Alleged madam Andrea / Andreia Schwartz who has named Time Warner’s Wayne Pace and Barrett Associates CIO Robert Voccola among her sugar daddies, is described by her husband (or ex-husband, as she seems to call him) as a "fragile, naive, sweet young woman." He’s works in Hong Kong, and in an interview with the Daily News, seems like a poor unaware schlub who is completely in denial, defending his "wife" yet admitting he has no idea what she might have been up to….
Tags: Hookers
Yongping Duan, a 45 year old California investor and former consumer electronics company owner (who"became a young hero of business in China") is the proud winner of Ebay’s auction for Lunch with Warren Buffett. Identified on Ebay as "fastisslow", he beat out a Taipai businessman named Rocky Liang whose Ebay name is "magicyourlife". After reading one of Buffett’s books Duan said "I mostly want to thank him” for the advice."…
Tags: Ebay
Many, us included, have been taking pot shots at Vonage after it’s poorly managed, ill-priced public stock offering and embarrassing stock performance. Jim Cramer has been one of the most vocal, endlessly calling the company a dog – he even recently brought a live dog on his show that he named ‘Vonage’ to illustrate his point (pictured).
The company is spinning back, defending the IPO and the company’s prospects. At a press conference on Wednesday, CEO Mike Snyder said: "The IPO did what it was supposed to do". "The goal was to raise capital, and in that respect, it was hugely successful."….
As expected, new Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has filed to sell his Goldman Sachs shares to satisfy conflict of interest rules. His 3.23 million shares are worth nearly $500 million…
Paulson files to sell $500 mln of Goldman stock – MarketWatch
Tags: Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson
Another day, another couple of options scandal club inductees: More and more companies are getting dragged into the ever broadening options mess. And their profiles are getting higher and higher, even including Home Depot and Microsoft. The latest to disclose issues: Apple and CA, Inc….
Microsoft’s sounding like a broken record: Most recently it was the much anticipated Vista that was delayed. Now Office won’t be ready as anticipated. Originally due out in October, Microsoft now won’t be releasing the next version of it’s software to big businesses until late in the year and to consumers in early 2007.
“Feedback on quality and performance will ultimately determine the exact dates,” the company said in the statement.
Microsoft has made early versions, or betas, of Office 2007 available for technical experts to download and test. In the statement, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft said the delay was due to "internal testing and the beta 2 feedback around product performance.”
Microsoft Delays Release of Office – Wall Street Journal
Going, going, GONE! Despite a last minute flurry of bids by "magicyourlife" who entered the bidding on the last day and made his/her last bid with 33 seconds to go, Warren Buffett’s Ebay auction lunch was sold to "fastisslow" for $620,100, the highest price yet for what has become an annual event. This year’s winning bid decimated last year’s winner of $350,100. "fastisslow" and 7 friends will get to lunch with Mr. Buffett at Smith & Wollensky. Proceeds from the auction will go to The Glide Foundation in San Francisco, that helps the poor and homeless.
Here’s how the bidding went:
Tags: Ebay
A parody commercial for a "socially irresponsible investment firm" (1:14)
Description: "An investment banker on Wall Street who hates his job and is stuck in the office over a weekend working when all he wants to do is skydive. Which in a way is cathartic because death wouldn’t be such a bad alternative to his job. This was pretty much a true story for me." (2:34)
With only hours to go in the Ebay auction for Lunch with Warren Buffett a new bidder has emerged. "magicyourlife" placed many bids starting at 1:38 PM EDT, but so far, to no avail. "fastisslow" still remains on top, now bidding $551,100. The auction ends at 10PM EDT.
Andrea Schwartz, the alleged high-priced-call-girl madam was arraigned yesterday. Over the objection of prosecutors, bail was set at $1 million bond or $500k cash.
Also, the name of another supposed sugar daddy was revealed. Robert Voccola, the 68 year old CIO of investment manager Barrett Associates, was apparently not quite as generous as Ms. Schwartz’s other claimed sugar daddy, Time Warner CFO Wayne Pace. According to a press report, Voccola has apparently been suspended from his job. Russ Vernon, a Barrett spokesman said: "The nature of the issue is such that there is absolutely no indication that any client accounts or funds were involved".
Meanwhile, Time Warner, which had been looking into whether any company funds had been used by Mr. Pace to pay Ms. Schwartz, has found that he did nothing wrong….
Tags: Hookers
Besieged Airbus parent EADS filed a lawsuit on June 28 in Paris over the leak of confidential audit committee minutes that wound up in the press….
Well that was fast! The Senate approved Hank Paulson this afternoon after taking a voice vote.
Tags: Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson
Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack was interviewed in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. He answered the usual businessy type questions (his views of the economy, his biggest accomplishment, his thoughts on Phil Purcell’s ouster, etc), and also shared his feelings on his "Mack the Knife" nickname.
He credits the title to the Wall Street Journal in 1992 interview when they recalled job cuts in 1988-89; but the Wall Street Journal in turn credits Morgan Stanley’s employees.
He also talked about his performing the song of the same name for charity dressed up in a shark suit (the suit was his idea). He says they bid $75K for him to do that. And interestingly, he’s got a copy of the tape somewhere. (hmmmmm…Now woudln’t *that* be fun to see? That just screams YouTube!). For a taste of what he might look like in costume, we present John Mack dressed up as Chevy Chase’s Saturday Night Live "Land Shark".
Tags: John Mack, Morgan Stanley
How embarrassing for CNBC: SEC whistleblower Gary Aguirre, arguably the most compelling witness at today’s Senate Judiciary hearing is testifying away, and what does CNBC have on? Not Gary Aguirre. Bloomberg is carrying it live.
Tags: CNBC, Gary Aguirre, John Mack, Morgan Stanley, Pequot Capital
We haven’t exactly had the kindest things to say about Vonage in our frequent posts about the company. So we had to laugh when we saw Vonage promoting themselves in our blog. It’s either very smart or very dumb. We just can’t figure out which. 
Hank Paulson, swimming ever closer to a new job as Treasury Secratary, had a confession for senators during his confirmation hearing yesterday. He had been arrested for trespassing in 1969 after jumping a fence to get into a closed West Lafayette, Indiana public swimming pool. (That’s the West Lafayette Municipal Pool pictured, but we don’t know if that was the actual scene of the crime).
“I was arrested for trespassing and fingerprinted,” Mr Paulson wrote. “Subsequently, all charges against me were dropped,” Mr Paulson said that he had swum in the pool for hours — he was, after all, an Ivy League sporting champion at the time.
Treasury chief-elect sports a youthful indiscretion – Times of London
Tags: Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson
If you didn’t see Charlie Rose’s excellent interview of Warren Buffett and Bill & Melinda Gates on 6/26 discussing Buffett’s huge donation to their new charitable foundation partnership, you can watch it here. It runs 56 minutes.
It sounds like Gary Aguirre, who’ll be testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, may himself be in some hot water if he has SEC property in his possession that he shouldn’t have taken with him when he left the SEC. That includes documents, tapes, depositions, etc. The SEC wants it all back, or he’ll be smacked him with legal penalties….
Tags: Gary Aguirre, John Mack, Morgan Stanley, Pequot Capital
Here’s the Senate Judiciary Committee speech text from SEC whisteleblower Gary Aguirre:
Tags: Gary Aguirre, John Mack, Morgan Stanley, Pequot Capital
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