tips

  • 13 Jul 2011 at 3:13 PM
  • Banks

How To Rebuild A Bank And Change The World

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Listen up, people. From time to time around these parts we like to offer you How To Guides, to getting your shit done. Most recently we laid out the steps necessary to getting any bonus you want. Those who followed the instructions were more than pleased with their numbers come D-Day. Those who did not were laughed out of the room. Today’s How To is a bit more next level. On the surface it’s about how to run bank/hedge fund/private equity firm/financial institution of your choosing. But as literally anyone can do that, we’re not going to waste our time. Instead, we’ll be showing you how to take a failing bank/hedge fund/private equity firm/financial institution of your choosing and turn that shit around. It’s the difference between not having anyone to answer to when you decide to put a bronze casting of your balls in the lobby and have a giant-sized rendering of said balls replace those of the bull on Wall Street. This is an organic conversation in which you should feel free to toss ideas of your own but to get things started we’re going to offer a bunch of tips we’ve picked up in conversations with seasoned vets. Such as:

1. How to handle the succession plan with the current (and outgoing CEO): As you may or may not even be employed by the firm you’re about to take over, the fact that you’re naming yourself head honcho may come as a shock. Deal with it thusly: walk into his office, inform him you’ve acquired 51% of the company and that as such, “I’m fucking in, and you’re fucking out. Now get the fuck out of my chair.” Read more »

  • 05 Jul 2011 at 4:15 PM

CNBC Wants To Help Cure Your Hangover

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Not feeling so hot today? Kind of wishing it wasn’t frowned upon to catch a few winks under your desk or curled up in the stall of the men’s room? Vowing to never again consume the amount of alcohol you did over the past three days, so help you god? CNBC knows it’s not possible for you to lay off the sauce for more than 12 hours but if you’re willing to get real for 1 sec, would like to help. On Worldwide Exchange this morning guest Tina Hedges recommended “prevention” as the best cure for a hangover, which comes in the form of a drink she suggests downing before alcohol called “Mercy,” marketed and sold by her firm. Mercy apparently works its magic through “a propriety blend of amino acids, vitamins and minerals” and is available online. If that doesn’t sound like something you’d be interested, CNBC’s John Carney, who anchor Nicole Lapin billed as “our resident expert of sorts” when it comes to hangovers, offered his his 5-Step Cure, which are as follows: Read more »

  • 22 Jun 2011 at 2:53 PM

Breaking: Being Non-Bathing Prick Not Necessarily Helpful For Career Advancement

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You might think that hygiene habits should be a personal decision left to each staff member’s own discretion, but Cohen said that the reach of bad body odor goes beyond the cubicle around you. “It’s engaging in anti-social behavior,” he said. “Not bathing, being unkempt… You have to be very careful, especially if you’re in a client-interfacing role.”… [Additionally] No matter how much you hate your boss or how dumb you think he is, it’s usually career suicide to reveal those sentiments to a higher-up… [And] No one likes a freeloader. If you are the worker who never presents an original thought at work, or you take credit for others’ accomplishments, you’re likely to find yourself out the door. [FINS]

  • 16 May 2011 at 12:44 PM

Raj Rajaratnam Juror Offers Insider Tips For Any Would-Be Insider Traders

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Gorman

So you’ve started a hedge fund and have decided the best way to maximize returns for investors is by trading on material non-public information. With the government’s crackdown on insider trading, odds are you will ultimately get caught and, if you’ve suffered blunt trauma to the head, will decide to take your chances at a trial by jury rather than settle. If you’d like some level of assurance you’ll have better odds than Raj Rajaratnam, who was deemed guilty by Day 2 of deliberations (despite the jury taking 12 days to spit it out), consider these tips from one of the women, Leila Gonzalez Gorman, who helped sent him away. Read more »

  • 05 May 2011 at 3:43 PM

Hedge Funds Crowding The Ping Pong Trade

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Earlier this week, we took a serious look at a sport beloved to a certain hedge fund in Stamford, CT: ping pong. Second only to trading and hunting humans, p-pong is the pastime that is often cited internally as the secret to this firm’s success, the practice of which has made what started out as a 2-bit boiler room into the powerhouse fund it is today. A prescient call, as today Bloomberg has published an article quoting table tennis experts on ping pong being the hottest new thing in the business community.

“It’s like a real-life version of LinkedIn,” says founder Peter Farnsworth. “We’re bringing the business community together through pingpong.”

According to Alan Williams, of sports management firm North American Table Tennis, “Everyone who plays table tennis [will] live longer, be smarter, and be more attractive.” While true, this affirmation did not please our hedge fund manager who, as we all know, is above all else a trend-setting icon, not a follower. He doesn’t hop on bandwagons, he builds them from the ground up (see: skinny jeans) and the burns them down when others pile on, years later. Read more »

  • 25 Apr 2011 at 10:27 AM

How Much Should One Investment Banker Tip Cabbie Driving Him And A Pal From New York To LA?

