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Archive for December, 2006
Selected Barron’s Headlines
On December - 31 - 2006
Wall Street Folly Headline Roundup – 12/29/06
On December - 29 - 2006
- Private Equity Invades India
- Skadden Ousts Sullivan & Cromwell as Top Legal Adviser on Deals
- GLG Partners to appeal against fine
- Heard on the Street: Marsh Is Hoping Sale of Putnam Buries Its Woes
- John F. Mangan, Jr. to Fight SEC Charges
- SEC Accuses Ex-Friedman Broker of Insider Trading [John Mangan]
More headlines below
Charlie Rose: An hour with Intel Chairman Craig Barrett
On December - 28 - 2006
Wall Street Folly Headline Roundup – 12/28/06
On December - 28 - 2006
- Bank Loans Lure KKR, Carlyle With Junk-Bond Returns
- Top Wall Street jobs still elude women, minorities
- GLG fined €1.2m over Alcatel trading
- Pegasus, Merrill Lynch Create Argentina Property Fund
- Feds probe fake Apple documents
More headlines below
Video: Credit Suisse Xmas Party band
On December - 27 - 2006
We’re not sure which part of Credit Suisse had a Christmas party with this band, but it seems to be out of London, where the 60’s-80’s cover band "Full Phat Funk" is based. The video is entitled "Credite Suisse Xmas Party". Sadly there are no revelers caught on film making fools of themselves. The band is all you see (they put up the video) and they’re pretty bland — we weren’t impressed. But then again, what can one expect from a bank that’s cutting costs and with it the budgets for parties?….. (6:15)
Tags: Credit Suisse
Video: Season’s Greetings from Bear Stearns’ media analysts
On December - 27 - 2006
Bear Stearns media research analysts (Bob Peck, Michael Meltz, Spencer Wong, Alexia Quadrani and Victor Miller) wishing you happy holidays via YouTube… (:16)
Tags: Bear Stearns
Wall Street Folly Headline Roundup – 12/27/06
On December - 27 - 2006
- Faked Documents May Be at Core of Apple Case
- Private equity firms form group amid M&A boom
- The Biggest Private Equity Firms Are Turning Their Focus to Asia
- While Contributing to Problem, Blackstone Chief Frets About It
- Mergers About to Get Even Hotter in 2007, Selig, Yeary Say
- Merrill brokers get plum
More headlines below
Notoriety can pay: Nick Leeson on the lecture scene
On December - 26 - 2006
So what’s former Barings Bank rogue trader Nick Leeson up to these days? You may recall that Leeson went to prison for four years after the 1995 Barings collapse where he lost $1.3 billion (almost chump change in comparison to Brian Hunter’s decade later $6.5 billionish Amaranth losses). After his release he was treated for colon cancer and was managing a soccer team in Ireland. Now he’s on the lecture circuit, warning bankers of the hazards of rogue traders like him, earning £5,000 ($9,800) a pop.
In November, he spoke at an annual dinner of financial regulators in London’s financial district and then headed to Amsterdam for a speech to a large firm of auditors.
The previous month, he gave a presentation in Dublin on banking scandals, arguing that he himself should have been stopped by Barings at an early stage.
The British bank, he said, was culpable for failing to supervise him and for accepting the bluster of a young trader who was prepared to disguise his trading losses.
Tags: Nick Leeson
Reformed man?: Dan Loeb won’t vogue for Men’s Vogue
On December - 26 - 2006
We find it hard to believe, but Page Six reports that famously vocal hedge fund manager Dan Loeb is suddenly clamming up — at least to Men’s Vogue:
DANIEL Loeb is as famous for his razor-sharp skills as a hedge-fund manager overseeing $3.5 billion in assets as he is for his vicious attacks on fellow financial whizzes – but his blowhard behavior may be fading as quickly as day traders in the dotcom era.
Next month’s Men’s Vogue says the 44-year-old Wall Street wunderkind, who raked in $150 million for himself last year and splashed $45 million of it on a spectacular, 10,000-square-foot penthouse at 15 Central Park West, is suddenly keeping his trap shut in a bid to remake himself as a kinder, gentler money man.
His newly launched silent act "speaks volumes about Loeb’s commitments to rehabbing his reputation . . . If a hedge fund manager with as many sharp edges as Loeb is trying to soften his image, could the era of the hedge fund cowboy be over?"…
When confronted by a Men’s Vogue reporter at a fund-raiser, Loeb snapped, "I can’t talk to you. I’m not allowed to talk to you," and then backed away.
The mag comments: "Not allowed?"
Hedge Fund King Pipes Down – New York Post Page Six
Wall Street Folly Headline Roundup – 12/26/06
On December - 26 - 2006
- Hedge funds see lack of short opportunities in ‘07
- Hedge-Fund Tax Break Raises Flags
- I-Banks Jockey for Position
- LBO Fever Stays Hot
- Can Private Equity Build a Public Face?
- Citigroup Loses Business in Japan on Nikko’s Lapse
- Gold May Rise as Investors Seek Alternative to Dollar Assets
More headlines below
James Brown: 1933 – 2006
On December - 25 - 2006
Selected Barron’s Headlines
On December - 25 - 2006
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Evercore shells out $63 million for small boutique
On December - 22 - 2006
Evercore snapped up a small London boutique investment banking firm for $63 million that was founded just a few months ago in March 2006:
Braveheart Financial Services was founded by Bernard Taylor and Julian Oakley – its sole shareholders – and employs just 10 people, although it expects to have 20 to 30 bankers in place by the end of the current hiring season.
The deal is evidence of the mounting interest in London’s growing band of small "boutique" City advisory firms set up by refugees from big firms.
Tags: Evercore, investment banking, M&A
The holidays are the best time to announce bad news
On December - 22 - 2006
‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. And that’s why it’s the best time of year to issue earnings warnings and other bad news:
Said the chairman of Rubenstein Public Relations, Howard Rubenstein: "It’s a deeply ingrained strategy with people in public relations. The purveyors of bad news — public relations people and politicians — are very apt to go out with it the night before Christmas, when all through the house, no one was there."
Mr. Rubenstein said people are not only likely to miss news that breaks during the holidays, but that they actively ignore bad news in order to maintain a sense of holiday cheer.
"The influencers, the people who carry the money bags around, are on vacation. And as the story appears on Christmas, people’s spirits are good, and bad news sometimes skates right by," Mr. Rubenstein said.
All the Bad News at the End of the Year Turns Out To Be No Coincidence – New York Sun
Tags: Holidays
Uncategorized
Bear Stearns CEO gets stock bonus valued at $14.8 million plus options
On December - 22 - 2006
Next to the gargantuan bonuses that his peers like Lloyd Blankfein ($53.4 million) and John Mack ($40 million) received, Bear Stearns’ CEO Jimmy Cayne’s $14.8 million stock bonus seems downright stingy in comparison. According to an SEC filing he also got options of an undisclosed value. We don’t know the cash component which wasn’t included in the filing. But we’re sure that Mr. Cayne still won’t be doing too badly, so we’re not gonna pass the hat for him:
Bear Stearns Cos. gave Chief Executive Officer James Cayne a bonus of stock units valued at about $14.8 million after the firm reported its fifth straight year of record profit.
Bear Stearns awarded Cayne 89,758 stock units valued at $165.32 apiece. Cayne, 72, also received options to buy 35,788 shares of stock, the New York-based securities firm said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today. The filing didn’t say how the options were valued. Stock awards are the first part of annual executive compensation the firm makes public.
Cayne’s total pay package typically has exceeded those of CEOs at Wall Street’s biggest brokerage firms as a portion of total earnings. Last year, for example, he was paid $30.3 million when Bear Stearns made $1.5 billion. Merrill Lynch & Co. CEO Stan O’Neal got $35.4 million when his company earned $5.1 billion. Fiscal 2006 profit at Bear Stearns, the fifth-biggest U.S. brokerage, surged 40 percent to an all-time high of $2.1 billion.
Tags: Bear Stearns, Bonuses, Jim Cayne
Wall Street Folly Headline Roundup – 12/22/06
On December - 22 - 2006
- Leveraged Loans Take Center Stage
- Managers Dress Up Portfolios for Year End
- BofA restructures global markets business
- Deutsche Bank to Pay $208 Million, End Spitzer Probe
- Texas Pacific, Apax Sell Bonds, Not Equity, for LBO Dividends
- Fidelity to Pay Funds $42 Million After Gifts Review
More headlines below
“Booze buses” will take care of London revelers celebrating their fat bonuses
On December - 22 - 2006
With record bonuses being celebrated, London’s financial district is all prepared for the revelers, setting up "booze buses" to take care of those who get a little too happy:
The London Ambulance Service has set up a mobile treatment center in the financial district and a “booze bus” in the West End to cope with the masses of workers celebrating record bonuses this year.
The field hospital in Finsbury Circus, the heart of the City of London, is designed to relieve pressure on ambulances and emergency rooms elsewhere, the Ambulance Service said in an e- mailed statement. It expects “substantially” more than 30,000 revelers to descend on the area….
“The Thursday and Friday before Christmas is traditionally a very busy period for us,” said paramedic Jason Killens at the treatment center. “Last Friday, emergency calls were up by 15 percent. We need to look at alternate ways of dealing with that demand.”…
Hedge-fund managers who spend too much time in the drinking haunts of Mayfair, the world’s most expensive business location, will have support from a “booze bus” patrolling the city’s West End. The vehicle can take up to five people to hospital when emergency treatment isn’t necessary en route, Bass said.
Tags: Banking Culture, Bonuses, Food/Drink, Hedge funds
Investment banking rankings war
On December - 21 - 2006
Who’s gonna have bragging rights as the number one dealmaker this year? According to the New York Post "a squabble is erupting" over who gets the crown:
Just as the formal rankings were revealed yesterday by data outfit Thomson Financial, putting Goldman Sachs on top with nearly $1.049 trillion in deals – just barely ahead of Citigroup’s $1.021 trillion – officials at Citigroup were said to have contacted Thomson by letter to cry foul.
Citigroup complained that the rankings failed to include a major piece of a Citigroup deal in Europe involving Statoil ASA’s $30 billion acquisition of Norsk Hydro ASA’s energy assets…..
Three other big banks also chimed in with complaints claiming they, too, failed to get credit for some of their deals, depriving them of possible higher spots on the rankings list.
The banks were Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers and even announced leader Goldman Sachs…
Deal & More Deals; Goldman’s $1T Takes Title, Maybe – New York Post
Tags: Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, M&A, Morgan Stanley
Video: Access Hollywood — The Donald vs Rosie
On December - 21 - 2006
Here’s footage of the Donald Trump firing back at Rosie O’Donnell from Access Hollywood:
Trump Fires Back At Rosie… Hard!
Tags: Donald Trump
Reuters reports that Standard & Poors expects to start a service early next year that rates hedge funds on operational risk so that industry black eyes like Amaranth might be avoided.:
A former HSBC senior banker, who claims he was dismissed in 2004 because he was gay, lost his appeal of the the high profile £5 million suit that he had brought against the firm:
Morgan Stanley is in hot water again over the failure to produce emails it claims were destroyed in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade center. The NASD filed suit against the firm on Tuesday.:
