Galleon Group

  • 26 Apr 2013 at 3:57 PM

Galleon Group Co-Founder Went From The Hedge Fund Capital Of The World To The Cutting Horse Capital Of The World And God Damnit, It’s Not About The Money Anymore

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Mr. Rosenbach was never charged with any wrongdoing. He resigned from Galleon just months before prosecutors Mr. Rajaratnam’s arrest, citing family health reasons. He briefly made news in early 2011 with reports that he was starting his own firm, but it never materialized and he all but disappeared from Wall Street. Mr. Rosenbach has finally resurfaced, in Texas, as an accomplished amateur “cutter,” a sport in which horseback riders separate one calf from the cattle herd. Earlier this month, in Fort Worth, he won the National Cutting Horse Association Super Stakes Derby Amateur Championship aboard his horse, a mare, Scooters Daisy Dukes. After the competition, Mr. Rosenbach was interviewed in a video featured on YouTube. According to the clip, Mr. Rosenbach, a New York native and graduate of Queens College, owns the Rose Valley Ranch in Weatherford, Tex., a town about an hour east of Dallas that calls itself “the cutting horse capital of the world.” The amateur competition earlier this month earned Mr. Rosenbach — who made tens of millions of dollars at Galleon — about $5,138 in prize money. “You won a little more than $5,000,” the reporter said. “This win, for you, means what?” “You know I don’t want to sound terrible, it wasn’t about the money,” said Mr. Rosenbach, wearing a cowboy hat, “it’s about the buckle, it’s about the saddle, it’s about the exciting feeling, the adrenaline rush of when you finish and you put your hand down and you’re done cutting.” [Dealbook]

  • 25 Mar 2013 at 3:47 PM

Rengan Rajaratnam Is Confident He’s Gonna Beat This Thing

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Raj Rajaratnam’s brother is in New York and is ready to become the first person in the government’s recent insider-trading crackdown to be acquitted by a jury of his peers. Read more »

  • 21 Mar 2013 at 4:35 PM

Raj Rajaratman’s Little Brother Charged With Insider Trading

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Just in the nick of time. Read more »

  • 03 Dec 2012 at 1:16 PM

David Slaine, Government’s Undercover “Tip-Mining Machine,” Apparently Under The Impression Insider Trading Works On A 3-Strike Basis

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Remember David Slaine? For those who need a refresher, he is the former Morgan Stanley managing director and ex-Galleon trader who began working as an FBI informant in 2007 and who was outed for doing so by the Wall Street Journal in January 2010. At the time, we learned a few notable things about Slaine, some of them germane to his role in helping the government go after people trading on material non-public information, others special in their own way, like:

1. He takes french fries, and perhaps all snacks, very seriously.

In 1993, Slaine triggered a fist-fight with a colleague on the trading floor after needling him because he wouldn’t share his french fries. Others broke up the fight.

2. He doesn’t wait for people to towel off and get dressed before knocking their teeth out.

One morning early in 2001, before trading began, Gary Rosenbach, then was the No. 2 executive under Mr. Rajaratnam, and Slaine were in a steam room together after exercising at an Equinox Fitness Club. Mr. Rosenbach was pressuring Mr. Slaine to improve his performance. As Mr. Rosenbach lay on his back on a bench, Mr. Slaine punched him, giving him a black eye and ending their friendship.

3. Humans aren’t the only ones often asked “you want a piece of me?”

He once smashed a computer keyboard in a fit of rage, says a person familiar with the incident.

4. While working on Wall Street, he eschewed the traditional channels of employee recruitment (Wharton, etc), preferring instead to pick up fresh analysts at the club.

While at Morgan Stanley, he met [Craig] Drimal, then a nightclub bouncer at the Vertical Club in Manhattan. The two quickly formed a friendship based on a shared passion for weight lifting and their mutual ability to bench-press 400 pounds…Shortly after arriving at Galleon, Mr. Slaine persuaded Galleon officials to give a position to Mr. Drimal, who then was working as a bouncer at the Roxy nightclub in Manhattan.

5. Being a person with whom he “formed a friendship based on a shared passion for weight lifting and [a] mutual ability to bench-press 400 pounds,” possibly the greatest line written about anyone who’s ever worked on Wall Street and which which cannot be said enough, means little in the long run if he knows you’ve been playing it fast and loose with securites laws.

In July 2007, the FBI showed up at Mr. Slaine’s door on W. 57th Street in Manhattan and confronted him. Mr. Slaine agreed to help the government. At the time, federal prosecutors in Manhattan were trying to make headway on another investigation that eventually led to the charges involving Galleon. They asked Mr. Slaine who he knew that might be participating in insider trading. Mr. Slaine’s answer: his friend Mr. Drimal, according to people familiar with the matter. In September 2007, Mr. Slaine—identified in the complaint as CS-1—tried out his body wire for the first time, meeting Mr. Drimal in New York. During the meeting, Mr. Drimal gave Mr. Slaine a piece of paper with four stock symbols, according to the complaint. He told Mr. Slaine the four companies were all acquisition targets. At the meeting’s end, Mr. Drimal told Mr. Slaine to destroy the list. He warned him to “be careful” in trading the securities because no news of the takeovers had surfaced publicly…After the meeting, Mr. Slaine went to a nearby hotel where an FBI agent was waiting, says a person familiar with the matter. The pair went to a room where Mr. Slaine removed the wire.

