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04 Nov 2011 08:14

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Biz: BREAKING: Jon Corzine resigns from troubled, bankrupt MF Global

  • He will pass on a $12 million severance package, AP reports. The former New Jersey governor, who has been the target of much scrutiny as a result of shady business practices (it appears he bet the business on the Euro debt crisis using investor money, and lost, meaning that the investor money is gone), quit his job early Friday. “I feel great sadness for what has transpired at MF Global and the impact it has had on the firm’s clients, employees and many others,” he said in a statement. “I intend to continue to assist the company and its board in their efforts to respond to regulatory inquiries and issues related to the disposition of the firm’s assets.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

01 Nov 2011 11:30

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Biz: MF Global mixes its customers’ assets with its own sucky balance sheet

  • Reports of short falls of client money … if true would be a disaster for all the smaller brokers and banks as nobody will trust them anymore.
  • A trader based out of London • Discussing the situation with MF Global, a financial firm hard hit by the Euro debt crisis, which apparently failed to keep customer money separate from the firm’s own accounts. The company, led by former Goldman Sachs leader and ex-New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (great combination), is raising the spectre of some if the 2008 financial crisis gunk — remember Lehmann Bros.? Let’s hope they can get this settled and — most importantly — customers can get their money out. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Oct 2011 16:07

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Biz: Citigroup settles civil fraud complaint over derivatives scheme

  • $285 million payout by Citigroup over fraud complaint source
  • » A tidy little sum: It’s being reported that Citigroup has agreed to the above settlement, which would bring to an end a civil fraud complaint filed by some of their investors. The story is, as it happens, quite similar to what Goldman Sachs was found to have done (Goldman shelled out $550 million in that case). Citigroup helped structure investment portfolios for their clients without telling them that the bank itself was selecting the assets while betting against their success. In simple terms, a conflict of interest, and one that netted the company nearly $1 billion dollars. That figure, also, says something about the problem of mega-corporations buying out of legal trouble; namely, the amount it costs to satisfy a plaintiff is nearly never enough to such a company to truly dissuade the behavior.
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Jul 2011 23:23

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World: The US Treasury is running low on cash

  • 29 companies have more money than the United States Treasury
  • 7 of those companies are based in America source
  • » The American companies include: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and Freddie Mac. Two of the top three companies on the list are Chinese. On the upside, the Treasury has as much money as Google, so that’s kind of a nice consolation prize.
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

19 Apr 2011 11:04

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Biz: That was a big loan: Goldman Sachs just paid back Warren Buffett

  • $5
    billion     the amount Warren Buffett loaned to Goldman Sachs at the nadir of the financial crisis back in 2008; wish we could loan out that kind of cash
  • $5.64 billion the amount they paid Warren back last quarter, including interest earned — that’s on top of dividends they already paid out source
  • » A pretty hefty one-time charge: While Goldman Sachs’ profits for the current quarter, $2.74 billion, were down 21 percent from a year earlier because of the payday to their sugar daddy, if you don’t count the payment to Warren, their profits — $8.38 billion — would have been up by 49 percent from a year earlier. In other words, they’re richer than we are and Wall Street is celebrating.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Apr 2011 10:26

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Politics: Carl Levin rips “financial snake pit” Goldman Sachs into shreds

  • Our investigation found a financial snake pit rife with greed, conflicts of interest, and wrongdoing.
  • Sen. Carl Levin • Offering an assessment of a report that his subcommittee, which is searching for the causes of the financial crisis, released about the crisis. The report singles out Goldman Sachs, calling it a “case study” for the conflicts of interest that abound around Wall Street — specifically for betting against the very subprime mortgage packages it was selling. Levin also wants to bring perjury charges against Goldman’s CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, for his testimony in Congress last year. In other words, someone has watched “Inside Job.” The stock market is down on the news of the 600-page report. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

21 Jan 2011 19:32

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Biz, Tech: Mark Zuckerberg swimming in Facebook cash infusions right now

  • We know what Mark Zuckerberg’s doing right now. He’s taking his daily swim in Facebook money. (We’re sure the Winklevi are rowing through their much smaller pile of litigation money.) As we’re sure you’ve heard, Facebook has been making fast friends with Goldman Sachs to increase its funding base without going public, which they’re going out of their way to not do for some reason. How much money have they raised? Well, to give you an idea:
  • $1.5 billion raised by Facebook in the last freaking month
  • $500
    million     the amount Facebook raised in that shady-sounding Goldman Sachs deal a while back
  • $1
    billion     the amount Facebook raised from Goldman Sachs’ uber-rich individual international clients source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

19 Jan 2011 11:11

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Biz: Goldman Sachs has crappy quarter; sucks to be them

  • 53% the dip in Goldman Sachs’ fourth-quarter profits (after many hugely profitable quarters last year)
  • 39% the decline in Goldman’s bond-trading revenue; Goldman blamed “generally low client activity levels”
  • 2.5% the decline in their stock this morning, which has generally been strong during the financial crisis source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

08 Jan 2011 13:02

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Biz: Does Goldman Sachs’ Facebook deal hurt their image rehab?

  • The committee was undertaken in the hope and the commitment to do some things that were going to help restore and improve trust … [Instead] people are going to look at it and say do those standards seem credible in light of the Facebook deal?
  • Boston University School of Management professor James Post • Suggesting that the recent Facebook deal that Goldman Sachs put together may be questionable in the light of Goldman’s recent ethics troubles. The company even put together a business standards committee to help prevent future kerfluffles. They have a report that’s coming out next week. But instead of the story being the ethics report and the image rehab work that Goldman is doing, it’s Facebook. Somebody somewhere screwed up. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Jan 2011 10:31

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Biz, Tech: Goldman Sachs investment: Facebook worth more than God

  • $450
    million     the amount that Goldman Sachs just invested in the massive film-worthy social network
  • $50
    billion     the valuation of Mark Zuckerberg’s baby, based largely on Goldman’s huge investment source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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