How embarrassing: It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement of his current banking employer when the CEO gets his mortgage from a competitor. That’s just exactly what John Varley, CEO of Barclays Bank, did last year, when he got a mortgage with competitor HSBC. Oops.
Tags: Barclays
Go ahead, rub it in: While gasoline prices reach sky high levels here in the US and in other countries, Saudi King Abdullah issued a decree Sunday lowering gas prices by around 25% for Saudi citizens. They’ll be paying roughly 60 cents a gallon…
The New York Times has another background piece on the cast of characters in the most recent insider trading ring involving former Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch employees. Much of it is a rehash, but there is some new info in the piece: Monica Vujovic raked in $6,000-7,000 a night performing exotic dances according to a transcript of David Pajcin’s bail hearing. Yowsah! Pajcin badly impersonated Vujovic, his girlfriend, on the phone with Ameritrade where he did some of the illegal trading in her account, although Ameritrade didn’t monitor the account despite their suspicions. Oops. Pajcin and Vujovic made trades in her account over coffee at Starbucks. Pajcin had aspirations to manage a hedge fund — uh — probably not much chance of that now. And Eugene Plotkin is still sitting in the pokey, still not able to make his $3 million bail….
Tags: Eugene Plotkin, Insider Trading
Mireya D’Angelo, a well connected senior anti-money-laundering lawyer formerly with HSBC’s private bank, has sued the bank for discrimiation after being fired last August for alleged time and expenses violations….
Tags: Discrimination, HSBC, Lawsuit
Here’s a transcript of the Overstock.com conference call from 4/28/06:
Do we detect a pattern? Yet another analyst panning Overstock’s earnings report. Stifel Nicolaus analyst Scott Devitt believes that the company’s stock price is going to continue to lose altitude and that they may need to raise more capital. Excerpts from his research note follow:
Friedman Billings analyst Shawn Milne also lowered estimates for Overstock.com as well as his price target which went from $27 to $25. Excertpts are below…
Piper Jaffray analyst Aaron Kessler put out a note on Overstock.com where he lowered estimates and his already well below the market target for the company. An excerpt is below:
Overstock.com reported lighter than expected revenue of $180.2 million and a larger than expected loss ($15.9 million). CEO and ‘humble servant’ Patrick Byrne said to expect more of the same for the next quarter….
Always looking for ways to turn controversy into good publicity, the ever shameless Rick’s Cabaret gentlemen’s club has found a way to get Wall Streeters into their club for legitimate business purpose. They’re holding their annual meeting at their Manahattan club on May 22. And they’re holding another "Due Diligence Ball" following the release of their second quarter earnings on May 15….
Former junk bond maestro Michael Milken and Wharton School finance professor Jeremy Siegel shared their thoughts in a debate on April 26 at the annual conference sponsored by the Milken Institute…
Goldman Sachs has scored yet another magazine cover, this time the new issue of The Economist: "On top of the world – Goldman Sachs and the culture of risk"….
How many more covers before they succumb to the cover story curse?
Tags: Goldman Sachs
Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne seems to have patched things up, at least publicly, with his daddy Jack who had earlier in the year expressed displeasure with his petulant and outspoken son, threatening to quit the board. During Tuesday’s shareholder meeting in Salt Lak City the elder Byrne introduced Patrick as "my precious son" and traded quips with him. Jack did indeed step down from the chairman’s position, as he noted that he might do, but isn’t out completely, as he’s now in a new post of "deputy chairman".
Meanwhile, Patrick says that Overstock.com is out of the woods and will be profitable by the fourth quarter. Earnings (or lack thereof) will be reported tomorrow…
Doth they protest too much?: Scott Kapnick, Goldman Sachs’ investment banking co-head, says that suggestions of squabbling in the company’s top ranks are “pathetic and ill informed.”……
Tags: Goldman Sachs
Chris Carter, a 19 year investment banking veteran of Credit Suisse (where he worked with John Mack) is expected to join Morgan Stanley as vice chairman of its institutional securities division….
Tags: Morgan Stanley
A secretary at Deutsche Bank in the UK has filed suit against the firm for failing to protect her from bullying, abusive treatment from other female employees of the bank, which she says drove her to a breakdown. Helen Green, 36, claims that she was subjected to " offensive, abusive, intimidating, denigrating, bullying, humiliating, patronising, infantile and insulting words and behaviour" from four mean girl types at the firm. Deutsche bank denies that Ms. Green was bullied or harassed…
Tags: Deutsche Bank, Lawsuit
Shareholders thumbed their collective noses at Bank of America at their annual meeting on Wednesday and went against management’s recommendation by approving a resolution that requires that directors be elected by a majority vote. B of A management also faced criticism at the meeting from some shareholders, including hedge fund manager Tom Brown….
The Wall Street Journal’s Suzanne Craig interviewed Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson touching on Goldman’s biggest challenges, the recent insider trading case where one of their employees was front and center, suggestions about any plans that he might go to Washington ("I plan to be here for a good while"), assertions that the company is competing with its customers as well as that the company is "just one big hedge fund"….
Tags: Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson
A happy birthday shout to Lehman Brothers’ CEO Richard Fuld who hits the big 6-0 today!
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