Yesterday in France, a court sentenced everyone’s favorite rogue trader, Jerome Kerviel, to three years in prison and said he must also “pay back” the $6.8 billion that was lost. At his current salary as a technology consultant, it should only take Kerviel 170,000 years to do so. Attorney Olivier Metzner said his client is “disgusted” by the ruling and today JK compared it to being “hit on the head with a club…I’m starting to digest it, but I’m nonetheless crushed by the weight of the sanction and the weight of responsibility the ruling places on me.” Well his former employer has some news that might just turn that frown upside down. Continue reading »
Jerome Kerviel
Société Générale Seeking Suggestions For How Jerome Kerviel Can Make Things Up To Shareholders
By Bess Levin
The other day we noted that in the course of making fake trades at SocGen, Jerome Kerviel had invented a fake client who he’d named Matt, whose bio Kerviel added little flourishes to such as the fact that Matt apparently loved to play rugby. Today we hear from a non-imaginary colleague of Kerviel’s, none too happy about the fact that he owes her, a bottle of bubbly she’s probably never gonna get. Continue reading »
Jerome Kerviel Invented A Friend Named Matt, Built A Vivid Character Sketch Of The Guy
By Bess Levin
I knew there was a reason I loved Jerome Kerviel and today that reason became crystal clear. As previously mentioned, the former SocGen trader admitted faking a buncha trades during his time with the firm. Now, there’s this: Continue reading »
"You lookin for a good time?"
Naturally it involves sucking dick for coke. I’m kidding! Though an admitted prostie, Kerviel is not that kind of whore. Continue reading »
Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by John Carney.
The former Societe Generale trader arrested yesterday on charges of stealing Soc Gen’s computer code for high-frequency trading was set to begin work this week at Tower Research Capital, a New York based quantitative hedge fund, according to a source.
Samarth Agrawal was charged yesterday with one count of theft of trade secrets, according to Bloomberg. Federal prosecutors said he made copies of the code behind Soc Gen’s proprietary trading last summer.
Agrawal resigned in November, just seven months after he was promoted to be a trader at Soc Gen. He had worked as a quantitative analyst for the bank’s high frequency trading group since 2007, according to reports.
A source familiar with the matter has exclusively told DealBreaker that Agrawal was scheduled to start at Tower Research Capital this past Monday.
“I guess he found a home for his stolen code,” the source said. Continue reading »
Société Générale shareholders, still not over the months-old rogue trading scandal, told Chairman Daniel Bouton that he’d “turned the bank into a casino,” demanded his resignation and booed his every word at today’s annual general meeting. Apparently Bouton’s power point presentation, which showed that over an 8-year period, SocGen shares had remained among the best in the sector, did little to ease the crowd’s anger, probably because the 8-year period was from 1971-1979. It’s all very dramatic, exponentially more so if you imagine it going down in French. Meanwhile, Reuters notes that “a mile or two away from the shareholder meeting,” Kerviel, who went MIA for several days following the scandal, “looked calm and relaxed as he posed exclusively for Reuters Pictures and Television,” taking a cue from his newfound spiritual leader, Eliot Spitzer’s prostitute (she’s teaching classes at the Learning Annex now).
SocGen Chairman Booed Over Kerviel Affair [Reuters via NYT]
Like Registered Sex Offenders, Rogue Traders *Can* Go On To Lead Productive, Albeit Neutered, Lives
By Bess Levin
Our eyes were already glazed over when we finally turned our attention to the the report released by Société Générale on the Jerome Kerviel scandal. The ocular varnish hardened to opaque as we skimmed through blather about how almost everything had gone right, everyone had done things well, and it was just a few bad eggs. It confirms much of what we had already concluded—that the back office lacked the knowledge and spine to really control the risk of the traders. “In some cases, according to the report, controllers who asked Mr. Kerviel about irregularities in his trades didn’t understand his explanations, but they dropped their inquiries,” the Wall Street Journal writes.
We woke up a bit when we read the Journal’s summary of the report: “The findings are likely to prompt widespread soul-searching within the banking sector.” Cue laughter.
But what really got our attention and tore the scales from our eyes was the chart attached to the report. Kerviel, according to SocGen, hid his real profit and loss by displaying an “official” P&L that was very small by comparison. After the jump, we bring you the chart.
