Tags: Apple, Books, Enron, Hamptons, Henry Paulson, iPad, Real Estate, TARP, U.S. Treasury
Ouch!: According to Page Six, John Paulson isn’t very happy with Greg Zuckerman’s new book, “The Greatest Trade Ever“, which explores how he made guzillions on his now legendary bets on the housing market meltdown. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Books, Credit Crunch, Hedge funds, Housing bubble, John Paulson, Meltdown, Paulson & Co
She promised the lowdown details: The magnitude of his Ponzi scam may have proved he had huge balls, but the size of Bernie Madoff’s penis may have not been nearly as prodigious – at least as described by Sheryl Weinstein, ex-CFO of Hadassah who penned “Madoff’s Other Secret”, a book about her affair with Ponzi scammer Bernie Madoff: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Bernie Madoff, Books, Ponzi Schemers, Scandal, Sex
Will it be on Ruth’s summer reading list?: More tales of Bernie Madoff, the womanizer, are emerging as a former CFO with Hadassah reveals that not only did her family get screwed out of their savings, but she had an affair with him. The book, “Madoff’s Other Secret: Love, Money, Bernie, and Me” which details Sheryl Weinstein’s encounters with Madoff, comes out on August 25. We’ll be treated to pictures and according to Bloomberg “some intimate descriptions of Madoff”. We’ll all have to wait to see if those are insights into his personality or his anatomy. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Bernie Madoff, Books, ponzi schemes, Ruth Madoff, Scandal, Sex
That’s what a new book, “Madoff With the Money”, coming out next month is claiming according to Page Six. He’s said to have “robbed Uncle Sam out of two years of Viet-nam War-era Army Reserve active duty by developing a case of the nerves.” There are more tales of his being “a serial Casanova”, of a mentor’s ties to the Chicago mob, and of his wearing two gold watches, telling a friend: “I gotta know what time it is in my London office”….
Madoff a Monster From Birth – Page Six / NY Post
Tags: Bernie Madoff, Books, Fraudsters, ponzi schemes, prison inmates
A cat fight between two sisters over who should get credit for writing
"Hedge Fund Wives", a new novel expected to be out in May 2009, has
one sister suing the other. Tatiana Boncompagni Hoover filed suit against
her sibling Natasha Boncompagni for copyright infringement:
Tags: Books, Hedge funds
The legend of accused Societe Generale rogue trader Jerome Kerviel keeps getting bigger. He’s turned into quite the folk hero in France where 77% of French people responding to an Optionway poll consider him to be a "victim". Already the subject of several books, now Kerviel is further immortalized in his own comic book: “Le Journal de Jerome Kerviel,” or "The Diary of Jerome Kerviel". According to le Bloomberg:
After
inspiring at least five books, a “Save Kerviel” club and fan t-shirts, Thomas
Editions, a children’s book publisher, yesterday released “Le Journal de Jerome
Kerviel,” a fictional, illustrated “bande dessinee” memoir of the trader’s
rise and fall at France’s second-largest bank.
Tags: Books, Jerome Kerviel, Rogue Traders
Wall Street Journal reporter Greg Zuckerman is spinning the story of John Paulson’s massively profitable housing market bet into gold of his own. He’s sold a book to Doubleday, netting an estimated $250K range advance, that’s based on an early interview that he did with the Paulson & Co’s CEO. The book is being called "The Greatest Trade Ever" and could be on the shelves in early 2010. According to the NY Post:
Tags: Books, Hedge funds, Paulson & Co
According to Page Six, Barbara Walters, who recently published her kiss and tell memoirs, may be stinging from some of the criticisms over her affair with then-married Senator Edward Brooke. But more interestingly is what a playa she was, also carrying on simultaneously with Bear Stearns CEO Alan "Ace" Greenberg, and then-future Fed chief Alan Greenpan. And her housekeeper couldn’t tell the two Alans apart:
"Audition" also reveals that
after breaking up with Brooke, Walters continued seeing Greenberg while also
dating Alan Greenspan, the future Federal Reserve chairman.Her Latina housekeeper couldn’t keep the
two Alans straight. "When they gave me the message, I could only ask, which
one talked louder?" Walters wrote. "Alan Greenberg . . . talked in a
normal tone of voice. Alan Greenspan was very soft-spoken. He almost whispered.
And that’s how I would know whether it was Greenspan or Greenberg."
Barbara Starts To Feel Heat – Page Six NY Post
Tags: Alan "Ace" Greenberg, Alan Greenspan, Bear Stearns, Books, Fed
One of the winners in the demise of Bear Stearns would seem to be CNBC’s Charlie Gasparino. According to the NY Post, he got a book deal with an estimated $400K advance from publisher HarperCollins (owned by NY Post parent News Corp). That’ll buy at least a few lunches at his fave hang, San Pietro….