Anyway, Bloomberg recently checked in to see what Slaine’s been up to these last couple years and other than his “experience” with the FBI being “tremendously traumatic,” he seems to be doing pretty well. Read more »

  • 15 Jun 2012 at 12:22 PM

The Universe Has Good News And Less Good News For Rajat Gupta

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The less good news is that a jury found the former McKinsey executive guilty on three counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy for passing material non-public information to his friend*, convicted insider trader Raj Rajaratnam. The good news: Read more »

  • 23 May 2012 at 3:45 PM

Not Being Privy To Inside Information Was Grounds For A Level Three Rage Stroke At Galleon

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After Raj Rajaratnam got what prosecutors say was an illegal tip about Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), a partner at Galleon Group LLC who was excluded from the trade turned red-faced and angry, a witness at the Rajat Gupta trial testified. Prosecutors claim that Gupta, who was a Goldman Sachs director, tipped Rajaratnam on Sept. 23, 2008, that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) would make a $5 billion investment in the firm…Ananth Muniyappa, then a Galleon trader, told jurors yesterday that Rajaratnam instructed him to hurriedly buy Goldman Sachs shares that day, before the Buffett deal was announced. Today, Muniyappa described the reaction of Leon Shaulov, the Galleon senior portfolio manager who hadn’t bought shares in Goldman Sachs, when the Buffett transaction became public and the shares rose after the close of trading on the New York Stock Exchange. “He was pretty angry,” Muniyappa told jurors. “Hair all over the place, red face, eyes popping out.” [Bloomberg]

  • 01 Dec 2011 at 4:17 PM

There’ll Be No Extra Mayo For Raj Rajaratnam Come Monday

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This weekend will be the Galleon founder’s last one on the outside for a while. Read more »

  • 31 Oct 2011 at 7:08 PM

Judge Graciously Allows Raj Rajaratnam To Enjoy One Last Black Friday

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The convicted insider trader, who was previously scheduled to report to prison for an 11 year sentence at the end of the month, was granted a few extra days of freedom. He’ll now have ’til December 5 to dance like nobody’s watching. [WSJ]

  • 27 Oct 2011 at 9:44 AM

Rajat Gupta Not Sweating This Insider Trading Business

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As you may have heard, yesterday morning, former McKinsey managing director Rajat Gupta was charged with insider trading. Is he worried he might be headed to jail in the not too distant future? Not in the slightest. Because 1) As previously mentioned, that time he took part in a fall 2008 conference call with GS management and fellow board members and after hanging up, made himself wait exactly twenty three seconds before getting Raj Rajaratnam on the horn with the details? Wasn’t with the intent for the Galleon manager to actually trade on the material non-public information Rajat was sharing. And 2) Even if a court of law should interpret the evidence otherwise, someone’s got his back. Read more »

  • 24 Oct 2011 at 6:35 PM

Feds Deny Raj Rajaratnam’s Postmortem

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According to a spokeswoman for Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, “a number of the assertions” made by the convicted insider trader in a recent profile for which he cooperated were “inaccurate.” Whether they’re referring to everything he said or to a) Raj’s claim that he was offered a plea deal to wear a wire b) his claim that the day he was arrested, Bharara commented in his ear, “Your wife doesn’t seem so upset. Because she’s going to spend all your money” c) the claim that he was “on an exercise bike” when they busted into his apartment or d) some combination thereof, it wasn’t made clear.

Raj Rajaratnam Was Done In By Multiple Moles

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Less than two weeks ago, Raj Rajaratnam was sentenced to 11 years in prison, after being convicted on 14 counts of securities fraud and conspiracy last May. Over the course of the trial, Raj had remained silent, choosing not to take the stand on his own behalf and offering no sound bites to reporters outside the courthouse, speaking only when it was absolutely necessary (to request “extra mayo“) and allowing his lawyer, John Dowd, to do the talking (asking a Wall Street Journal reporter how long one could reasonably expect him to continue “sucking on [U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet] Bahara’s teat,” declaring the guilty verdict a “23-14 victory” for the defense, and telling CNBC to “get the fuck out of here“). Recently, however, the former hedge fund manager decided to open up, allowing a reporter into his home where he pulled the curtain back on how this whole thing went down, starting with the state in which the Feds found him that fateful morning.

It was 6 a.m. on Oct. 16, 2009, and Raj Rajaratnam, head of the Galleon Group hedge fund, was at home on* his exercise bike looking out over Manhattan’s Turtle Bay.

Raj could have mentioned that he next moved on to shirtless arm curls and was on 1,003 at the exact moment Bhara and his crew busted into the apartment but felt like bragging. For posterity’s sake, though, it should be noted that he did over 1,000.

Moving on.

What he was actually doing at tipster Rajiv Goel’s home all those times, contrary to what the press and the government would have you believe?

…the prosecution noted that Rajaratnam would visit Goel’s house in Silicon Valley, presumably to talk about Intel. But the real explanation is more human. “His wife makes really good chaat [a savory snack]!”

Okay, that’s believable, but what about the material non-public information he got elsewhere? Read more »