By

Belitsky

A week or so ago, Dan Wuebben woke up at his best bud John Belitsky’s apartment. The duo had been celebrating Dan’s 31st birthday, and they wanted to keep the party going. “It seemed like everybody was away,” Belitsky said. “And I said, ‘Let’s do something great and fun and serious and magical and bigger than us.’ ” Order a couple hookers? No. Bigger. Hit up a Color Me Mine? Bigger. See if they could eat six Saltines in 60 seconds? Bigger still. They thought and they thought and they thought some more and then finally, it came to D. Dubs.

Wuebben remembered a tale about estimating the cost of a cross-country cab ride. “That’s the ticket,” Belitsky said he replied, telling his friend, “Dan, you’re the only guy you know who’d do this — and I’m the only guy you know who would pay for it.”

Read more »

  • 13 Apr 2011 at 5:27 PM

Expert: Raj Rajaratnam Might Consider Spending Some Of The Money Earmarked For Legal Bills On A Personal Stylist

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If you’ve been keeping up with the Raj Rajaratnam insider trading trial, you may have come to the conclusion that things have not been going so hot for the Galleon founder. Though he is of course innocent until proven guilty, so far jurors have heard that Raj’s brother felt the need to destroy his big brother’s “private notebooks,” tapes of Raj telling Danielle Chiesi to keep their dealings on the down low, tapes of Raj telling a friend he knew to buy shares of a company because “one of our guys is on the board,” and testimony from former McKinsey exec that Raj paid him $1 million for his tip about AMD’s acquisition of ATI. Sure, Raj’s former head of research testified he never heard the boss asking for inside information and that the big man was “the most prepared of” any of the Galleon team simply by virtue of being “amazingly educated on the issues at hand” but the odds of getting off? Not so great. That’s why he needs a Hail Mary- one in which he’ll dazzle ‘em with fashion. Read more »

  • 28 Mar 2011 at 1:48 PM

A Prosecutor’s Love Of Water Sports May Be The One Thing That Can Save Raj Rajaratnam From Jail Time

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If you’ve been keeping up with the Raj Rajaratnam insider trading trial, you may have come to the conclusion that things have not been going so hot for the Galleon founder. Though he is of course innocent until proven guilty, so far jurors have heard that Raj’s brother felt the need to destroy his big brother’s “private notebooks,” tapes of Raj telling Danielle Chiesi to keep their dealings on the down low, tapes of Raj telling a friend he knew to buy shares of a company because “one of our guys is on the board,” and testimony from former McKinsey exec that Raj paid him $1 million for his tip about AMD’s acquisition of ATI, leaving one to conclude Rajaratnam doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting off. Unless, of course, some sort of improbable information emerged, like evidence that it wasn’t actually Raj on all those taped phone calls, or the 7-man defense team caught a lucky break. A tip, if you will, that they’d be fools not to trade on. Read more »

  • 25 Mar 2011 at 4:08 PM

Want To Mix It Up With A Colleague?

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BusinessWeek is here to help! The magazine, for some reason, is offering tips for people interested in “picking-up” a co-worker. Read more »

  • 07 Mar 2011 at 4:30 PM

Ten People You “Absolutely Have To Make Your Allies On Wall Street”

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According to John Carney and his colleague Ash Bennington, the career-making individuals you must get close to include: Read more »

  • 07 Mar 2011 at 1:19 PM

Does Lenny Dykstra Not Understand The Concept Of Tipping Or Does He Think His Signature Is Worth $200?

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Though he’s told reporters he’s in the midst of a huge comeback, economically speaking, Lenny Dykstra is still a few paychecks away from getting his $24 million house back from the bank, flying private, paying hookers for services rendered in forms other than the IOU, and taking dates out for a nice steak dinner. As luck would have it, though, last Friday Nails got lucky and after participating in an interview with NBC’s “Sports Final,” got his dinner at the Palm covered, which is apparently a standard arrangement between the restaurant and the station. After hearing that the tab for him and his “attractive blonde” lady friend would be taken care of, LD proceeded to feast like he wasn’t sure when his next meal was coming, ordering two bottles of $150 wine, salads, and surf-and-turn at the table and “crab cakes and assorted desserts” to take back to their room at the Ritz. One would like to say he stopped short of making his date put the silverware in her purse but the scene seems to suggest otherwise. After being handed a bill to sign, Dykstra wrote $200 in the tip section, signed his name, and got out of there, leaving the manager to compensate LD’s waiter. Read more »