According to CG, there’s a desk at BlackRock waiting for the former Treasury Secretary when he’s ready. Read more »
Larry Fink
The Upside To Larry Fink Being Appointed The Next Treasury Secretary Is That It Puts Charlie Gasparino One Step Closer To Sleeping In The Lincoln Bedroom
By Bess Levin
“My survey of Wall Street executives [shows] Jack Lew in the running for this job…They think that he’s the most likely guy to be Treasury Secretary at least that’s according to the people I talked to: major Wall Street CEO’s and executive suite players that I deal with…The other guy that’s out there is Larry Fink CEO of BlackRock. I will say this, Larry Fink is a guy I know very well. I consider him a friend. The upside to Larry is clearly that there is no smarter guy on Wall Street that I know right now. He really understands the business…I think Larry wants the job. The negative is that he is really associated with the Wall Street crowd. That is something that I don’t think the Obama administration would go for.” –Charles Gasparino, close personal friend of Larry Fink [FBN]
BlackRock Employee Has Less Than One Hour To Stretch, Mentally Prepare For Shot At Olympic(-ish) Glory (Update)
By Bess Levin
BlackRock sees your piddling food eating contests and raises you a real challenge. Read more »
Today’s all-the-things-are-the-same-thing news, sort of, is Bloomberg’s report of the tiff between BlackRock’s Larry Fink and a guy at “Lyxor,” which is the name of SocGen’s ETF business and also a good way to make me think of the words “pyramid,” “casino,” “typo” and now “SocGen” all at the same time, which does not make me want to invest with them. Anyway, the crux of it is this:
So-called synthetic ETFs, offered by firms including Societe Generale’s Lyxor Asset Management and Deutsche Bank AG, introduce a layer of complexity and counterparty risk that investors may not be aware of, Fink said yesterday. Synthetic funds generate returns through derivatives contracts rather than owning underlying securities as traditional ETFs do.
“If you buy a Lyxor product, you’re an unsecured creditor of SocGen,” Fink, who heads the world’s largest asset manager, said at a conference held in New York by Bank of America Corp.’s Merrill Lynch unit. Providers of synthetic ETFs should “tell the investor what they actually are. You’re getting a swap. You’re counterparty to the issuer.”
Lyxor says au contraire mon Fink, physical ETFs are just as bad:
Read more »
Efforts to create the first electronic “dictionary” defining derivatives and other financial instruments universally have moved ahead with the creation by US regulators of a committee to help develop it made up of BlackRock, the investment manager, CME Group, the derivatives exchange, and Google.
Global Derivatives Lexicon Edges On [FT via HNM]
Anshu Jain is the head of Deutsche Bank’s Corporate & Investment Bank, sits on the management committee and oversees operations that produce upwards of 90 percent of the firm’s profits in any given quarter. He’s considered a “star” at DB and among those who follow his work and with CEO Josef Ackermann’s contract expiring in 2013, many believe AJ should be named the successor. According to portfolio manager (and shareholder) Lutz Roehmeyer, “Mr. Jain deserves to run Deutsche Bank” and if you ask BlackRock’s Larry Fink, he’ll tell you “Anshu has done a fantastic job…He would make a very good chief executive at Deutsche.” Unfortunately, there are a few problems, not the least of them being Germany’s need to examine its motives.
“In Germany, no one can imagine an Indian working in London who does not speak German being the C.E.O. of Deutsche Bank,” said Roehmeyer.
There’s also the matter of Ackermann seeing it as “his legacy to crown a successor in his own statesman-like mold — perhaps Axel A. Weber, the recently departed head of the German central bank” and the board being “wary of choosing a bond and derivatives technician at a time when the practices of all major banks are still being scrutinized.” Regardless, this is his time, this is his moment, and this is going to happen for AJ. Read more »
“I don’t see any reason to think we need a QE3. We’re in a soft patch today. We still have positive growth. I think expectations earlier this year were way too high, 3 percent or higher gross domestic product, I think we’re going to be in the span of 2-ish percent, 2 and a half percent for the entire year and the issues around QE2, it’s been telegraphed for months and months and we’ve seen interest rates down 60 basis points and the whole reason is investors are de-risking…they’re frightened of the world and all these issues we have in front of us.” Read more »
Think you’re above this edict? Okay, big shot, leave the mess. Larry Fink will personally lean your desk into a bin labeled “[your name]‘s crap” and file his nails while you beg for it back.
From: [redacated at BlackRock]
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 03:12 PM
To: NYC – PMG Bonds
Subject: CNBC ON FLOOR THURSDAY- COMPLETELY CLEAN DESKS BY 4 PM WEDS MARCH 23RDPLEASE CLEAR ALL SURFACES AND CLEAN YOUR WORK SPACES BY 4 PM ON WEDS SO THAT YOU DO NOT DISTINGUISH YOURSELF BY HAVING TO LOOK FOR YOUR BELONGINGS ON THURSDAY MORNING.
(IT WILL BE EASY TO IDENTIFY THOSE WHO ARE SO EXPOSED.)
IT REALLY ISN’T AN OPTION TO DISTINGUISH YOURSELVES BY HAVING THE MESSY DESK ON LIVE TV; THAT OUTCOME WILL BE ELIMINATED FOR YOU.
Noted Gaga fan and Robin Hood board member Steve Cohen may have had a role in pushing for the performance, though it very well could have also been honoree Larry Fink, who demanded the Gags the after dinner entertainment portion of the evening. [Bloomberg, earlier]
The BlackRock founder and CEO, whose one mistake in a 30+ year career was momentarily second-guessing just how much ass he kicks, was awarded stock valued at $12.8 million, bringing his total shares in the firm to 1.38 million. Read more »
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