Wall $treet Folly

Was Bear Stearns' CEO's party invitation lost in the mail?

Or was Alan Schwartz just plain dissed at a luncheon hosted by Ben Bernanke and attended by most every other Wall Street BSD?  Or maybe he was invited and was just too busy trying to put out fires on the home front.  In any case, Bernanke hosted one hellofa gathering (click on picture to enlarge)....

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke lunched on March 11 with a Who's Who of Wall Street leaders, including JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s Jamie Dimon, three days before the central bank rescued Bear Stearns Cos. from bankruptcy.

Other guests included Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. CEO Richard Fuld, Morgan Stanley President James Gorman, Citigroup Inc.'s Robert Rubin, Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman and Merrill Lynch & Co. CEO John Thain. Alan Schwartz, the CEO of Bear Stearns, was not listed among the attendees.

Searching through the rubble for hedge fund winners

The Wall Street Journal goes through a list of some of the likely winners and losers in the market meltdown:

Part I: "The Fabulous Life of Billion Dollar Wall Street Ballers" - Big paydays and over the top homes

              

For those of you who didn't catch VH-1's recent "Fabulous Life" installment focusing on Wall Street's biggest of the BSD's, here are some highlights and screen shots: It's only the first part of the show; we'll put up Part 2 shortly.

They started off by noting that the highest paid movie stars made a total of $136 million in 2006.   But if you want a "real paycheck" get a job on Wall Street....

Oh Nooooooo! July hedge fund returns start to trickle out; Tudor's Raptor is down 9%; Caxton's Global lost 3%; SAC Capital down 1%

Misery loves company:  July was a rough month for some of the world's largest and generally most profitable hedge funds, including Tudor Investments, Caxton and SAC Capital, as they got nailed in the market turmoil and put up losses.  There were some bright spots, however, with Harbinger's flagship fund up 17%, Passport  up 30% and Pequot International up 9%.

Tudor Investment Corp.'s Raptor Fund lost 9 percent in July as stock prices fell worldwide, investors said. Caxton Associates LLC's flagship hedge fund dropped about 3 percent.

The loss by Raptor, managed by James Pallotta in Boston, left the $8.9 billion stock pool down about 2.9 percent for the year through July 27. Bruce Kovner's Caxton Global Investments, an $11 billion fund, held on to a 3.5 percent gain for the year through July.

Alpha Magazine's Top 25 Hedge Fund earners

Alpha Magazine's list of the top 25 hedge fund earners is out for 2006.  The average earnings over the whole group is a meager $570 million vs $362 million last year.  Those earning less than $240 million in 2006 need not apply;  that was the cutoff point vs $130 million in 2005.  And as he topped last year's list, James Simons of Renaissance Technologies Corp leads the pack with $1.7 billion.

No managers made more money than the triumvirate of James Simons of Renaissance Technologies Corp., Citadel Investment Group's Kenneth Griffin and Edward Lampert of ESL Investments. Between them they earned an estimated $4.4 billion -- more than all the 25 top-paid managers combined made in each of the first two years of our ranking. Keep in mind that Alpha uses two components to arrive at hedge fund managers' earnings: the gains on their own capital in their funds and their share of their firm's management and performance fees. Simons, Griffin and Lampert each have well over $1 billion of their own capital invested in their own funds.

Like Carnegie, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt before them, Alpha's band of billion-dollar earners couldn't be any more different from one another. Math whiz Simons, who made $1.7 billion to repeat as No. 1, has assembled an army of rocket scientists to build complex computer models that rapidly trade markets around the world, hoping to exploit tiny price changes. Griffin, No. 2 with $1.4 billion in earnings, has built a huge firm by hedge fund standards -- Citadel has more than 1,000 employees -- expanding into ancillary businesses like hedge fund administration and market making. Lampert, who made $1.3 billion in 2006 to finish at No. 3, has stashed the bulk of his assets in a single company -- retailer Sears Holdings Corp., of which he is chairman.

Today's hedge fund tycoons wield enormous power that goes well beyond the business world. Griffin and Steven Cohen, the founder of SAC Capital Advisors (and No. 5 on our list, with $900 million in earnings), are major forces in the art market, regularly ranked among the world's ten biggest collectors, according to ARTnews magazine.

Here's the full list of 25:

Wedding bells for Caxton's Bruce Kovner?

Prenup time: Wedding bells may be ringing for hedge fund billionaire Bruce Kovner who runs Caxton Associates.  According to the New York Post he's getting hitched on Feb 18.  From Page Six "We Hear":

THAT Bruce Kovner - one of New York's most secretive hedge fund billionaires who has dated opera diva Renée Fleming and jet-setter Paula del Rio - is marrying socialite Susan Fairchild Feb. 18, according to the buzz at Da Tommaso.

We Hear - New York Post Page Six

Forbes 400: Only billionaires need apply

The new Forbes 400 list of the wealthiest Americans is out.  This year it's not enough to have a nine figure net worth to have made the list.  For the first time, you had to have a net worth of a billion bucks to have made this year's cut.  The total value of those on the list?  A whopping $1.25 trillion bucks.  That's up $120 billion from last year.  California has the most residents on the list with 90;  New York has 44.

As you'd expect, Bill Gates still reigns at #1 with Warren Buffett #2.  Sheldon Adelson with his casino holdings is at #3.

We formatted the top 100 below. We also created a separate sublist to single out the Wall Street / hedge frunds / private equity, etc. types.

Alpha Magazine: Highest paid hedge fund managers

We all love finding out what the other guys are earning, especially when it comes to the super fabulously well paid.  Institutional Investor's Alpha Magazine came out with their list of the 25 highest paid hedge fund managers.  Renaissance Technologies' James Simons (pictured), paid $1.5 billion in 2005 and T. Boone Pickens of BP Capital Management, paid $1.4 billion, ranked #1 and #2 respectively.  George Soros is #3 with $840 million, SAC Capital's Steve Cohen is #4 with $550 million, and Paul Tudor Jones #5 with $500 million.

This year's list actually contains 26, because there's a tie at #25.  They earned an average of $363 million which eclipses last year's $251 million average by 45%.  The bottom of the list earners took home $130 million.  Last year's bottom feeders only needed to earn $100 million to make the list....

Forbes Billionaires List is out...

With millionaires a dime a dozen, it's reasonable to expect that the list of billionaires in the world has also increased.  This year's Forbes list of 'The World's Billionaires' has 793 people on it, up from 691 last year (and 140 twenty years ago).  Total net worth of the group is a meager $2.6 trillion.  Of course staple Bill Gates retains his numero uno ranking with $50 billion, Warren Buffett is #2 with $42 billion, and Carlos Slim Helu is #3 with $30 billion.

Wall Street naturally was well represented....

Caxton Associates Bruce Kovner donates music manuscript treasure trove to Juilliard

Billionaire hedge fund manager Bruce Kovner of Caxton Associates, who has amassed an important collection of music manuscripts over a period of eleven years, has donated it to the Juilliard School.  The huge collection of 139 items includes pieces from artists including Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Chopin and many more....