Wall Street Folly

Tags: Allen Stanford, Bank of America, Barack Obama, Economists, Harvard, Inquisitions, Jamie Dimon, KKR, Morgan Stanley, recalls, SEC, Sovereign debt, Toyota, TPG

• Steven Cohen’s ex-wife dished to FBI
• Finra Probes Wall Street’s Trade Huddles
• Last Days of BofA’s Hunt For a CEO: Pay, Politics
• Banking Panel Backs Bernanke for New Term
• Discord Behind TARP Exits
• Pimco’s Gross Boosts Cash to Most Since Lehman Failed
• Harvard Swaps Are So Toxic Even Summers Won’t Explain
• Judge sets January 2011 trial for Stanford defendants
• TCW defections reach 40
• Bing! Information Designs sues Microsoft for trademark Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Allen Stanford, Ben Bernanke, Fed, FINRA, Harvard, Microsoft, Pimco, Revolving Door, SAC Capital, Steven A. Cohen, TARP, TCW

• Khadafy booted from Camp Trump
• Palin Attacks Fed on Hong Kong Visit, Wants ‘Responsible China’
• Ken and Linda Lay’s condo for sale for $12.8 million
• MCapital delays launch amid lack of seed funds
• Yale Endowment Posts a 25% Loss
• Harvard, NYU Law Students Left Hanging as Firms Slash Offers Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Donald Trump, Endowments, Fed, Harvard, Hedge funds, Ken Lay, Law School, Moammar Khadafy, NIMBY, Real Estate, Revolving Door, Sarah Palin, terrorist thugs, Yale

• Geithner Wants Bankers’ Pay in Equity That Can Be ‘Clawed Back
• SEC officials promise changes after Madoff failure
• SEC Outlines Madoff Lessons
• Wells Fargo exec used Malibu Colony home lost by Madoff-duped couple, neighbors say
• Mack Steps Down as Morgan Stanley Chief After Shying From Risk
• Morgan, Under Mack, Lagged Behind Peers This Year
• For Gorman, a Test of His Leadership
• Harvard and Yale endowments suffer heavy losses
• Yale to Cut $150 Million Annually Through Fiscal 2014 Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Allen Stanford, Bernie Madoff, Bloomberg, Bonuses, Compensation, Endowments, Harvard, James Gorman, John Mack, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, SEC, Tim Geithner, U.S. Treasury, UBS, Wells Fargo, Yahoo, Yale

• Bernanke to Testify as New BofA Details Emerge
• Lawmaker accuses Fed of “cover-up” in BofA deal
• Fed Shielded Facts Of Merrill Sale, Republicans Say
• G.O.P. Expected to Paint Bernanke as Ally of Big Government
• AIG to Cut Debt to Federal Reserve of New York by $25 Billion
• Short Selling of S&P 500 Increases for First Time Since March Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: AIG; Short selling, Allen Stanford, AQR, Autos, Ben Bernanke, Fed, Harvard, Headline Roundup, KKR, Politics

• Moody’s Says U.S.’s Aaa Debt Rating ‘Remains Solid’
• Three Banks Suspend Their TARP Dividends
• Recovery’s Missing Ingredient: New Jobs
• Harvard Cuts Risk, Loses Bond Managers
• Settlement Anticipated in UBS Case
• Insurers face $6bn bill for board protection Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Apple, Harvard, Headline roundup; Moody's, Ratings, retailers, TARP, UBS

• Pimco’s Gross Questions Investments of Harvard, Yale Endowments
• Mortgage Delinquency Reaches Record High
• Birinyi Expects Less Broad-Based Gains for Stocks Through 2011
• Temasek Lost Half Of Five-Year Gains In Eight Mos

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Tags: Bill Gross, Endowments, Harvard, mortgages, Pimco, Politics, Temasek, Yale

Harvard's endowment retrenches in a big way:  By the end of the year they had cut their direct publicly traded stock holdings by a whopping two thirds…

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Tags: Endowments, Harvard

Some Harvard Medical School grants sponsored by the Picower Foundation have had the rug pulled out from under them — Picower was yet another one of Bernie Madoff's scam victims.  According to the Harvard Crimson:

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Tags: Bernie Madoff, Harvard, Legal

It's been ages since we've heard anything about any of the guys from the insider trader ring that included former Harvard
educated ballroom dancer extraordinaire and wannabe
novelist/screenwriter Eugene Plotkin, who was one of the masterminds of the well
publicized global insider trading ring uncovered in 2006 featuring strippers,
a Croatian seamstress, a
U.S. Postal worker, BusinessWeek employees and a
Russian bath house.  Plotkin was sentenced in January of this year to serve 4 years and nine months in prison, along with a $10K fine and forfeiture of $6.7 million in ill gotten gains.

Now, it seems, his partner in crime, David Pajcin, a former Goldman analyst has gone missing and is in violation of his probation agreement; it's suspected that he may have left the country. Maybe.  Pajcin had pleaded guilty, cooperated with prosecutors, and was also sentenced in January to around 2 years in prison –  time he'd already served.  So if he's fled, it's unclear why, since he wasn't facing more jail time.  Bizarre.  There's gotta be more to this story.  According to Bloomberg:

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Tags: Eugene Plotkin, Goldman Sachs, Harvard, Insider Trading, Legal

Permanent curtains for Harvard alum magazine 02138?

