Wall $treet Folly

Steve Schwarzman: A "cheap" Van Gogh, but cheap enough to buy?

Page Six sightings included Blackstone Group CEO Steve Schwarzman "eyeing a Van Gogh, "cheap" at $9.5 million, at the Boys Club of NY preview party for the Westchester Enterprises Antiques & Art show at the Park Avenue Armory, amid the likes Karen LeFrak and Geoffrey Bradfield and co-chairs Jamee Gregory and Mario Buatta".  No idea if he bought it.  But to put it into other terms, the "cheap" price boils down to 23,750 of his beloved $400 stone crabs... Sightings - NY Post

Salacious accusations of a Wall Streeter's personal assistant backfire with her indictment on grand larceny charges

Fatima Monaghan, who had filed a salacious $24 million lawsuit last spring against  her former boss, fund manager Frederick Iseman, CEO of Caxton-Iseman Capital, was indicted for allegedly running up over $43,000 in bogus charges on his American Express card and mis-using his Mercedes while in his employ.  According to the New York Post:

A personal assistant who accused her bigwig boss of making her his sexual gofer was indicted yesterday on charges that she used his credit card for herself to buy everything from shoes to sheet sets.

Seven months ago, Fatima Monahan, 36, had Wall Street buzzing after she hit a respected financial-firm chairman with a lawsuit that included a laundry list of lustful duties she was asked to perform outside her job duties.

Monahan said Caxton-Iseman Capital Chairman Frederick Iseman assigned her to set up dates for him, line up accommodations that would fit the sexual activities he liked, buy him lubricant and edible underwear and organize his dirty pictures.

Blow by blow: How the E*trade deal got done

The Wall Street Journal has a great piece dissecting how the E*Trade deal got done starting from Citadel losing money on their equity position as it was collapsing. ...

E*Trade trumpets its $2.5 Billion cash infusion in a new ad

   
          

This ad appeared in this morning's Wall Street Journal.  Click to enlarge. (you may have to click twice)

WSF Headline Roundup - 11/30/07 - Oil below $90; Florida halts state fund withdrawals; CIBC $10B subprime exposure?; China ends subsidies; Interactive Brokers worth a look?; Japan stocks a bargain?; Hollywood parties?; New H'wood contract offer

•    Oil drops below $90
•    Florida halts state fund withdrawals
•    CIBC $10B sub-prime exposure?
•    China ends some trade subsidies
•    Barron's suggests taking a look at Interactive Brokers
•    Is it time to focus on Japan stocks?
•    Dell tanks after hours after earnings disappoint
•    Writers strike poses dilemma for hollywood party throwers
•    Writers consider a new contract offer

Morgan Stanley shake up press release

Here's the Morgan Stanley press release detailing the shake-up, including the 'resignation' of co-president Zoe Cruz:

Big shake up at Morgan Stanley: Zoe Cruz -- Stick a fork in her, she's done

Some had been calling Morgan Stanley Co-President Zoe Cruz John Mack's heir apparent.  But instead, the woman dubbed the "Cruz Missile" who was paid $30 million in 2006, is the latest high profile banking executive to fall under the sub-prime ax in another big Wall Street shake up. Bob Scully, the other Co-President, will join a new office of the chairman.  Walid A. Chammah and James P. Gorman were named as Co-Presidents of the firm succeeding Cruz and Scully.  According to the Wall Street Journal: 

Apparently, Ms. Cruz suffered not only from the mortgage losses but from criticism of her leadership style, which many colleagues said could be difficult, and from lingering wounds from a bruising 2005 battle for control of the firm. During that struggle, she played a polarizing role, remaining loyal to Philip Purcell, an unpopular chief executive who later was ousted. John Mack, who succeeded Mr. Purcell, stood by Ms. Cruz, but the trading losses gave him a reason to question her leadership.

Some bankers and traders at Morgan Stanley have long resented Ms. Cruz's rise within the firm. Her ascent after Mr. Mack was installed as CEO was remarkable, given the polarizing role she played in 2005, when Mr. Purcell was pressured to resign by investors and Morgan Stanley alumni.

She was so unpopular with a number of high-profile Morgan exiles that they refused to return after Mr. Mack became CEO if she remained co-president. They included Vikram Pandit, now a candidate to lead Citigroup Inc., and star banker Joseph Perella.

Ben Bernanke speaks to the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce

They've honored him with the 'Citizen of the Carolinas Award',  Here's the full text of his speech which he made after the close beginning at 6:53PM

Ron Perelman is countersuing his former missus, Ellen Barkin

The bitter bickering between billionaire and Revlon CEO Ron Perelman and his ex wife, Ellen Barkin, continues: Page Six says that he's countersuing his ex after she sued him last summer.

RON Perelman says the only thing ex-wife Ellen Barkin's movie company is producing are different ways to spend his money. In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, the billionaire Revlon head says Applehead I, the production company he started with Barkin and her brother, George, now serves as their personal piggy bank. The suit, which seeks unspecified money damages, charges the Barkins "covertly established" their own production company called Applehead II earlier this year, and have been using Applehead I's cash to help run it. In the meantime, George Barkin is still pulling in his $250,000 annual salary from Applehead I, even though he's allegedly not qualified for the job and has "rendered no or few services of value." Ellen and oft-married Perelman ended their six-year marriage last year, with the star getting a $40 million settlement. A spokeswoman for Perelman expressed his disappointment at Ellen's "attempts to further enrich herself" plus "her family and her friends . . . We intend to pursue our remedy in the courts." A rep for Barkin did not return a call for comment.

Ron Sues Ellen & Brother - New York Post Page Six

Completely misguided move: SEC votes to take away shareholder rights

What the fuck are those boneheads at the SEC thinking with this totally misguided move????  Chris Cox is gonna have some legacy to look back on and to be proud of -- one of trashing shareholder rights and helping to increase corporate fraud.  Everyone should be sending the SEC nastygrams in protest....

Companies will be able to scuttle investor attempts to nominate board members under a plan adopted by a bitterly divided Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday.

The move drew an outcry from key lawmakers, unions and major retirement funds, which criticized SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, a Republican, for pushing the plan at a time when the agency is short one Democrat and another is on her way out the door.   

The 3 to 1 vote, in which the SEC's lone remaining Democrat dissented, marked the most controversial action in the two-year tenure of the agency's chairman. It was the latest development in a debate over investor rights that has been boiling for decades, pitting chief executives against pension funds and union groups.