Not a day goes by that I don’t curse Bernie Madoff, for robbing Marc Dreier of the insane media attention he deserved for a scam maybe not as big as but exponentially more creative and ridiculous than what the simpletons over at the Lipstick building had going on. Today we have a bittersweet glimpse of what that would’ve been like, courtesy of Bryan Burrough’s interview with MD. Let’s just start with the images above. Would Bernie, or any financial services hack for that matter, agree to such a photo shoot? No! Meanwhile you’ve got Dreier mugging it up for the camera. Is that his “sexy face” you see in the bottom right corner? Yeah it is! Whereas some people have turned down multiple offers for a tasteful centerfold spread in Bloomberg Markets Magazine, you’ve got this guy setting the room on fire with minimal direction from the photographer to “WORK IT, OWN IT.” And the outtakes, my god, the outtakes. Don’t even hesitate to dream they involve something along the lines of this:
Marc Dreier
Marc Dreier Got Into The Ponzi Biz To Fulfill His Destiny For Greatness, To Fill A Void, And To Buy A Beach House
By Bess LevinEven now Marc Dreier’s assets are being fire-saled away. What an awful pity. Perhaps someone should have pointed out, however, that “Dreier’s Escape” was sort of slow for a get-away craft.
Marc Dreier’s Fire Sale at Sea [Cityfile]
Now that Bernie Watch is old news, we have to move on. Luckily for us, there’s plenty more fast-food of the rich and indicted fodder available. For example:
House arrest isn’t too harsh for dirty lawyer Marc Dreier, who’s out of jail on $10 million bail under armed guards until his sentencing in July. Dreier claims to be so broke that he used his son Spencer’s bar mitzvah money to pay for food for the last three months. But sources say he regularly orders miniburgers as takeout from pricey Le Cirque, downstairs from his $5.4 million One Beacon Court apartment.
We could go for some good miniburgers actually. Or you could just send us some bar mitzvah money. (We assume the victim of that little theft is in the attached photo above).
Taste of Freedom [The New York Post]
Say what you will about Marc Dreier, yes, ok, so he was into that whole “Yale thing,” but he sure know how to pick victims. The list of his stingees has grown to include Amaranth Group Inc., Perella Weinberg Partners and Blackstone Group LP’s GSO Capital Partners. Given the current environment, prosecutors are going to have to prepare themselves to defeat the dreaded Robin Hood defense.
Government lawyers identified the firms in a court filing in New York on Feb. 9 as three of the 20 institutions they claim are victims of Dreier’s thefts. Prosecutors didn’t disclose how much it alleges each of the companies lost.
Is it possible that all these losses never came to light before because these big name hedge funds failed to report the crimes? It seems awfully unusual that Dreier could have defrauded all these funds without tipping a few of them off before now. (Amaranth? That was so 2006).
Amaranth, Perella Were Victims of Dreier’s Fraud, U.S. Says [Bloomberg]
Muffie Benson-Perella (muffie AT muffmarkets.com) was an Associate in the Investment Banking Division of a “Bulge Bracket” bank. She holds a B.A. in French and Art from Vassar College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School. She concentrated in Contemporary French Poetry at prep school where she was awarded the exclusive premiership of the school’s “French Club.” Today, Ms. Benson-Perella is the Founder and Managing Director of “Muffie on Markets” (http://www.muffmarkets.com), a deep dive into capital markets, finance and investment strategy. She is also the Founder and Managing Director of Muff Cap, LLC., an invitation only, private investment vehicle for non-existent, prestigious and accredited investors only, employing an actively managed, long-short strategy.
There are few things as shameful as the deteriorating state of art and culture in this country. It will come as no surprise to my loyal readers, then, that the subtle, magnificent craft of portraiture appears utterly lost in a thick fog of mediocrity and a pretentious depthlessness. Of course, I can only refer to the latest visual representation of Marc S. Drier (for I cannot bring myself to call it a “picture” or “drawing” much less “art.”)
It is the essence of such representations that their creation at least attempt to rise to the level of their subject. In this case, admittedly, that is a tall order. The almost uniformly elegantly dressed Senior Partner of Park Avenue law firm Dreier LLP, Dreier presents a rich, complex texture, shot through with conflicts, dark veins of opposing forces, their churning opposition pressing the envelopes of the psyche, yearning for nothing but escape, escape, escape. Contrast the subtle signs of whirlwinds below the impeccable exterior with the rarely seen, but palpable, open, unshorn rouge and we can forgive him his undergraduate transgressions at Yale, for he certainly redeemed himself at Harvard Law thereafter, and this institutional combination, fatal in any weaker, less featured personality, permits Dreier to wear scruff like a bright ascot, an opportunity he occasionally indulges to juxtapose polished Fifth Avenue class with the suggestion that “That whole Yale thing” might not be that far from the surface, even after all these years.
There is a brazen yet subtle boldness in Dreier, the kind of audacity that mounts his brilliant deceptions in full view of the world, in the fishbowl of a glass-walled conference room, taunting the prospect of discovery as office staff who might at any time recognize him, call him the wrong name, plunge him into drowning, downward spiraling agony, walk by and casually glance through ethereal walls of glass that offer scant protection. The pulsing rhythm of office traversal, and throbbing mechanics of discovery. And who can deny the social genius of targeting Canadian Teachers and U. S. Real Estate firms as the foils of a fraud designed to sap the savviest of hedge funds? The very fabric of his machinations: wry social commentary.
You have to hand it to this guy Dreier. He really managed to scam some sharp folks. Or perhaps we have a very over-inflated view of the collective sharpness of hedge funds with famous names and big AUMs.
Elliott’s losses tied to the fraud accounted for less than 1 percent of the money it oversees, according to a person familiar with the firm.
“Elliott has been deceived more than once over the years, and it is likely to happen again in the future,” the fund said in the letter.
Elliott Hedge Fund Bought Fictitious Securities From Dreier [Bloomberg]
Earlier: Would You Give $50 Million To This Man?
Dreier, LLC will be seeking bankruptcy protection and so, likely, will its founder Marc Dreier, this according to a receiver appointed to run the firm.
I suppose in many ways Derier timed this wonderfully. Taking advantage of the Made-off scam (accidentally, of course) has permitted him to avoid almost any attention from the gentle mercies of the press during this whole affair. What’s $380 million to $50 billion, after all? And who is surprised when a lawyer turns up crooked- compared, that is, to the likes of the eminently likable Bernie?
Prominent NY law firm to seek bankruptcy [Associated Press]
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