Three Strikes You're Out! – NY Post

Tags: Harvard, Ivy League

Mirroring what many on Wall Street are already doing, especially in these uncertain times:  BusinessWeek cites the latest business school trend: MBA students are taking up yoga classes as a way to destress.  Students at University of Chicago, MIT’s Sloan School, Harvard Business School and Northwestern’s Kellogg School all are seeing increased popularity of yoga classes.

Tags: Harvard, Health, MBA

Jane Mendillo, Wellesley College’s CIO, will take over at the helm of the nation’s largest collenge endowment  ($34.9B) on July 1.  Her predecessor, Mohamed El-Erian, left Harvard to return to a very fat job at Pimco.

During her five years at Wellesley, the
school’s endowment had an average annualized return of 13.5%, and grew to $1.7
billion from $1 billion. Prior to Wellesley, Ms. Mendillo worked for 15 years at
Harvard Management, where she held a number of positions, including vice
president of external management.

"Jane Mendillo has an excellent record
as one of the most able and accomplished investment managers in the endowment
world, as well as an extensive knowledge of the Harvard endowment and a deep
commitment to higher education," said James F. Rothenberg, treasurer of
Harvard University and chairman of the HMC board of directors.

Harvard Taps Mendillo To Oversee Endowment – Wall Street Journal

Tags: Endowments, Harvard

It didn’t beat Yale’s 28%, but Stanford’s endowment jumped a perky 23% in the year ended June 30 (tying Harvard’s 23% gain).  Assets stood at $17.2 billion, making it the third largest college endowment, after Harvard ($34.9 billion) and Yale ($22.5 billion). 

The investment return for 12 months ended
  June 30 helped lift Stanford’s endowment assets to $17.2 billion, John Powers,
  head investor for the school, near Palo Alto, California, said in an interview
  today. Stanford has earned an average of 15.1 percent a year in the past
  decade.
 
  “Those asset classes were pretty strong across the board,” Powers, the chief
  executive officer of Stanford Management Co., said of his fund’s
  top-performing investments. Stanford doesn’t disclose how its money is
  allocated.

Stanford Endowment Rises 23 Percent on Non-U.S. Stocks, Buyouts – Bloomberg

Tags: Endowments, Harvard

Being at the helm of the largest university endowment in the country ($34.9 billion) is certainly prestigious, but the kind of green that Mohamed El-Erian will likely be returning to when he makes his way back to Pacific Investment Management Co, will no doubt make ivy green pale into nothingness in comparison. Let’s face it — endowments just don’t pay like big hedge funds do.  He made all of $2.6 million last year, hardly hedge fund rock star pay for his 23% gain.  El-Erian, 49, is returning to his old firm in January with two pimped out PIMCO titles: co-chief executive officer and co-chief investment officer.

Harvard recruited El-Erian in October 2005
to fill the void left a month earlier by the departure of 15-year investment
chief Jack Meyer, who left along with almost three dozen Harvard officials to
start a Boston-based hedge fund. El-Erian rebuilt the staff and guided the
endowment to a 23 percent gain in the fiscal year ended June 30, adding $5.7
billion to the world’s biggest university endowment.

“Mohamed has done an impressive job guiding and reorganizing Harvard Management
Co., and we will miss his leadership,” said James F. Rothenberg, treasurer of
Harvard University and chairman of the fund’s board. “In addition to achieving
excellent investment returns, he has led ambitious efforts to rebuild HMC during
his time as CEO.”

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Tags: Endowments, Harvard, Hedge funds, Pimco

The largest college endowment in the U.S., Harvard Management, posted a hefty gain of 23% for the year ended June 30, 2007 getting a big lift from stocks, real estate and private equity.  Total assets ended the year at $34.9 billion.  Those returns didn’t however include results during the recent market turbulence.  Even after a $350 million July loss owing to its investment in imploded hedge fund Sowood Capital, equal to around 1% of assets, they were up slightly for the month:

But Mohamed El-Erian, head of the group that manages the endowment, said that despite the losses from Sowood and a tough month for global stock markets, the endowment was still ahead about 0.4% in July, thanks to a "high degree of diversification."

After a period of transition, Mr. El-Erian has assembled a new team of managers at Harvard Management Co., which had been hit by turnover as dozens of staffers left to form their own hedge funds. Jack Meyer, Harvard’s former top investment manager, took about 30 people with him to launch Convexity Capital Management in 2005.

Emerging-market stocks were the endowment’s top performer, returning 44% in the 12 months through June. Investments in real estate and private equity both returned more than 30%.