Gasparino’s book, "The Sellout,"
tells how Bear Stearns tossed out its tradition of hard-nosed, conservative
trading skills and plunged head first into risky debt that’s been drowning Wall
Street investment banks.Gasparino, the on-air editor at CNBC and a former Wall Street Journal reporter,
lamented that smart veterans who’d been running Wall Street banks were
"some of the most conservative traders in the world, so why did they sell
out these principles and begin to roll the dice so recklessly?""Greed," Gasparino reckoned.
$400G For Book On Bear’s Fall - NY Post
Tags: Bear Stearns, Books, CNBC
All of those hours spent shriveling up like a prune in the bathtub where he’s said to have penned most of his new tome seem to have paid off: Alan Greenspan’s "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.", is flying off of bookshelves.
The book sold 129,000 copies in its first
week on bookstore shelves, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks an
estimated 75% of retail book sales in the U.S. While that is far short of
first-week sales of the memoir of another high-profile Washington figure, former
President Bill Clinton — whose "My Life" sold 606,000 copies in its
first week in June 2004, according to BookScan — it is still strong enough to
put the book on top of best-seller lists for both Amazon.com and Barnes &
Noble’s hardcover nonfiction.
Greenspan’s Memoir Racks Up Sales – Wall Street Journal
Tags: Alan Greenspan, Books, Fed
Doug Stumpf’s new novel, "Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy" is getting lots of favorable press. We’ve pointed to reviews, and now Page Six wonders if the main character is based upon Bear Stearns alum / billionalre / alleged perv Jeffrey Epstein, although the author says that all of the characters are composites of many people:
The novel, which centers around rogue
trader "Jeff Steed" and an insider-trading scandal at the fictitious
firm of Medved, Morningstar & Bigelow, reminds some readers of Epstein and
his departure from Bear Stearns in the early 1980s.In the book, Steed, like Epstein, has a
penchant for sexy, young model types, goes out of his way to avoid boozing, and
lives in a vast Manhattan mansion with gaudy and monstrous furniture as well as
a huge spread in Palm Beach. Steed abruptly leaves Medved (Russian for
"bear") with a hefty bonus in his back pocket amid accusations of
illegal activity. Later, when he learns a magazine is writing a story on him, he
manages to bypass security, corner the editor-in-chief in his office, and
threaten his career.
Tags: Bear Stearns, Books, Jeffrey Epstein
In early July we highlighted a Barron’s review of Doug Stumpf’s new novel, Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy. It sounded like a fun read, and we’re happy to say, after reading it, that it didn’t disappoint. Earlier today, the author was interviewed on CNBC along with Michael Wolf of Vanity Fair. Here’s the video as well as Vanity Fair’s recent review.
Tags: Banking Culture, Books, Fashion
Barron’s reviews the new novel Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy as "complex with entertaining overtones": Wall Street wizards…money grubbing wives…insider trading…mansions….models….sex orgies…How could you go wrong?
DOUG STUMPF’S RIBALD, FAST-MOVING first
novel is light enough to toss into your beach bag. But it’s also got an
engrossing serious side. And it’s for real: The details of character and plot
are based mainly on testimony of an actual Brazilian shoe-shine boy who, with
polish and brush, breached the inner sanctum of a big Manhattan financial firm
– where he inadvertently discovered its sometimes amusing, sometimes grimy,
nooks and crannies.The jigsaw-puzzle plot — centering on
piecing together the clues to insider-trading scams at the firm — is thickened
by a Cecil B. DeMille-sized cast of characters…
Tags: Banking Culture, Books, Fashion
Pete Peterson’s daughter Holly will be celebrating her new debut novel "The Manny" at the Four Seasons at a party being thrown by her dad tonight.
Here’s a video for the book…
Tags: Blackstone, Books
According to USA Today the new book "Boeing versus Airbus", by former New Yorker magazine writer John Newhouse, describes Airbus’ Jean Pierson’s 1997 negotiation with US Air’s Stephen Wolf over the purchase of a new fleet of planes — he dropped his pants to make a point, and got the deal done, setting the stage for the big rivalry between Boeing and Airbus:
Pierson, who ran Airbus from 1985 to 1998, was at US Airways’ headquarters for what he thought would be a short meeting to tie up a 400-plane deal, the anecdote runs.
At the last minute, US Airways’ then-chairman Stephen Wolf started arguing for a 5% discount on the selling price.
"Pierson began slowly lowering his trousers and saying ‘I have nothing more to give.’ He then allowed the trousers to fall around his ankles," says Newhouse in his book.
