Other than when writing Penthouse forum entries or relaying tales of experimentation with barnyard animals, it’s not often that people tell stories which include the words “I never thought I’d be doing this.” On that note, remember John Thomas Financial? To recap, it’s a four year-old brokerage best known for being run by a guy (Thomas Belesis) who 1) last year took it upon himself to organize a “rally” to “bring back the pride of Wall Street” (which marked the first time anyone that worked on Wall Street had heard of the place) and 2) May have wanted to bring back not only pride but the sort of corporate culture that accepted, nay, encouraged “lesbian strippers on the trading floor,” a lack of judgement re: “virtual hailstorms of sexual harassment,” and a can-do attitude from junior employees when “assigned to mop up the whipped cream and bodily fluids resulting from an exec’s midday frolic with his secretary,” as was the case as his former firm. Anyway, JTF is back in the news on account of trolling Occupy Wall Street for employees and finding one in Tracy Postert, who apparently wouldn’t have accepted the offer unless she were really, really desperate which, lucky for Belesis, she was. Read more »
whipped cream
20/20: Inside the Lives of the Superrich [ABC via JP]
Related: Lynn Tilton Bares All
Also Related: This Is A Story About Lynn Tilton’s Employees Doing Jello Shots Off Her Rack
What do we know about Lynn Tilton? She runs the $8 billion private equity firm Patriarch Partners, and prior to that worked on Wall Street with a slightly lower profile with gigs at Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Amroc. She sports 5-inch heels to “look sufficiently fierce to make sure I garner the respect I deserve.” Her office is decorated with whips, handcuffs, and a portrait of her “stretched across the hood of a black Mercedes.” She only “strips and flips men, not companies.” And she once sent a Christmas card to customers that featured a stuffed tiger, a naughty Santa suit and a whip. But that’s all surface. Until now, we haven’t really gotten to the mystery underneath the Roberto Cavalli miniskirt and a fur-trimmed cape, or determined her motivations and what makes Tilton tick. Luckily, Lynn recently granted audience with New York and let it all out. Every burning question you’ve wanted answered. Like:
Why did she decide to start Patriach, when she’d retired from Wall Street, had “a good-looking man, great sex, a small island, and was still looking good in a thong bikini”? A vision.
One night, on vacation in Costa Rica, she woke suddenly. “I was laying there in this hotel room, and I saw my father and my Mayan teacher very vividly,” she explains. “They said this was not what was planned for me. I said, ‘Why did I go through this path, to empty myself out of any needs or material longings, only to be sent back to New York to be a businessperson?’ And the answer was: You’re not capable of leading until nothing can hold you back. Get your ass back to New York. So I got up in the middle of the night and left.”
Does she see herself as the female George Soros? Yes.
Tilton’s goal is “to be part of the intelligentsia. An enlightened thinker. One of the people who are called together to think through economic issues for America. You know, like how George Soros is called on issues.”
Why is she pissed at Obama, for whom she voted? He hasn’t called her and she highly suspects he’s plagiarised her work.
“Look, I am the largest female business owner in this country,” she says, coming out from behind the rack in a Herve Leger gown. “I own 74 midsize businesses, and Obama has not once called me into the White House on these issues.” More offensive, Tilton claims, as a female stylist reaches into the bodice of the dress to plump up her cleavage, the president has borrowed language from her articles. “I mean actually lifting pieces,” she says. “Literally, I can give you paragraphs. I got like twenty e-mails after his speech, when he was like, ‘We need to be innovators and the makers of things.’ ”
John Thomas Financial CEO, Defender Of Equal Rights For Wall Street, Most Likely Has Another Issue He’d Like To Address
By Bess Levin
A few weeks ago, John Thomas Financial CEO Thomas Belesis demanded respect for a group of people, the denizens of Wall Street, who, while labeled “different” from the rest of society because of their alternative professions, are still human beings who deserve to be treated fairly. Belesi did so by organizing a rally on his firm’s trading floor attended almost exclusively by the people whose desks are there. He mostly spoke in broad terms, since this was the first event of its kind, and the organizers just wanted to get their name and cause out there. But now, let us get down to specifics. Wall Streeters should not be ashamed of what they do, or try to hide it behind closed doors for fear of judgment or backlash. For instance, before JB started JTF, he worked at place where strippers danced regularly on the trading floor, labia rings were sniffed, breasts were used as napkins, and junior employees mopped up their boss’s jizz. But outside the halls of the firm, no one was allowed to talk about it. And not only that, but people actually got in trouble with the law for this sort of thing! And if you’re Thomas Belesis, you’re probably thinkin’ “that ain’t right.”
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