Harvard Fund Hits a Record - Wall Street Journal

Tags: Endowments, Harvard

Why Harvard Is Smarting Subprime casualties provide feast for canny credit vultures Bear, Lehman, Merrill Trade as Junk, Derivatives Show Subprime Defaults Blamed for Corporate America Earning Setbacks Are hedge fund collapse fears overblown? Are Big Insurers Protected From the Subprime Fallout? Moody’s Says Some `Alt A’ Mortgages Are Like Subprime

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Tags: Bear Stearns, Distressed, Harvard, Hedge funds, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch

The Speechmaker: How Bill Gates Got Ready for Harvard Boom Aside, Not All LBOs Look So Hot

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Tags: Bill Gates, Harvard, LBO / MBO, Philanthropy

UBS Hedge Fund Loss Ensnares Wuffli With Debacle Reprising LTCM Bulge-bracket banking model has spawned monsters Admissions Tips from Harvard

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Tags: Harvard, Hedge funds, investment banking

Other dissed applicants, according to 02138 (the independent magazine for Harvard alums), include Ted Turner, Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy and John Kerry.

Look Who Harvard Blew Off - Page Six New York Post

Tags: Harvard

The Financial Times has an excellent interview with Harvard endowment investment manager Mohamed El-Erian:

FT: I wanted to start by asking you how concerned you are by the problems we’ve seen recently in the sub prime market.

EL-ERIAN: The serious problem that we are seeing is a shake out of certain creditors out of the market. I think it was long overdue. The big question is: Does it spread? And do you see a more general credit tightening? So far, the evidence is you won’t, but I think that it is something that needs to be watched very carefully.

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Tags: Harvard

Sex is proving to be a tough sell at Harvard:

H Bomb, the much-hyped sex magazine created by Harvard University students, has fizzled before publishing its third issue.

The magazine put out only two issues in almost three years and is facing a fiscal crisis, the Harvard Crimson reported earlier this week.

H Bomb appears to have suffered from a combination of too much hype in the early going, too little interest among its business staff, and confusion over what the publication was supposed to be about.

“It got a lot of press, the word ‘porn’ was thrown around, and it got a lot of people interested and excited,” former business manager Vladimir Djuric told the Herald.. “A lot of people thought they would see naked Harvard girls.”

And there were nekkid Harvard babes in the magazine.  But apparently not enough, since the more seriously toned magazine didn’t sell.  While sex may not be selling at Harvard, Boston University alum Alecia Oleyourryk’s "Boink" magazine is at least breaking even.

Harvard’s H Bomb mag suffers fiscal implosion – Boston Herald

Tags: Harvard

Facing its lowest investment returns in three years with a 16.7% gain, Harvard’s endowment, at $29.2 billion — the worlds largest — has trimmed its target allocation to bonds to 13%, and cut index-tracking investments to 30% according to its manager, Mohamed El-Erian.   In addition, he plans to increase investments overseas in private equity, real estate and commodities.  And if you need a job, he’ll be hiring.  He’s already hired Karen Parker Feld of Wellington Management to head a new foreign exchange unit, Marc Seidner of Standish Mellon Asset Management to head U.S. bond investing, and Kathryn Murtagh of Goodwin Proctor LLP as chief compliance officer.  He plans to hire an additional 15 to 25 people:

El-Erian, 48, says he’s not going to let Harvard become overly reliant on a single team or strategy again. He has cut the fund’s traditional dependence on bonds, shifting more assets to buyout funds and non-U.S. markets. He also hired five senior managers from Stanford, Deutsche Bank AG and elsewhere to replenish Harvard’s in-house talent.

“We needed to be retooling, irrespective of whether we had gone through a transition,” El-Erian said in an interview in his office in the Boston Federal Reserve Building, overlooking the harbor. Building management depth means Harvard should “not have to go through such a transition again,” he said.

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Tags: Endowments, Harvard

Streaking is back! Wooohoooo!!! An MIT student played streaker at the recent Harvard – Yale football game on November 18.  You can see it from two different perspectives  — the second one is further below:

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Tags: Harvard

Where the Harvard herd is landing as a contrary indicator: For 25 years Ray Soifer, a former Brown Brothers executive who retired in 2000 has been scrutinizing what kind of jobs Harvard MBAs have been taking.  His conclusion: If they’re hoovering up Wall Street related jobs, the market is sending a long-term ’sell’ signal.  If they’re shunning them, the market’s a long-term ‘buy’:

Mr. Soifer tracks how many Harvard Business School graduates choose market-sensitive jobs each year. If 10% or less of that year’s class take jobs in investment banking, investment management, sales & trading, venture capital, private equity, or leveraged buy-outs, it’s a long-term ‘buy’ signal.

If 30% or more take such jobs, it’s a long-term ‘sell.’

This year, around 37% of HBS grads went to Wall street.  That’s up from 30% last year and 26% in the prior year. Soifer’s theory suggests that Wall Street is getting too popular with grads, and that the economy could be in for some rough sledding over the longer term.  We note though that  if you went short last year on the basis of the theory, and stayed short, you could be feeling some at-least shorter-term pain given the recent rally to new highs.  But over the longer term, with the frothiness in private equity, hedge funds, etc., the theory could still work.

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Tags: Harvard