This picture, thought to be of former Merrill Lynch banker turned "Golden Handcuffs" author Polly Courtney, was sent in to us by a reader (Thanks!) who wrote:
"Well, in London last week I saw this (see attached [the photo]), driving through town in a crazy convoy… is this the pole-dancing author herself?
We’re guessing it’s probably her. (See another picture below). From her website, there’s even a contest. If you spot one of those little cars, you can score a free copy of her book. Guess our reader didn’t know about that — unless our reader is a sly Ms. Courtney, who knew we’d post it. 
Tags: Books, Merrill Lynch
Last month we noticed on Amazon.com that Sandy Weill was coming out with a new book: The Real Deal: My Life in Business and Philanthropy. It’s now out, and the New York Sun has a review.
Sandy Weill’s new book accomplishes what nobody expected it could in the era of the bloated and arrogant business autobiography. "The Real Deal: My Life in Business and Philanthropy" is a refreshingly honest and candid reflection by the most important man on Wall Street in the second half of the 20th century.
Tags: Books
Just in time for the release of Michael Lewis’ new book “The Blind Side,” coming out next month, the author of Wall Street must-read "Liar’s Poker" reviews Jonathan Knee’s "The Accidental Investment Banker".
It’s as if some editor told author and investment banker Jonathan Knee that to gain the love and trust of ordinary readers he need only cast himself as an outsider, gin up a bit of phony self-deprecation, and let the popular hatred of Wall Street do the rest. After all, the common man, and the media that serves him, are forever looking for new weapons to use against the Street, and willing to accept almost any level of phoniness from an author who gives them one. (Check out the sales of “Liar’s Poker”!)
Tags: Books, Evercore, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley
Tags: Books
Look what we found: We were browsing through the upcoming books at Amazon, and we noticed that Sandy Weill has a new book coming out on October 9, called The Real Deal: My Life in Business and Philanthropy . The description notes that, among other topics, he discusses "relationships with competitors and colleagues alike, including protégés like Peter Cohen and Jamie Dimon". Wonder if there’s any real dish there. Guess we’ll find out fairly soon!
More on the book and comments from Alan Greenspan and others below…
Tags: Books
Affirmative action for the rich folks: If your kids participate in sports mostly for the upper-class — like rowing, if there’s a family history with a school, or you just plain have tons of cash, The Price of Admission, a new book by Dan Golden, says that of course you can get preferential treatment to get your kids into Harvard, Duke and other top schools. And Harvard alum and recent buyer of the New York Observer Jared Kushner is a case in point…
Tags: Books
This is pretty funny. Polly Courtney, who was interviewed by The Observer this past weekend, and who has penned the new apparently self-published book "Golden Handcuffs" detailing her disillusionment with investment banking — at Merrill Lynch as it turns out — has admitted to being a pole dancer at a club called "For Your Eyes Only" on a website. However, when asked about it by the Daily Mail, she claims that she was just being sarcastic and that "I’d never do anything like that". (Uh huh).
In the Observer article, Ms. Courtney describes her disillusionment with the banking business with its long,unpredictable hours and ample sexism, which is the subject of her novel. She even described how she never felt "properly invited to "lads night out". Ironically it appears that she might have been pretty comfortable if she had been properly invited.
We’re not knocking pole dancing. It’s really catching on as a form of exercise. Even Christine Schwarzman, wife of Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman has been observed to take a turn or two around a pole….
Tags: Books, Interns, Merrill Lynch, Pole Dancing
We meant to post this yesterday, but time just got away from us. On Sunday, The Observer featured an interview with Polly Courtney, who’s coming out with the novel "Golden Handcuffs" in November, about two recent college graduates who find themselves "working with, for, and against each other" at competing investment banking firms in London. "It is about ambition, resilience and shattered dreams, and what it means to sell your soul to the City."
And it’s something that she’s said to have experienced first hand as both an intern and in a full time job with a banking firm. In the interview, Ms. Courtney talks about being courted, as well as the perks and high pay that she received – but which ultimately came at the expense of being hugely overworked, subjected to unpredictable hours, sexism (including comments about how/why she got her job and never feeling properly invited to "lads night out") and nasty backstabbing. It wasn’t worth it to her. So the disillusioned banker chucked it to write her upcoming book.
By way of curiousity, we found that Ms. Courtney has a website where we notice that she has some interesting thoughts on the Helen Green court decision vs Deutsche Bank. (aka woman who was awarded £800,000 after having been bullied by female employees.). (More below).
Tags: Banking Culture, Books, Discrimination, Interns, Merrill Lynch
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