Wall Street Folly

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Ackman's misses Target and pisses off investors ($TGT); No bonuses for Barclays' directors; Goldentree's dutch auction; Harvard endowment is endowed with 25% less staff; Hedge fund intelligence; Funds of funds troubles

• Ackman Tries to Mollify Target Fund Investors
• Barclays halts directors' bonuses as profits fall
• Going Dutch: Goldentree's Auction Option
• Management for Harvard Endowment to Cut 25% of Staff
• Hedge fund to set up intricate intelligence web
• Bleak times for the funds of hedge funds

Lansdowne Partners benefits big time from Barclays' cratering stock price

Congratulations are in order:  Not everyone is losing money in Barclays as the stock tanks.  London hedge fund Lansdowne partners made £12m in just four days....

Lansdowne Partners, which also profited from the fall in the share price of Northern Rock at the height of its problems, sold Barclays shares last Friday - when the bank lost almost a quarter of its value in frenzied trading - and bought them back again on Wednesday after they had fallen by almost £1.

The disclosure is likely to fuel the row between politicians and the Financial Services Authority which lifted a ban on short-selling last Friday. The ban was introduced last September to try to protect the share price of HBOS which was in the throes of a rescue takeover by Lloyds.

Hedge fund made millions betting on Barclays crash - The Guardian

And the layoffs may not be over at JP Morgan, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Barclays / Lehman, B of A / Merrill, etc.; as many as 15% more could go

CNBC's Charlie Gasparino reported that his sources are telling him that with Wall Street business showing no signs of recovery, investment banking firms are preparing to cut even deeper.  As much as 15% more employees -- pretty much at all of the Wall Street firms -- could be cut as early as this year or possibly next year.  He said that big layoffs are coming up at Barclays / Lehman.  And with the merger of Bank of America / Merrill 10K could be let go.  Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs and even JP Morgan (which is separately shuttering a prop desk with some being fired) are also all contemplating cuts, possibly as deep as 15%.

It's getting uglier.

Dick Fuld's butt is being booted from his former Lehman Brothers corner office at 745 Seventh avenue

Lehman Brothers employees who still work at the former headquarters building at 745 Seventh Avenue that now bears the Barclays name, soon won't have to worry that they might bump into their reminder of better days, ex-leader Dick Fuld.  He's being booted to 1271 Sixth Avenue which has been used as Lehman Brothers overflow offices.  According to Deal Journal:

On Monday, he and other senior Lehman executives who were not offered jobs by Barclays are officially leaving the 31st floor of Lehman’s headquarters and moving to the 45th floor of 1271. 1271, located in the Time & Life Building, is also the headquarters of Fortune Magazine, which should make Mr. Fuld a daily sitting duck for any intrepid reporters.

Exile for Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld - Deal Journal

Disappearing sign: Lehman Brothers dismantled

This picture of the Lehman Brothers sign removed from its midtown headquarters was in this morning's NY Post.

Then again, maybe they shouldn't have let Lehman Brothers fail...

An excellent Wall Street Journal front page article explores the far reaching ramifications and pains of letting Lehman Brothers fail.  We think that it was a terrible decision by the Fed and U.S. Treasury, which helped to put us where we are now, resulting in what we consider to be a rescue plan that amounts to nothing more than a $700 billion band-aid....

Barclays may cut 5,000 Lehman positions in 3 months

How many jobs will Barclays be cutting now that it's picked off Lehman Brothers U.S. operations out of bankruptcy?  There's speculation that as many as 5,000 jobs be cut in just a few months.  According to Bloomberg:

Lehman's Dick Fuld has been keeping a low profile recently; now he'll have to testify before a U.S. House panel in a probe of Lehman's bankruptcy

Dick Fuld is going to have to venture out into the world soon and say something.  Mum since his firm filed Chapter 11, he'll have to testify at a September 25 hearing before a U.S. House panel looking into Lehman Brothers' bankruptcy....

"Once in a lifetime opportunity" led Barclays to snatch Lehman Brothers' U.S. securities business out of bankruptcy

For the second time in a days,  couple of days, buying  a U.S. securities firm has been deemed a "once in a lifetime opportunity".  First it was Bank of America's Ken Lewis snatching up Merrill Lynch.  Now it's Barclays Bob Diamond buying up the U.S. assets -- sans any of those nasty toxic liabilities -- of Lehman Brothers, freshly in bankrupty, for $1.75 billion.

The London-based bank is paying $250 million in cash for the Lehman businesses and $1.5 billion for the securities firm's New York headquarters and two data centers, it said in a statement on its Web site today. The operations employ about 10,000 people, almost two-fifths of Lehman's total.

Barclays President Robert Diamond seized on what he called a ``once in a lifetime opportunity'' to buy a business that ranks seventh in advising on U.S. mergers. The price is on par with the market value of Sanders Morris Harris Group Inc., a Houston, Texas-based brokerage with 617 workers, and is less than a third of the value of KBW Inc., a New York-based firm that employs 529.

Barclays to Buy Lehman U.S. Units for $1.75 Billion - Bloomberg