Meredith Whitney's Longstanding History Of Publicly Humiliating Men Well Over 6 Feet Tall
We all know CIBC analyst downgraded Citi to market underperform, predicted the bank would be forced to cut its dividend and sell its most valuable assets, and called for erstwhile chief executive Chuck Prince to be unceremoniously thrown out on his ass in an October report that earned Whitney her first death threats and had Mike Mayo muttering (through tears) to himself, "I wish I had balls like that," but apparently it wasn't the first time Mer chose to perform a bilateral orchiectomy with an audience watching. Whitney's husband, former football player and pro-wrestler John Layfield, AKA "Death Mask," recalls for BusinessWeek how he first fell for the girl, when they were guests on Fox's Bulls and Bears in August 2003, discussing the future of Citigroup. He was the bull, she was the bear:
"She asked me why you would want to own a financial stock during a time of rising interest rates, and she was right. She humiliated me on national TV...[we] were married in February, 2005."
What an awesome biatch! Carney thought to himself when he read the anecdote this morning in a little locked room. But we needed some assurance that these weren't two isolated incidents. Whitney's appearance (via phone) earlier today on Bloomberg TV provided that affirmation. How does she feel about Abu Dhabi's $7.5 billion, 4.9 percent investment in Citi? Not good! "$7.5 billion is not enough money by a longshot," Whitney told BTV. "Not enough, too late...[Citigroup] needs at least $30 billion dollars...[this injection] only partially mitigates the $11 billion charge in the 4th quarter. Citigroup needs to sell off better assets at a discount and cut their dividend [in order to deal with, among other things, the fact that C] has the single highest exposure to high LTV ratio mortgages, and the [imminent] default rates on those loans, which will be alarming."
No idea what she's talking about but loving that 'tude (JC's abbrev.).
Earlier: Some Analyst Love
The Analyst Who Rocked Citi [BusinessWeek]
