Mario Gabelli Is The A-Rod Of The Investing World, Basically, Says Mario Gabelli

Author:
Bess Levin
Updated:
Jan 14, 2019
Original:
Jun 22, 2009

In the latest issue of Crain's Aaron Elstein examines the massive package of Mario Gabelli. Last year's paycheck ($46 million) was bigger than that of Lloyd Blankfein and John Mack combined and more than twice the size of Larry Fink's take-home. We'd advise you to not even entertain the thought of making comparisons, though, which Big G says are baseless crap (or bringing up the fact that the firm only took in $25 million in 2009). Plus, he's got an explanation for it all that will just make you look like an idiot and him look like a guy on 'roids.

Mr. Gabelli makes no apologies. The Bronx native says comparing his pay to Mr. Fink's is "bull," because while other CEOs dedicate their time to strategic and administrative matters, Mr. Gabelli still gets his hands dirty researching stocks and wooing clients to the firm he started in 1977.
"If A-Rod was managing the Yankees, he'd get $2 million a year," Mr. Gabelli argues. "But he's a player, so he gets more."
He adds that 98% of shareholder votes were cast in approval when his compensation package was last voted on two years ago. What Mr. Gabelli doesn't say is the outcome was never in doubt: He controls 95% of his company's voting stock.

Other things you should consider not bringing up are pay cuts some of Gabs' staff was forced to take, or the layoffs wherein a gaggle of Gamco-ers apparently only got two weeks severance. Probably safe to mention (like in an interview or something) is son (and employee) Matt, who's been seeing a stripper from Beamers, Stamford's premier topless bar, and recently escorted her to his brother's wedding. Could be a source of fatherly pride or some such. I don't know, I'm just trying to get you a little career advancement.

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Allan Ash, pictured at left, is 95 years-old. He's lived through the Great Depression. Hitler's rise to power. Pearl Harbor. Korea. The assassination of John F. Kennedy. He's got heart problems. Water on his lungs. No use of his legs. He lost his sight several years back. But you wanna know the biggest disappointment of his life? The fact that his grandson turned out to be a two-faced rotten bum who should count his lucky stars grandpa is only going after his ass in court and not on the streets. In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Allan Ash, 95, said he had just one condition when he gave the money to Geoffrey Richards earlier this year — that if he recovered from heart problems and needed any of the money back, his grandson would give it to him. Ash did get better and asked for $200,000 back in early April — but Richards refused to pay him a dime, court papers say. Now the grandfather who says he treated Richards like a son is suing to get back every penny. “He is a scoundrel. He loves money,” the fuming retired CPA said at his East Side home yesterday. “He is the greatest disappointment in my life.” [Ash paid] for a fancy boarding school for Richards, as well as college and law school, court papers read. He also paid for Richards to take vacations in places like Israel, Amsterdam, Greece, Italy and Sweden, the suit continues. After Richards’ graduation, Ash “continued to try and make life easier” for his grandson, giving him $600,000 over the past 14 years, according to the lawsuit. The money helped make Richards a success — he’s a managing director at a global investment firm in Chicago, making over $1 million a year, court papers say. He’s also the grandson Ash had wanted to handle his affairs when he died, so when heart problems and water on the lungs had him thinking the end was near this past spring, he loaned Richards the $950,000 — some of which he hoped would be used to arrange his own funeral services...When Ash got better, he asked for $200,000 of the money back, and Richards — who lives in a multimillion-dollar home by himself — refused, the suit says. “Lightning struck my heart,” Ash recalled. “I was enraged, betrayed.” He said he now plans to have another grandson who lives in New York handle his affairs, and wants the money back for that grandchild and another relative. ‘Heart woe’ CPA says kin reneged on $950K loan [NYP] Spoiled Grandson Won't Return My $950K, Angry 95-Year-Old Grandpa Says [DNAI] 40 Under 40: Geoffrey Richards [Crain's]

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Remember, back in November, when Mario Batali provoked the ire of many a financial services employee when he said that "the ways the bankers have kind of toppled the way money is distributed and taken most of it into their hands is as good as Stalin or Hitler and the evil guys"? Kind of silly of to ask if you can jog your memory that far back, since if you're one of the thousands that responded by vowing never to set foot in one of that bastard's restaurants ever again (and made certain others wouldn't as well, by noting in reviews that "fingernails" and "dog hair" were preferable to his food) you not only remember but think of that day, and stew over it, with every waking moment. And in the days and the weeks and the months since, you have waited for your moment to give him a taste of his own medicine, i.e. likening some of his questionable actions to those of genocidal maniacs. That moment has come. Mario Batali, the celebrity TV chef and New York restaurant owner, is often seen with actress Gwyneth Paltrow, taste-testing the culinary delights of Spain in their public television series “On the Road Again.” Batali took a detour, through his lawyers, to New York federal court in Manhattan, where he was sued and accused of cheating workers of part of their tips, as well as failing to pay overtime and the minimum wage. He and his associate Joseph Bastianich agreed to pay $5.25 million to settle the class- action lawsuit, according to court papers. Servers at restaurants including Babbo and Del Posto sued in 2010 alleging their employers violated the Fair Labor Standards Act -- in part by pocketing gratuities equal to as much as 5 percent of nightly wine sales. “Mr. Batali, Mr. Bastianich, and their restaurants unlawfully confiscated a portion of their workers’ hard-earned tips in order to supplement their own profits,” employees said in their complaint. Batali got into hot water in November by saying bankers are “not heroes but they are people that had a really huge effect on the way the world is operating.” He apologized the next day, after financial industry executives criticized him and called for a boycott of his establishments. Batali Agrees to $5.25M Server-Tip Suit Accord [Bloomberg]