New Wachovia CEO Robert Steel vowed to turn things around at the bank and he was not kidding. He started with morale boosting pep rallies and marshmallow tower building competitions, and now he’s moved on to a not even necessary capital raise that, while probably dilutive to current shareholders, is sure to wow the crowds with Bobby’s out of the box thinking, no doubt honed during his time at Goldman Sachs.
Wachovia
We did it! Bleeding out the ass Wachovia is now up nearly twenty five percent clearly due in large part to our pep-rally this morning. Fantastic jobs all around.
At this time, in light of Wachovia’s not so good second quarter, I want everyone to get up on his/her chair and shout “I love Wachovia,” while dancing, which is not only a team building exercise for WB first years but 95 percent of CEO Robert Steel’s master plan for pumping the stock. Unless of course you are planning on making some $$$ on what Bove thinks is an around the corner fall–lookin’ at you, Paulson–in which case, please proceed with your refrain of choice, “Let’s burn this motherfucker down.”
Dollar Dominatrix Meredith Whitney has probably not made a lot of friends with her sack-rippingly bad reports. Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain, always up for a heel in his ass, is not much of a fan of the Oppenheimer analyst, and Citi CEO Vikram Pandit, who likes everyone, refers her to as “that devil woman” in mixed company. One pal she’s probably made via downgrade is new Wachovia CEO Robert Steel. Apparently Steel’s options were priced yesterday, the same day Whitney downgraded the stock to underperform. And now the timing of this morning’s marshmallow company morale building exercise–and the subsequent sixteen percent jump in stock price– makes perfect sense.
Finally, someone has started to think outside the box re: team building exercises. Didn’t think it’d come from Wachovia but so be it; the rest of you, take notes! As part of a WB “pep rally,” new-hire analysts were forced this morning to stand on their chairs and shout “I Love Wachovia,” while dancing. Following this, the newbies participated in a competition to build the WB tower, out of marshmallows.
We’re listening to the Meredith Whitney conference call right now, but while we patiently wait for the Q&A during which we’ll ask what everyone else is thinking– have you ever killed person?– here’s something interesting, considering that while DD’s victims usually don’t like it when she violates them in public, typically they roll over and take it, rather than screaming, “You take that back!” Today, though, Wachovia decided it has had enough. Stifel Nicolaus is out with a note saying that WB is demanding a retraction of Whitney’s latest report, claiming that her conclusion that Wachovia may have sold $50-60 billion in Golden West loans at a substantial loss during the quarter is “dead wrong.”
Update: Whitney mentions some sort of calculating error in her report but stands by her original conclusion.
Oppenheimer Note-US Banks [PDF]
Oppenheimer-US Bank Slide Show [PDF]
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