Wilbur Falcone is a pig who can play the piano and lives with a hedge fund manager of the same name, who was dealt some bad news today. This is her story.
“Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” — Unknown
Wilbur glanced down at her watch. 12:13. Usually, she hated when people were late and, under normal circumstances, this would have gone beyond the point of what she’d tolerate. Hell, make her wait more than 5 or 6 minutes and you were ensuring you’d be receiving a series of irate texts inquiring sharply as to “WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU??????!!???” and threatening “If you’re not here in 30 seconds I’m leaving.” But today she was practically willing Tom to continue making her wait under the bodega awning. Just another minute. Just one more minute.
She took a long drag off her cigarette. Almost immediately, Phil popped into her head, as he often did these days. “What are you doing,” he’d say, in a way that told you he was irritated but irritated because he cared. “That shit will kill you.” She’d let him convince her to give it up years back, citing evidence about what it would do to her singing voice, and hadn’t even ever used the emergency stash at the bottom of her vanity, even despite all that had gone down these last 18 months. But now she needed one. Just a few puffs and she could be transported, if only for a moment, from this nightmare. Continue reading »
He could have been busy putting the finishing touches on Wilbur‘s Halloween costume (he’s going as a slutty butcher** this year). You don’t know. Continue reading »
For the latest issue of Vanity Fair, reporter Bethany McLean got personal with one of our favorite hedge fund couples, Phil and Lisa Maria Falcone. If you’ve been keeping up with the travails of the Harbinger Capital founder and his wife, you know that despite living in a 25,725-square foot mansion on 5th Avenue (which was renovated to include a bar inside Lisa’s closet), a few billion or so in the bank, unparalleled eyes for fashion and Manhattan’s premier singing and dancing pig who can also play the piano, the last couple years have not been the easiest for the Falcones. Everywhere they turn they feel like people are beating up on them, taking shots. To their chagrin and bewilderment, New York “society,” for the most part, doesn’t accept Lisa and many of Phil’s investors, when they’re not being held by a gate, have run for the hills, causing Harbinger’s assets under management to drop from a peak of $26 billion to $7 billion and counting. Things have gotten so bad, in fact that, several months back, Falcone “almost took off the Ganesh charm- the elephant-headed Hindu deity that represents good fortune- that he wears around his neck.” As he told McLean, “I thought, You have got to be kidding. I get very superstitious.”
But he kept it on and why? Because 1) You have not seen the best of Phil Falcone yet:
“You take your lumps and get your bruises. you get knocked down. The key is getting back up,” Falcone says. “I’m already standing. I’m 48. It’s not even the second period of my career, and I’ve had a pretty good first period.”
And 2) Phil’s got a big bet in the works, one that he’s pretty sure will shut everyone up, about everything, if the elephant can pull through for him. You know the one. LIGHTSQUARED. Yeah. Just let it sizzle there, in the air. It’s going to be huge and then all you people are going to be begging to invest with the best.
“I think [the wireless bet] could be bigger than subprime for me,” he says.
You know what else it will rival? Hairbrushes. Continue reading »
Earlier this week it was reported that Harbinger Capital’s chief investment officer, Lawrence M. Clark Jr, had resigned to start his own fund. According to Reuters’ Matthew Goldstein and Emily Chasan, several other employees will have parted ways with Phil Falcone, though their departures were less than voluntary. Continue reading »
The last month or so has not been the best of times for Phil Falcone. Harbinger Capital’s flagship is down, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and some others have pulled their money, investors have been giving him shit for borrowing $113 million from one of his funds (where redemptions had been frozen) in order to pay personal taxes, he had to put up his art as collateral to borrow even more cash (for what, it’s unclear), he’s being investigated by the SEC and Wilbur, the family’s dancing pig, has been such a god damn bitch. He told the Times none of this is any way a big deal (“The last thing I’m thinking about in the morning is whether I have a cash-flow problem,” he said) and now, he’s be forced to defend his liquidity again. This time, with regard to the mortgage he took out on his house over the summer, after buying it for $49 million in cash. Continue reading »
The last month or so has not been the best of times for Phil Falcone. Harbinger Capital’s flagship is down, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone and some others have pulled their money, investors have been giving him shit for borrowing $113 million from one of his funds (where redemptions had been frozen) in order to pay personal taxes, he had to put up his art as collateral to borrow even more cash (for what, it’s unclear), he’s being investigated by the SEC and every time he drives down the road he just wants to jerk the wheel into a god damn bridge abutment.
First, though, he’d like to put some rumors to bed, and in a profile with the Times yesterday, did just that.
* On the hideous suggestion he’s got a liquidity problem:
Mr. Falcone has been selling investments. He has unloaded stakes in Citigroup and The New York Times Company and a $650 million investment in Inmarsat, a British satellite company. All of this has led to speculation in the hedge fund community that Mr. Falcone and his firm are confronting a cash squeeze. If more investors withdraw money, the whispers go, Mr. Falcone could be in trouble. Nonsense, said Mr. Falcone in an interview in his office. “The last thing I’m thinking about in the morning is whether I have a cash-flow problem,” he says.
* On people not getting that he loaned himself investor money because he really needed it and not because he was just dicking around.:
A little more than a year ago, Mr. Falcone took a $113 million personal loan from the fund, a move that was vetted by his lawyers, he said. Mr. Falcone said a big chunk of his personal wealth is tied up in his own funds. “It’s not like I have $113 million in my checking account,” he said, chuckling.
Continue reading »
From the mailbag: Continue reading »
