JPMorgan is ready to love again after leaving Nasdaq when the US exchange suffered some anger management issues in its hostile bid for the London Stock Exchange last March. JPMorgan and Nasdaq are back together harassing foreign exchanges – trying to make the Scandinavian OMX dance for $3.7bn. Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and Swedish firm Lenner & Partners are advising OMX.
After the Nasdaq bid for the LSE was rejected, Nasdaq began accumulating LSE shares (a downward self-shame spiral). Nasdaq could not obtain enough shares (over 50%), or a positive enough self-image to cement control of the company, but became the LSE’s largest shareholder in the process, with over 29% of the company’s stock. JPMorgan backed out as Nasdaq’s advisor primarily because JPMorgan’s Cazenove divison is joint broker to the LSE.
Advisor reprises role after LSE conflicts [Financial News]
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JPMorganChase
JPMorgan ready to make peace in the exchange consolidation game
By Keith Hahn
Alpha Magazine’s hedge fund rankings are in and the banks have faired quite well. JP Morgan and Goldman took 1 and 2 (despite the latter’s 6% loss last year), with $33 billion and $32.5 billion in total capital as of December 31. In third and fourth were Bridgewater Associates and DE Shaw, who both had over $30 billion. Citigroup moved up a respectable 32 places to 13th, from its previous spot at 45. Morgan Stanley clocked in at embarrassing 53, considering all the hedge funds it bought last year.
Everyone’s favorite quant fund, Renaissance Technologies was ranked in 6th place, with $26 billion in assets. Somewhere, David Leonhardt has worked himself into an apoplectic shock and plotting to send pipe bombs to Alpha headquarters.
As a side note, we’d like to thank Financial News for referring to Amaranth as a “notable absence” from the list.
Banks top hedge fund rankings [Financial News]
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Bancroft
The Dow of Murdoch: Rupert Murdoch Brings The Bancroft Family Together
By John Carney
The family that controls 64% of the voting power of Dow Jones & Co is reportedly meeting right now to discuss News Corp’s bid for the company. David Faber of CNBC reported just a short while ago that the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones through its super-voting shares, was holding a conference call “right now” to discuss the bid. This may be a sign that the family is re-considering its rejection of the News Corp offer.
Today Bancroft family members received a letter from Rupert Murdoch stating that he regrets the details of the offer had become public and promising to establish an “independent, autonomous editorial board” to oversee the paper. In the letter, Murdoch describes himself as a “first and foremost…newspaper man,” praises the Wall Street Journal’s “journalistic independence and integrity” and says his is “unwilling to contemplate” any interference with the paper’s integrity. He writes that he would like to appoint a member of the Bancroft family to the board of Dow Jones.
“This letter may give the Bancroft’s a way to accept Murdoch gold , if that’s what they’re looking for,” an investment banker familiar with the deal told DealBreaker. “They’re haven’t been any other bidders, which must put pressure on them to accept this offer.”
Murdoch probably hopes that this is exactly what effect his letter will have. He’s steadfastly refused to offer more money than his original offer. Last week, CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino reported that he had been advised not to offer more by his bankers at JP Morgan had told him not to increase the bid. As we explained on Friday, Murdoch’s strategy to win over the Bancroft’s now appears to rely on charm and promises to not ruin the paper.
Murdoch also promises to make efforts to keep the team of “journalists, editors, management” of the Journal and other Dow Jones properties, expand the Journal in Europe and Asia and improve the Journal’s New York headquarters.
Text of Murdoch Letter to Bancrofts [Wall Street Journal]
News Corp & DJ Update [CNBC.com]
If you saw the video in write-offs yesterday (here, if you’re lazy), you saw the arguably hoax-free video of some Service Employees International Union (SEIU) members rummaging through trash outside of JPMorgan branches in the city and digging up some lovely invitations to commit identity theft. JPMorgan is on the case, according to an official spokesperson, who boldly comments, “We hope that the union people who got this personal info would not misuse it.” Well played JPMorgan spokesperson (his first response was to wave his hand and say “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for”). The real issue is that those union members may now go on an identity theft rampage.
Video lights fire at JPMorgan – [CNN]
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chuck prince
Jim Cramer Wants You To Lay Off Lloyd Blankfein, John Mack and Stanley O’Neal (But Keep Mocking Chuck Prince Because That Guy’s Had It Coming And, Also, He Just Doesn’t Like The Look Of Chuck’s Face)
By Bess Levin
Jim Cramer doesn’t want you to hate the game, or the playa. And in his column in the latest issue of New York, the “game” refers to making money; the “playas,” I-bankers (and I-bank CEOs, and, more generally, I-banks). Sure, you might be saying, why shouldn’t I hate the $54 million/year Lloyd Blankfeins and the Goldman Saches of the world? Not only are they terribly unhygienic, but they make more in an hour than I do in a month (or is that just us at DB? Don’t answer that) and I’m a jealous, small and petty person (to say nothing of my unresolved issues from childhood, which probably feed into the pettiness in a vicious, never-ending circle).
You’re saying that, right? Well Big J has the answer. If you invest said “playas,” you’ll get to be part of their “game” and your resentment will disappear because when you’re rich, you can buy the antidote to resentment. Another reason you shouldn’t hate these “playas” is because Cramer used to work for Goldman Sachs and never fails to mention this (or his relationship with Spitzer, which, let’s be honest, you really can’t blame him for, because Goldman Sachs is an incredible institution and Spitzer is essentially God’s special gift to the world and politics at large). Here are some other arguments for why you should cross Lloyd, Dick and Stanley off of your To Kill lists (hint: they all have to do with their outifts making you money, and Chuck Prince having less financial acumen than Cramer’s garbage disposal):
1. These guys are basically stay-at-home moms: underpaid and, more importantly, unappreciated.
Stop envying Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein already. Don’t begrudge Bear Stearns’ Jimmy Cayne and Lehman’s Dick Fuld their millions. Let Merrill’s Stan O’Neal and Morgan Stanley’s John Mack get paid more than Croesus. You heard it here first: They deserve it. In fact, they deserve more than they earn now.
Those five men are underpaid because they are about to make you very rich if you buy their stocks.
2. They will make you Kings of Great Neck, Dukes of Roslyn with Asset Management alone. And, not to brag or anything, but if you must know, Cramer predicted Asset Management would be a major money-maker YEARS AGO, before assets were even invented. Of course, no one at 85 Broad listened to him, just like they didn’t about gravity or 9/11.
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JPMorganChase
Jamie Dimon: “We’re going. We’re leaving. We’re really going– don’t try and stop us.”
By Bess Levin
Just in case you were worried that JP Morgan was going to make good on its “threat” to ship off to Stamford (who were they threatening? Their own employees?), DealBook notes that the move is, in all likelihood, a bluff. Also: a cheap and what will (probably) turn out to be an unsuccessful attempt to get New York to raise its $100 million incentive offer to the $650 million it gave Goldman Sachs in 2005 (would you give your mistress a diamond the same size as the one you gave your wife? Actually, that analogy doesn’t quite work).
Even the mayor of Stamford, Dannel Malloy knows he and his city are just a pawn in Jamie Dimon’s (incredibly) passive aggressive attempt, telling the Stamford Advocate, “It’s a little leverage. I’m not holding my breath.”
J.P. Morgan in Stamford? Even the Mayor Has Doubts [DealBook]
The results of yesterday’s “Which bank has the dirtiest working conditions” poll are in. Some of the results may surprise you, some may not. If you actually read what we wrote about Bear Stearns’s in-house cafeteria and its 42 health-code points violations, for instance, you won’t (or shouldn’t) be surprised to learn that it landed in the top three (and if you read the part about contaminated food and inadequate levels of personal cleanliness and are still stunned, don’t invite us over to your home any time soon). If you didn’t know, though, that the 85 Broad is basically one step away from a gas station restroom on the Garden State Parkway (going South), you might be a bit caught off guard to learn that the Kingdom also landed at the top of the list of shame (all that glitters is not gold, indeed). Let’s examine the cold hard (dirty, disgusting, scatological) facts now.
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