combine them with other trust-preferreds in CDOs. Continue reading »
Senator Carl “Shitty Deal” Levin has blasted the Swiss government for withholding the names of certain UBS clients suspected of opening Swiss bank accounts to evade U.S. taxes. The Swiss lower house voted today to reject a U.S.-Swiss treaty that would have forced UBS to turn over 4,450 out of the 52,000 UBS clients Uncle Sam suspects of tax evasion.
“Rejection of the treaty is an international embarrassment that can be laid at the feet of Swiss legislators who are willing to continue to allow their banks to facilitate U.S. tax evasion,” Levin said in a statement. Continue reading »
Jimmy Lee, JPMorgan’s legendary dealmaker, just finished up on CNBC’s new show, Strategy Session. Not only did he say the credit markets “are wide open,” but he said up to $10 billion in debt is now available for a big LBO, provided it sits on top of about $5 billion in equity and is, of course, the right kind of company. That jibes with what Carlyle Group’s David Rubenstein told the Washington Post earlier this week.
