Are you a lady financial services employee based in Chicago interested in getting in a boxing ring? Are you a male financial services employee who knows a lady that fits the previous description, who has either beat the shit out of you before or you simply get the sense it’s entirely possible she could? Continue reading »
Brokers
Citi Clients Not As Understanding As Firm Would’ve Thought About Funds That Lost Them Their Entire Investment, Currently Being Investigated By The SEC
By Bess LevinFrom 2002 to 2007, Citi raised $2.8 billion from clients to invest in a couple of fund series called MAT Finance LLC, which invested in municipal bonds and was eventually leveraged 8:1 and Falcon, which invested in mortgage debt. Despite the former being marketed as “an attractive alternative to a bond index” and the latter receiving an S&P rating “equivalent to safe, medium-term government bonds,” anyone who bet on the funds lost what might be characterized as “a metric ass-ton of their money.”
For exampe, the funds a team of brokers from Smith Barney put their clients in fell an impressive 80% to 97% from May 2007 to March 2008. Though Citi claims no foul play and offered to cover approximately one-eighth of clients’ losses, the SEC still felt the need to launch an investigation into whether or not the bank’s employees adequately disclosed the funds’ risks and/or mismanaged them. And apparently investors are still pretty miffed about the whole thing, which one broker, Michael Johnston, intuited by the response he got from one when suggesting a sweet buyback deal that would’ve translated to the client only losing 72% and promising not to sue Citi. Continue reading »
There's something I've been meaning to tell you.
August 10, 2010, is the day that will go down in history as the one in which fed up employees left their jobs in style. Yesterday afternoon, Steven Slater, the greatest flight attendant of all time did it via obscenities-laced tirade/inflatable slide and just a few hours prior to that, Assistant Jenny was putting her own spin on things. Continue reading »
Ex-Merrill Broker Who Ripped Off $780,000 From Bank Pleads Guilty, Frauds Everywhere Weep For Loss Merrill’s Mensa Members
By Bess Levin
Steve Mandala is the guy who took Merrill Lynch for $780,000, and with some of the cash, bought himself a red 2006 Ferrari F430 Spider. Prior to joining the bank, he was a broker at Maxim Group who earned about $100,000 annually. He sensed that there was some money to help himself to at Mother Merrill but didn’t think he’d be able to land the gig. So, he lied and told them he was a partner at Maxim, where he managed $300 million in assets and took home $765,000 a year. This probably would not have worked at some other firm, but Merrill was a special, special bank.
“Somehow you got them to hire you because you told them you had big-time clients?” acting state Supreme Court Justice Carol Berkman said to Mandala in court, referring to Merrill Lynch.
You’d think strip clubs, steak houses, and Real Doll outfitters would be the only ones feeling the pinch of financial professionals not making/spending any money, but you’d be wrong! In Northern New Jersey, bagels and cheese, items heretofore considered staples in the community, are being cast aside, deemed luxuries too expensive to justify in these hard times. Rick Breistein, proprietor of the Cheese Shop of Ridgewood which sells $60/pound English Stilton and Brillat-Savarin, says that many of his former customers are “bond traders…[who] don’t come in anymore…they are suffering–they are not making the money.”
And according to bagel guy Elliot Cohen, there’s been a dramatic drop in orders from the nearby Morgan Stanley and Smith Barney. “We used to get breakfast and lunch deliveries there, and we’ve seen a lot less,” he said. “One guy used to buy breakfast for the whole group on Friday. He doesn’t come anymore.” I speak for everyone here when I say there’s an almost unbearable sadness about this permeating the DBHQ this morning. So here’s what–our sandwich welfare program is now being extended to include bagels and lox. If you know a deserving individual who can no longer afford his/her own shmear, get in touch. Jews and non-Jews welcome. Any requests for flagels will be sent to spam.
Wall Street’s Pain Felt By North Jersey Retailers [The Record]
The Gaunlet Has Been Thrown Down. Who Will Pick It Up? We’re Looking At You Leon Cooperman. Stevie-boy. L-TRAIN.
By Bess LevinTrue Story: Yesterday at around 5pm at Ulysses on Stone Street…Ian Roncoroni, an energy otc options broker for Power Merchants Group…ate 244 Oysters in 1 hour. He also collected $3500 bucks for his efforts.
The Bear Stearns deal is getting messier. Wall Street rivals are poaching the best talent, forcing JP Morgan to promise lots of compensation money to keep them in place or face acquiring Bear with only the losers left. Unfortunately for the best laid plans of the Fed and JP Morgan, the uncertainty over the deal is leading many Bear employees to figure they’d be better off taking offers from competitors.
So now Bear is fighting back, asking a New York State court to issue restraining orders against departed brokers who Bear claims are soliciting the firm’s clients to do move their business to the new company, Kate Kelly and Robin Sidel of the Wall Street Journal are reporting. These solicitation lawsuits are nothing new on Wall Street but they come at a very awkward time for Bear and JP Morgan. Morale is already low. The lawsuit puts a spotlight on the fact that many of the best employees and customers may have already left the firm, and doesn’t exactly reassure worried employees that Bear is friendly toward its cubs.
One Bear recently departed Bear employee we spoke with this morning wondered how hard any former Bear employee would have to try to solicit clients away from the company.
“If you’ve read the papers, you know no-one wants to do business with Bear. They don’t hate their own contacts, though. So if you hear your broker, or the desk you dealt with, has moved over to, say, Morgan Stanley, why wouldn’t you move? Keep your business in a failing firm with people you don’t know or join the pack and stick with who you know. Not a hard choice,” he said.
Bear Seeks Restraints On Departed Brokers [Wall Street Journal]
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