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Category: Business
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GM discussing merger with Chrysler, Times reports
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Citigroup buys Wachovia’s banking assets
FDIC Chair Sheila C. Bair has overseen another shot-gun wedding – this time between Wachovia Corporation and Citigroup.
Citigroup agreed to pay $1 a share, or about $2.2 billion for Wachovia’s banking operations, according to media reports, in the latest deal brokered by federal officials as a result of the distressed mortgage market.
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She stressed that the storied Charlotte bank did not fail, like Washington Mutual, which was seized by the authorities after suffering a run on deposits last week.
“This morning’s decision was made under extraordinary circumstances with significant consultation among the regulators and Treasury,” Bair said in a statement. “This action was necessary to maintain confidence in the banking industry given current financial market conditions.
“There will be no interruption in services and bank customers should expect business as usual,” she said.
Wachovia will remain a public company, retaining its asset management and retail brokerage businesses, including the Evergreen franchise and the A.G. Edwards brokerage division.
The New York Times points out that the deal further concentrates Americans’ bank deposits in the hands of just three banks: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup. Together, those three would be so large that they would dominate the industry, with unrivaled power to set prices for their loans and services.
Wachovia had been hurt badly by its 2006 purchase of Golden West Financial, a California lender specializing in so-called pay-option mortgages. The bank also faced mounting losses on loans made to home builders and commercial real estate developers.
In June, Wachovia’s board ousted G. Kennedy Thompson, the bank’s longtime chief executive, and replaced him the following month with Robert K. Steel, a former top lieutenant of Henry M. Paulson Jr. at both Goldman Sachs and the Treasury Department.
Steel arrived in New York to handle the negotiations in person this weekend, along with David M. Carroll, the bank’s chief deal maker. At 8:15 am. Saturday, at the Seagream Building offices of Sullivan & Cromwell on Park Avenue, Citigroup took their first peek at Wachovia’s books with Chief Executive Vikram Pandit personally overseeing the negotiations, according to media reports.
Top officials at the FDIC and the U.S. Treasury were also major participants, pressing the parties to move quickly.
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Inspector General Kotz Gets Expert Help on His Sec Audit
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William Gross, stamp collector and bond king, ready to advise the Treasury
William H. Gross, the billionaire “King of Bonds,” has never been reluctant to give advice.
He has written two books on investing as well as numerous op-ed pieces on the markets. And he’s usually available for interviews on matters economic.
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Gross says that he and his colleagues at Pacific Investment Management Company (Pimco) will evaluate the distressed mortgage securities the government will buy if a $700 billion bailout plan is approved by Congress.
“I’d even be willing to say that if the Treasury wanted to use our help, it would come, you know, free and clear,” said Gross, who is Pimco’s founder and co-chief investment officer.
It’s a little unlikely that Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. will take Gross up on the offer as Pimco might be seen as having a conflict of interest even if it doesn’t charge for its services.
But there’s a good chance that any advice Pimco gave would have to be taken seriously, as the company has managed to remain relatively unscathed by the mortgage and credit crisis.
Gross had argued for more than a year that the bubble was going to burst.
And Pimco was so well positioned when the government stepped in that it made $1.7 billion when Treasury saved the mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Though, on the down side, Pimco was a large holder of bonds at the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers.
Gross, 64, has long shown an ability to beat the odds. After his graduation from Duke University he spent a summer in Las Vegas playing blackjack. Starting with $200, he ended up with $10,000.
After that summer, he served on a U.S. Navy destroyer off the coast of Viet Nam. Following his discharge, he earned an MBA at the University of California at Los Angeles.
He then went to work for Pacific Mutual Life as an investment analyst.
In 1982, Gross founded Pimco. The company now manages $830 billion, including $132 billion in the Pimco Total Return Fund, the world’s biggest bond fund.
Gross has invested a significant portion of his own money in stamps, collecting rare issues.
Last year, he raised $9.1 million for the charity Doctors Without Borders by selling some of his some of his British stamps at auction.
The amount raised represented an astonishing return on investment, as Gross had spent a total of $2.5 million for the stamps between 1998 and 2001.
“It’s four times profit,” Gross said after the auction. “It’s better than the stock market.”
Gross will sell more of his stamps at auction on Oct. 3. The 138 British Empire stamps are estimated to bring at least $1.25 million. Gross and his wife, Sue, will donate the proceeds to the Millennium Villages Project.
The couple has also donated millions of dollars to various causes through the California-based William and Sue Gross Foundation.
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Rudy Giuliani puts together team to ‘guide’ firms on proposed bailout
The vultures are already circling.
The New York Daily News reports today that Rudy Giuliani is positioning his international law firm to get a stake in the proposed $700-billion bailout of Wall Street.
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With a rescue deal still being hammered out in Washington, the former presidential candidate and New York mayor announced Thursday that Bracewell & Giuliani had put together a high-powered task force to assist financial institutions in selling toxic assets to the federal government.
“Our team of former government officials and experienced attorneys in the fields of legislation, enforcement and finance are equipped to guide institutions in this quickly evolving and complex environment,” Giuliani said in a press release.
Giuliani is not the only one preparing his firm to advise companies on the bailout. But he has been a high-profile surrogate for GOP presidential nominee John McCain. The fact that McCain has not signed off on the proposed bailout does not seem to have given the former mayor any pause before pursuing a new business opportunity.
Members of Bracewell & Giuliani’s task force will include several partners with connections both to the financial world, the U.S. Treasury Department and to the George W. Bush White House, among them:
- Robert L. Clarke, a former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency under the late Ronald Reagan, who also was a director of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Resolution Trust Corporation.
- Marc Mukasey, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan and the son of U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, a close friend of Giuliani’s.
- John A. Brunjes, a member of the Connecticut Hedge Fund Association and a former assistant attorney general for the state of Connecticut.
- Patrick C. Oxford, a longtime fundraiser for George W. Bush, who had served as a member of the board of regents for the University of Texas during Bush’s tenure as Texas governor.
- Evan D. Flaschen, a leading bankruptcy attorney who has represented some of the world’s largest institutional investors.
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WaMu seized by federal regulators, sold to JPMorgan Chase (Muckety.com)
David Bonderman and Alan Fishman got a big surprise yesterday from the federal government.
Bonderman, founder of TPG private equity firm, was a major investor in the struggling Washington Mutual. Fishman became CEO of the bank just three weeks ago.
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In the nation’s biggest bank failure to date, the FDIC seized WaMu last night, and then quickly sold it to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion.
Bonderman, a former WaMu director who led a $7 billion investment in the company in April, will lose big. Fishman, however, has a golden parachute.
The New York Times reports that Fishman will keep his $7.5 million signing bonus and is eligible for another $11.6 million in severance pay.
With $307 billion in assets, WaMu was a threat to the solvency of the FDIC, which insures customer bank accounts up to $100,000 per person, per institution. The federal insurance fund,depleted by the earlier failure of IndyMac Bank, totaled just $45.2 billion at the end of June.
The Times reports that the WaMu takover was a shock to the company’s board as well as its CEO, who was flying from New York to Seattle when the deal was completed.
TPG released a statement yesterday, saying simply: “Obviously, we are dissatisfied with the loss to our partners from our investment in Washington Mutual.”
The Wall Street Journal’s report today was equally bleak:
The fact that no bank was willing to buy WaMu until it failed shows how badly confidence has eroded in a banking system awash with record profits just a few years ago. Faced with deepening losses on mortgages, credit cards and other loans, big and small banks across the country are struggling with what many bank executives say is a crisis far deeper than the savings-and-loan debacle.
This is the second fire sale in which JPMorgan has acted as buyer. The company bought Bear Stearns in March.
([Muckety.com](https://createpositivechange.org/2008/09/26/wamu-seized-by-federal-regulators-sold-to-jpmorgan-chase/5222)
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Wife of Lehman CEO selling off $20 million in artworks
When the going gets tough, the rich go to auction.
Bloomberg reports today that Kathy Fuld, wife of Lehman CEO Richard Fuld, is unloading a $20 million set of drawings at a November sale.
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In a press release, Christie described the items as “a superlative grouping of master drawings of American post-war art from an important private collection.” The set includes works by Arshile Gorky, Agnes Martin and Barnett Newman, as well as de Kooning.
As one of the most highly paid executives on Wall Street, Fuld has become a prime target of those criticizing plans to rescue the nation’s financial system.
Richard Fuld received $34.4 million in compensation in 2007. The Fulds have an estate in Greenwich, CT, and last year paid $21 million for a co-op at New York’s exclusive 640 Park Ave.
More recently, the family has been selling off Lehman holdings that are almost worthless. Stock sold yesterday on behalf of the couple’s son and daughters traded at 14 cents per share.
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AIG’s ex-CEO Willumstad to forego $22 million severance
American International Group’s ex-CEO Robert Willumstad has rejected a $22-million severance package from his former employer.
Willumstad e-mailed his successor, Edward Liddy, that he would decline the package since he had been unable to execute a restructuring plan before the government had to step in to avert AIG’s collapse, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“I prefer not to receive severance while shareholders and employees have lost considerable value in their AIG shares,” he wrote.
Willumstad, 62, had become chief executive on June 15, after Martin J. Sullivan was ousted. AIG’s stock price declined 97% during his three-month tenure.
The newspaper also reported that major AIG shareholders, concerned about the proposed government takeover, were meeting today to discuss alternatives to the $85-billion federal bailout, citing an unnamed source.
Shareholders who are dissatisfied with the deal are exploring ways to quickly pay off the loan, which gave the federal government the right to take 80% of the insurer. Under this scenario, AIG would not only sell assets, but also raise capital in other ways, potentially leaving shareholders better off.
AIG had no choice but to accept the federal help last week, when large sums of private money were unavailable.
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Former Mccain Adviser Phil Gramm Tied to Financial Turmoil
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IRS to auction off mansion of indicted mogul Michael Lauer – lawn uncut
He’s a former master of the universe whose high-flying clients included former Sotheby’s chairman A. Alfred Taubman, Britney Spears and the heirs of Dayton’s Department Stores.
But the fortunes of Michael Lauer, the flamboyant founder of a once-ballyhooed hedge fund, have crashed to earth in spectacular fashion. The latest sign was the open house last Friday of his five-acre Greenwich, Conn. estate, complete with outdoor pool and tennis court, in anticipation of a Sept. 26 auction by the Internal Revenue Service. Lauer’s Cessna plane and Mercedes race car have already been sold to the highest bidder.
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Lauer, the founder of Lancer Management Group LLC, was charged earlier this year with conspiracy and wire fraud. Four colleagues were also indicted.
The alleged scheme cost investors, including a Connecticut state pension fund and a University of Michigan endowment, hundreds of millions of dollars. Lauer’s assets were frozen to help recoup their losses.
Former Lauer estateIf convicted, Lauer faces as much as 25 years in prison.
A native of the Ukraine who came to this country nearly penniless, Lauer put himself through Columbia University and worked his way up at several firms, including Oppenheimer & Co., according to a Forbes profile.
He told Forbes he expects to be vindicated.
In the meantime, he may have to find someplace else to sleep. (The pictures released by the I.R.S. show a very lived-in-looking space with bathroom counters and tables piled high with sundries.)
The I.R.S. set the minimum bid on his estate at $2.5 million – $200,000 more than Lauer paid nine years ago, according to the Hartford Courant.
The announcement lists the property as having three fireplaces, vaulted ceilings, two whirlpool tubs, a sauna, a legal apartment over the garage and a tennis court.
But be prepared: the Courant warns that “the property might need some work: At the least, the lawn needs a good trimming.”
A second open house will be held Sept. 25.
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H. Rodgin Cohen at epicenter of Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac crisis
H. Rodgin Cohen may not be well known away from Wall Street, but he would seem to be the first person called in times of bank failure, acquisitions or mergers.
Consequently, it’s no surprise that Cohen, the chairman of Sullivan & Cromwell, a powerhouse law firm, took part in the recent talks between the U.S. Department of the Treasury and mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
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On Sunday, Paulson announced the government takeover of both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
Both companies have been hard hit by a wave of mortgage foreclosures, and the government is going to send much-needed capital their way.
As part of the deal, Mudd and Richard F. Syron, his counterpart at Freddie Mac, leave their posts, though they will remain for a while as advisers. Herbert M. Allison Jr., the former chairman of TIAA-CREF, will replace Mudd. David M. Moffett, a senior adviser with the Carlyle Group and a former vice chairman of US Bancorp, takes over for Syron at Freddie Mac.
Cohen, a native of West Virginia, came to this crisis with more than three decades of experience in high-stakes financial showdowns.
A graduate of Harvard Law School and a veteran of the U.S. Army, he joined Sullivan & Cromwell in 1970 and became a partner in 1977.
Over the years, Cohen’s efforts have “fundamentally altered the banking landscape,” according to CFO Magazine.
He helped do this in part by discovering a legal loophole that allowed banks to expand beyond state lines and thereby change the industry.
Cohen has also been involved in a steady stream of bank acquisitions, including the joining of Chase Manhattan and Chemical Bank and the merger of Norwest and Wells Fargo.
Cohen has likewise been a key player in rescue efforts involving failed banks.
He helped in the aftermath of the 1974 collapse of Franklin National Bank, and he represented the struggling Continental Illinois Bank in its 1984 negotiations with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Recently, Cohen was a key player in the talks that led to the fire-sale acquisition of Bear Stearns Companies by JP Morgan Chase & Co.
Cohen was also involved in the resolution of the 1980 Iran hostage crisis, helping obtain through the release of frozen Iran bank deposits the money that was necessary to free the hostages.
“When the phone call came saying the hostages had landed, it was the most exhilarating feeling I’ve experienced,” he later told The New York Times.
Cohen reportedly has a less-is-more style that works well at the conference table.
“He has a quiet sense of authority in a boardroom,” Hamid Biglari of Citigroup told The Financial Times. “He speaks infrequently. He is not one to dominate a conversation by holding forth. But when he does speak, everyone listens very carefully.”
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Secretive Cerberus keeps a high profile on K Street (Muckety.com)
Cerberus Capital Management, once touted for its daring investments in Chrysler and GMAC, is now struggling to avoid tremendous losses, according to The New York Times.
Yesterday, Chrysler announced that U.S. sales fell by a third last month. In a one-two punch, GMAC said yesterday that its home loan division would dismiss 60 percent of its employees – 5,000 people – in an effort to minimize losses caused by the mortgage crisis.
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But in Washington, Cerberus maintains a major presence, paying seven lobbying firms and former U.S. Sen. Jake Garn to represent its interests before Congress.
Former Treasury counsel Arnold I. Havens, now a partner with Jones Walker, represents the firm on banking and transportation issues.
Former U.S. senator and ambassador to Germany Dan Coats, now senior counsel at King & Spalding, represents Cerberus on banking regulation.
Patton Boggs argues for the company on auto emissions legislation. Stanley B. Parrish, former chief of staff to Sen. Orrin Hatch, represents it on auto-related matters.
Cerberus itself has registered as a lobbyist. The company reported spending $2.5 million on lobbying activities last year.
The company has worked against hedge fund regulation and has supported members of Congress who feel the same way. When Sen. Richard Shelby, then chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, criticized hege funds in 2003, Cerberus threw a fundraiser for Shelby’s leadership PAC. Ine a single day, The Hill reported, company executives and colleagues contributed $99,500.
Thus far in 2008, company execs are among the top contributors to Republican congressmen Tom Reynolds, Joe Knollenberg and Fred Upton. They have also given to two Michigan Democrats who hold sway on auto legislation: Sen. Carl Levin and Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Detroit.
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Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is McCain’s surprise VP pick
Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska since 2006, is John McCain’s choice for his vice-presidential running mate.
The selection is considered a potentially high-risk, but also high-reward gamble to woo conservatives, as well as female voters who may still feel alienated by Barack Obama’s defeat of Hillary Clinton.
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She is also a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and an opponent of abortion, whose pick is expected to reassure the evangelical base of the Republican party.
In a rousing introduction, Palin portrayed herself as a reform-minded governor of Alaska who has challenged the party’s old guard, attacked pork-barrel spending and taken a strong interest in energy issues.
“I stood up to the special interests, the lobbyists, the oil companies and the good old boy network,” she said, noting she had turned down federal funding for the “bridge to nowhere,” a project championed by two Republican congressmen from Alaska that became a symbol of wasteful spending.
Sarah PalinExpectations had been that McCain would choose a more experienced politician. High on the list of potential VP candidates were Minnesota Gov. Tom Pawlenty, failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge and Sen. Joe Lieberman.
But picking a woman from outside the beltway could pay dividends with voters looking for confirmation that McCain is a maverick determined to change politics as usual. It also gives the McCain campaign the ability to claim that it, too, is potentially historic.
Palin went out of her way to invoke the precedents set by Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman on a Democratic presidential ticket, as well by Clinton, saying she had left “18 million cracks” in the highest glass ceiling in the land.
Then, making a direct appeal to Clinton’s supporters, she said, “It turns out that the women in America aren’t finished yet, and we can shatter that glass ceiling.”
The down side of the selection, however, is that by putting a first-term governor on the ticket, GOP attacks on Obama’s youth and inexperience may now ring hollow.
In addition, McCain and Palin have disagreed on energy policy, an issue that will play a major role in the general election. As governor of Alaska, Palin supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Earlier this week, The Weekly Standard described her as “the nation’s most prominent advocate” of drilling in the wildlife refuge that environmentalists see as one of America’s most precious natural wilderness areas.
McCain, who recently reversed his position on offshore drilling, had long opposed oil exploration in the wildlife refuge.
In her first remarks on a national stage, however, Palin stressed their shared belief in the need to challenge the status quo. “This is a moment when principle and political independence matter a lot more than the party line,” she said.
The daughter of a science teacher and school secretary, Palin is a former Miss Alaska runnerup, who holds a degree in journalism from the University of Idaho. She describes herself as “a hockey mom,” who initially got involved in politics through the PTA.
Palin served two terms on the city council of Wasilla, a suburb of Anchorage, AK, from 1992 to 1996, was elected mayor in 1996, and ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2002.
After charging then-Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski with misconduct, she won election in 2006, by defeating the incumbent governor in the Republican primary, and then a former Democratic governor in the general election.
Details of Palin’s personal life have contributed to her own image as a political maverick. She hunts, eats moose hamburger, ice fishes, rides snowmobiles, and owns a float plane.
Her husband, Todd, is a commercial fisherman and, she noted in her introduction, “a proud member of the United Steelworkers union.” Outside the fishing season, he works for BP at an oil field on the North Slope and is a champion snowmobiler, winning the 2,000-mile Iron Dog race four times.
The couple have three daughters: Bristol, 17, Willow, 13, and Piper, 7. Three days after giving birth to her second son, Trig Paxson Van Palin, on April 18th, she returned to the office.
As governor, Palin is facing a state investigation related to her firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walter Monegan who alleged that his removal was due in part to his reluctance to fire an Alaska state trooper, Mike Wooten, who had been involved in a divorce and child custody battle with Palin’s sister, Molly McCann.
Palin disputes that charge, asserting Monegan was dismissed for not filling state trooper vacancies, and because he “did not turn out to be a team player on budgeting issues.”
In a prepared statement yesterday, the Obama campaign portrayed Palin as an ideologue without the experience to govern.
“Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” said campaign spokesman Bill Burton. “Governor Palin shares John McCain’s commitment to overturning Roe v. Wade, the agenda of Big Oil and continuing George Bush’s failed economic policies – that’s not the change we need, it’s just more of the same.”
To hear McCain’s introduction of Palin, click here:
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Billionaire Charles Koch plays politics, but out of public eye (Muckety)
Charles G. Koch may be the richest and most politically connected mogul you’ve never heard of.
Koch (pronounced coke) heads Koch Industries, the world’s largest private company with oil refineries, gas pipelines, cattle ranches, paper mills and financial services that produce an estimated $90 billion in revenue a year. Although Koch is richer than George Soros or Carl Icahn – and spends millions each year to lobby Congress and to bankroll libertarian causes – he is largely unknown outside of his hometown of Wichita, KS.
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“I don’t want to dedicate my life to getting publicity,” he told the New York Times more than a decade ago after his younger brother, William, a former America’s Cup winner, brought suit, claiming he had been cheated out of his rightful share of the company, and thereby, opening the company to scrutiny. The suit was eventually settled.
But though Charles Koch, now 72, prefers to fly below the radar, he is a true believer in what he refers to as the “science of market-based management.” Both he and his younger brother, David H., a co-owner of the family business, have disseminated Libertarian principles by pouring millions of dollars into conservative think tanks and advocacy groups, in addition to direct lobbying of Congress.
Koch Industries contributes more money to candidates through its political action committee (KochPAC) and its 80,000 employees, than any other oil or gas company – donating $1.15 million during the 2008 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The lion’s share of that, or 85 percent, went to Republicans; 15 percent went to Democrats.
(For comparison’s sake, the next biggest contributor, among major oil or gas companies, was Exxon Mobil, which donated $674, 359 in the 2008 cycle so far).
Very little, however, went to presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, though McCain has received millions from other oil and gas companies.
Although Koch Industry’s former top lobbyist – Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer – advises McCain on economic issues – the company has contributed only $6,750 to the GOP candidate thus far, according to the CRP. It has given nothing to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee.
But Koch has donated generously to several Republican committees, including the Republican National Committee ($30,000), the National Republican Congressional Committee ($30,000), the National Republican Senatorial Committee ($30,000) and the National Democratic Senatorial Committee ($30,000), as well as to a slew of mostly GOP lawmakers.
Recipients of its largesse to Congress include Texas Republicans Joe Barton, Michael Burgess and John Culberson, and also Todd Tiahrt of Kansas (where Koch is headquartered), Paul Broun Jr. of Georgia, and Roy Blunt of Missouri; Top Senate recipients include Republicans Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts of Kansas, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, and John Barrasso of Wyoming, according to CRP.
But the brothers exert their greatest influence by seeding interconnected, libertarian-leaning advocacy groups and think tanks, bankrolled by foundations they control – the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, the Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation and the David H. Koch Charitable Foundation, according to their tax filings.
Top recipients are the Cato Institute, the Reason Foundation, the Institute for Humane Studies, the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University – all of which issue papers or advocate for the principles of free enterprise, market-friendly public policies including deregulation, and individual liberties.
David H. Koch was the Libertarian Party’s vice-presidential candidate in 1980, and serves as a director of the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation, both Libertarian-leaning think tanks.
“It’s astounding that so few people have ever heard of a family this rich and powerful and aggressive when it comes to policy and politics,” analyst Jeff Krehely told the Center for Public Integrity. “When you talk about Koch, most folks think you are talking about the soft drink company.”
The Koches seem to have inherited their conservatism from their father. Fred Koch, the son of a Dutch immigrant who originally ran a Texas newspaper, developed a more efficient method of refining crude oil into gasoline in the late 1920s.
After being hit with patent suits from several oil companies, he emigrated to the Soviet Union where he helped build refineries for Josef Stalin. But he developed such a hatred for communism there that upon his return to the U.S., he became a member of the John Birch Society, according to a Forbes profile of the company.
All of his sons seem to have gotten his engineering gifts. Charles and David Koch got basic and advanced engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After working for several years for Arthur Little Inc., Charles Koch returned to Wichita after his father threatened to sell the business, and took control after his father’s death in 1967.
When he took over Koch Industries was a motley collection of oil pipeline assets with revenues of $250 million, according to the New York Times.
Charles expanded the pipelines and refineries, increased oil exploration and added natural gas, asphalt, paper products and chemicals to the product lines. Although there have been bumps along the way, he has grown the company into a conglomerate that sells everything from Stainmaster carpets and Dixie cups to oil and gas. His acquisition of Georgia-Pacific Corporation for $21 billion in late 2005 made Koch the largest privately held company in the nation.
Asked in 2006 whether he would ever sell shares of the company to the public, Charles Koch replied: “Over my dead body.”
Whole Foods, but not the whole story
So, now we know how at least one corporate CEO got his kicks. For years, he posted on financial bulletin boards, under an alias, sometimes criticizing the competition.
“I posted on Yahoo! under a pseudonym because I had fun doing it,” Whole Foods CEO John Mackey acknowledged on his company’s Web site last night. “I never intended any of those postings to be identified with me.”
Mackey used the pseudonym “Rahodeb,” a variation on his wife’s name, Deborah, from 1999 until last summer The New York Times reported.
The FTC, which is trying to block Whole Foods’ acquisition of another organic grocer, Wild Oats, disclosed the pseudonym in a footnote in a court document. Using his alias, Mackey had posted about Wild Oats.
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Ann Fudge’s lengthy resumeOctober 8, 2010 at 8:24am
While there doesn’t appear to be a front-runner to replace Lawrence Summers as President Obama’s chief economic adviser, most lists of potential candidates include Ann Fudge.
Robert Pittman Profits From Comcast Purchase of Daily Candy
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Golf and cards consumed too much of Cayne’s final days at Bear Stearns
Recent history has not been kind to James E. Cayne, the CEO who has been blamed for the collapse of Bear Stearns, the investment bank that was sold at a bargain basement price to JP Morgan Chase earlier this year.
“Perhaps unfairly, he will probably go down in the annals of finance as the Nero of the credit crisis,” writes William D. Cohan, in story to be published in the Aug. 18 edition of Fortune magazine.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
Click to activate the interactive map (requires Java)MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.“Instead of fiddling while Bear Stearns burned, his detractors say he was golfing too regularly at the Hollywood Golf Club in Deal, N.J., and playing championship-level bridge in Nashville, San Francisco and Detroit.”
Cohan’s profile is based on a series of interviews with Cayne, the first he has granted since Bear Stearns was sold.
Among other details, the story reveals that Cayne battled a life-threatening illness last September as his company’s troubles began to mount.
On Sept. 11, 2007, Cayne was hospitalized with what turned out to be sepsis. In his case, the blood infection had begun with an infected prostate.
Cayne lost 30 pounds during his 10-day stay in the hospital.
His illness was not made public for fear the news hurt his firm’s stock price.
The story also expands upon earlier reports that Cayne was literally out-of-touch during parts of the Bear Stearns crisis, away from the home office and playing bridge.
“When playing tournaments, Cayne, who only recently got his first cell phone and has no BlackBerry, was hard to reach,” Cohan writes.
Consequently, Cayne, 74, seems to always be getting bad news late and arriving at key meetings after they have started.
And by his own admission, he wasn’t aware of how much Bear Stearns had borrowed to invest in two of its mortgage-based hedge funds.
“I didn’t stop it. I didn’t rein in the leverage,” Cayne says.
When the value of the funds dropped, lenders started pounding on Bear Stearns’ door and the company couldn’t meet its obligations.
At this point, Cayne, who was in the past a confident, instinctive decision-maker, describes himself as confused and hesitant.
“It was not knowing what to do,” he says. “It’s not being able to make a definitive decision one way or the other, because I just couldn’t tell you what was going to happen.”
Under Cayne’s leadership prior to the crisis, the value of Bear Stearns’ stock had risen to as much as $143 a share, making Cayne and many other employees very rich.
The sale of the firm cost Cayne $1 billion, leaving him with a net worth of $600 million.
After the sale, Cayne did not receive “a face-saving senior-level job at JP Morgan Chase,” Cohan writes.
Alan “Ace” Greenberg, the Bear Stearns CEO before Cayne, was named vice chairman emeritus at JP Morgan. Alan Schwartz, who took over as CEO at Bear Stearns after Cayne, was also offered a position at JP Morgan, though he’s leaving at the end of the month.
In the profile, Cayne takes a few shots at Greenberg, the man who hired him at Bear Stearns in part because he and Cayne both played bridge.
And Cayne recalls that during his job interview Greenberg asked him how well he played.
“‘Mr. Greenberg,’” Cayne responded. “‘If you study bridge the rest of your life, if you play with the best partners and you achieve your potential, you will never play bridge like I play bridge.’”
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Randy Michaels built a radio empire, but does he have a plan for newspapers?
What might Tribune Company COO Randy Michaels be thinking?
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.The latest wave of departures among Tribune top brass – Los Angeles Times Publisher David Hiller and longtime Chicago Tribune Editor Ann Marie Lipinski resigned this week – cast a pall over already-demoralized newsrooms, in part because they were not about anyone falling on their swords.
Hiller had just signed off on 250 layoffs at the Los Angeles Times, but appears to have been tossed under the bus despite his willingness to do the dirty work. Lipinski, who has been handing out dozens of pink slips herself at the Chicago Tribune, reportedly made her own choice to leave. “This position is not the fit it once was,” she told staff.
So where is all this heading? Does the brash Michaels have any vision of where he is taking the company – beyond bailing as fast as he can to stave off potential bankruptcy in the face of a $13-billion debt incurred by Sam Zell’s purchase last year?
Considered a genius by his admirers and a madman by critics, Michaels is a former radio executive and shock jock (who reportedly resorted to farting on air and fake-pureeing a frog to boost ratings), who was handpicked to run the Tribune by its new owner Sam Zell.
Like his boss, Michaels affects a profane, tough-guy style. He announced the arrival of the new regime to Newsday staff last January by saying, “The difference between then and now is we’re not having another meeting. . . . We’re Actually Fucking Doing It.”
Zell, nicknamed the “grave dancer” for his knack for pulling value from dying businesses, has been a true believer in Michaels since buying a string of radio stations called Jacor Communications in 1993, then headed by Michaels.
Michaels impressed Zell as an empire builder, riding the wave of government deregulation to make tons of money for Jacor and then, San Antonio-based Clear Channel Communications Inc. He took Jacor from 13 stations to 230 in five years, and helped engineer a merger with Clear Channel in 1999, according to a profile in Chicago Business. At Clear Channel, he led a strategy that made the company the biggest radio operator in history.
But despite his financial success, Michaels “became the poster child for what people didn’t like about corporate radio,” Sean Ross of Edison Media Research told TVNewsday.
Among his innovations was “voice tracking” in which ‘local’ radio shows were produced hundreds of miles away, eliminating the need for many jobs and homogenizing play lists across the nation.
And then there were stories about his pranks, like the day he roamed the halls at Jacor wearing a rubber penis around his neck, accosting female employees, according to allegations aired on ABC’s “20/20,” by former Florida disc jockey Liz Richards who sued the company, including Michaels, for sex discrimination. Richards’ suit was settled out of court in 1995, and the terms were never disclosed.
“Looking for classy radio programming?” wrote Eric Boehlert in a withering 2001 Salon profile. “Don’t look here. The company is known for allowing animals to be killed live on the air, severing longstanding ties with community and charity events, laying off thousands of workers, homogenizing play lists and a corporate culture in which dirty tricks are a way of life.”
Michaels has always insisted such criticisms were unfair, attributing them to resistance to change in a rapidly consolidating industry.
Regardless, the reception he got from Tribune employees earlier this year was hopeful in many quarters, especially when he seemed so emphatic that the solution to the industry’s woes was not further cost-cutting, but creating entirely new streams of revenue. “You think Amazon is worrying about selling ads? You think eBay is worried about selling ads?” he said in his remarks at Newsday. “In the interactive world, that’s the icing on the cake. Media companies have their head where it doesn’t smell good.”
Except that it hasn’t worked out that way. However paltry those advertising revenues may have seemed then, they have nose-dived since. And with new income streams yet to materialize, the company’s steep debt payments began to seem more and more onerous.
Despite Zell’s insistence that he planned to keep intact the company’s 11 newspapers and nearly two dozen television stations, the company sold off Newsday, one of its most profitable papers, borrowed $300 million against future earnings and began exploring the sale or lease of the landmark properties owned by the Chicago and Los Angeles papers.
By June, Michaels was assuring worried investors: “We are actively pursuing a program to right-size our newspapers.”
The definition of ‘right-sizing – was not spelled out.
“Sounds better than ‘panicking,’” suggested media consultant Ken Doctor on his blog. “To describe the current round of staff cuts, though, there’s a better word: Frightsizing.”
Another tip-off to the future was suggested earlier this week by Lipinski’s successor at the Chicago Tribune, Gerould W. Kern, who was the one who introduced metrics to measure reporters’ productivity. In an interview with his own paper, Kern said he planned to work closely with Los Angeles Times Editor Russ Stanton to see where resources could be shared.
The scope of that sharing was not spelled out, but that too might signal a page out of Michael’s playbook at Clear Channel.
“If Randy repeats what he’s done in radio, we’ll see a lot of newsrooms eliminated,” media consultant John Gorman told Chicago Business. Gorman, who remembered hearing a Clear channel DJ mispronounce the name of the Cleveland suburb from which he was purporting to broadcast, predicted a scenario in which local TV newscasts would be ