Write-Offs: 10.21.15

Valeant says short-seller's report is BS; Credit Suisse is a less hot version of UBS; Warren Buffett's li'l millionaires; The return of Greg Smith; "Alleged wedding crasher bites officer, police dog"; and more.

Author:: Dealbreaker
Updated:: Jan 14, 2019
Original:: Oct 21, 2015

$$$Valeant Calls Short Seller's Report Erroneous [Bloomberg, earlier, earlier]

$$$No Blow Up Is Big Enough to Tarnish Platinum Partners' Returns [Bloomberg / Zeke Faux]

$$$ "People don't realize that the public are being used as pawns in this game where billions of dollars are being extracted out of their pockets, and 401(k)s are a great example," says Greg Smith, a former Goldman Sachs banker. [NPR]

$$$Warren Buffett’s Lucky Millionaires Club [WSJ]

$$$Subway agrees to measure sandwiches as part of settlement [UPI]

$$$Puerto Rico ends talks with bondholders as deadline looms [CNBC]

$$$Credit Suisse Will Struggle With Label as a Subpar UBS [Dealbook]

$$$Alleged wedding crasher bites officer, police dog [AP]

Valeant has best 3-day run in nearly 20 years; Treasury says banks should be probed on Panama Papers; Meet the masseuse who bites Kanye and Steven Tyler; and more.

$$$ JPMorgan is the best place to work, according to the Vault Guide [DealBook] $$$ "Morgan Stanley's wealth management chief, Greg Fleming, has just concluded a seven-city tour of the firm’s brokerage offices in an attempt to stem a broker revolt over the company’s new technology system that contains so many glitches that brokers often cannot sign-up new clients." [FBN, earlier] $$$ Ex-Jet Chrebet Among Top Wealth Managers Leaving Morgan Stanley for Barclays [Deal Journal] $$$ A fourth trader under scrutiny in JPM "Whale" probe [Reuters] $$$ "What the ECB is doing, in essence, is setting itself up as the shadow government of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and perhaps Ireland." [Slate / Matt Yglesias] $$$ Court to decide if lap dancing is a tax-exempt art form [USAT] $$$ Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is looking for a suspicious activity monitoring and investigations analyst [DBCC] $$$ Greenhill Expands Capital Advisory Group [DealBook] $$$ Investors are buying California school district bonds [WSJ] $$$ The ‘mystery Libor’ precedent [FTAV] $$$ Why Yes, It Is Time for Homemade Satellites [BBW] $$$ What Famous People Smell Like [The Awl]

Market crash; Rate hike; Activists; "Woman bites rider who asks to move bag from seat in New York subway"; and more.

$$$ JPMorgan Misled Investors, Dodged Regulators, Senate Report Says [Bloomberg] $$$ Regulators Question Goldman and JPMorgan’s Capital Plans [DealBook] $$$ E*Trade Loses Largest Shareholder as Citadel Sells Out [Deal Journal] $$$ Credit Suisse to pay $400 million to end U.S. bond lawsuits [Reuters] $$$ The Return of the Popped Collar [WSJ] $$$ Genworth financial is looking for a Director, Corporate Trading in Stamford [DBCC] $$$ Reuters editor indicted for helping Anonymous hack websites [AP] $$$ Bankruptcy Lawyer Is Named to Manage an Ailing Detroit [NYT] $$$ Almost there, S&P! [WSJ] $$$ Goldman Sachs is (probably) reminding people of how everyone forgot about Greg Smith [DI]

$$$ Europe Considers a Spanish Bank Rescue [Bloomberg] $$$ S&P says U.S. to avoid "fiscal cliff", risks remain [Reuters] $$$ "The fact is that if UBS ended up losing anywhere close to $350 million on Facebook stock, it has no business being in the equity capital markets at all." [Felix Salmon] $$$ Groupon is Now Giving Groupons ... for Groupon [NYO] $$$ Who cheats more, bankers or politicians? Disappointingly, bankers, according to a survey conducted in bars [Wonkblog] $$$ John Carney takes the pulse of Wall Streeters "waiting for a fourth martini at a once-fashionable midtown bar," "at a tavern along a cobble-stoned street in the financial district," "[a]t Stone Rose in the Time Warner center" and "having a drink with a colleague at Emmett O’Lunney’s" [NetNet] $$$ Are you a credit risk specialist? Any interest in analyzing credit risk for the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation in Dulles, VA? [DBCC] $$$ Citi Won't Request Stock Buyback This Year [WSJ] $$$ Gupta ‘Highly Likely’ to Take the Stand, Lawyer Says [WSJ Law Blog] $$$ After reading a passage about the prospect of Goldman buying a bank, Mr. Naftalis asked the chief executive if he had read the portion correctly. “Yes,” replied a smiling Mr. Blankfein, who glanced from the jury to the judge. “You read it well.” Judge Jed Rakoff, prone to making jokes during trial himself, belted out a laugh, and the courtroom followed. [DealBook] $$$ This year’s Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest is expected to be even more heated than usual now that ESPN, which televises the July 4 competition, has pushed the start time later to accommodate the sports network’s first-ever coverage of Wimbledon. ... Major League Eating president George Shea said he expects the later 3 p.m. start time to also drive up ratings for the glutton-fest, which attracted 1.9 million live viewers last year. But he admits the mid-afternoon heat “should make it much more difficult” for the dog devourers to break Joey Chestnut’s 2009 world record of 68 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes. “Heat causes the buns to crisp up more and the dogs to expand, making a run at the record nearly impossible,” said professional eater and perennial Nathan’s contestant Jason “Crazy Legs” Conti. [NYP] $$$ Vampire High Priest Loses Religious Civil Rights Case [ATL]

$$$ Google Shares Fall on Premature Earnings [WSJ] $$$ Google and the send button ... [footnoted] $$$ "To be fair, we released our earnings yesterday afternoon on Google Plus." [@PendingLarry via Deal Journal] $$$ Smallest Stock Traders Hardest Hit as Commissions Decline [Bloomberg] $$$ Blackstone Swings to Profit of $622 Million in 3rd Quarter [DealBook] $$$ "Americans who say they work 75 hours a week tend to be exaggerating by 25 hours." [Qz] $$$ BlackRock is looking for a Sales Training Program Manager for their iShares division in San Francisco [DBCC] $$$ Sprint Nextel assumes majority stake in Clearwire [Reuters] $$$ In Insider Trading Case, Drawing In David Ganek [DealBook] $$$ Ex-GE Bankers Jailed in Rigged Muni Bond Case [CNBC] $$$ William Cohan on Greg Smith: "He conned Grand Central Publishing, which paid him a reported $1.5 million for his 'tell-all' book about how the culture at Goldman Sachs had deteriorated during his 12-year tenure into something he no longer recognized, when really Goldman has always been a stinging scorpion. (Disclosure: my wife is the editor-in-chief of Grand Central Publishing, although she had nothing to do with editing Smith's book, and neither of us has read it.)" [Bloomberg] $$$ Republicans Pulling Money Out of Soup Kitchen Where Paul Ryan Pretended to Wash Dishes [DI]

Valeant; Icahn; Alphabet; Dorsey; "Domino's unveils delivery vehicle with built-in oven"; and more.

$$$ Fed Minutes Suggest Action Likely [WSJ] $$$ Ainslie Up 20% As Stock Hedge Funds Defy Four-Year Slump $$$ Best Buy shareholders caught in the crossfire [Term Sheet] $$$ FTC Clears Facebook’s Instagram Purchase [Deal Journal] $$$ "Bain is a financial firm, but Romney wasn’t some Wall Street bank-monkey with a pitch book. He was the guy who fired you." [National Review] [!!] $$$ Wharton-Bound Goat Trainer Failed To Get Her Pet Goat To Perform On National Television [IvyGate] $$$ A middle market private equity firm is looking for a senior associate in South Florida [DBCC] $$$ Bernanke ‘More Popular Than Justin Bieber’? [CNBC] $$$ Broken Brokerages: Finance Luminaries Join Fight Over Uniform Fiduciary Standard [NYO] $$$ Chinese acquisitions in US near record [FT] $$$ Obama Says First Dog Bo Is on a Diet [DI] $$$ Man Convicted of Assault for Punching McDonald’s Employee After Sundae Arrived with Hot Fudge on the Bottom [Gawker]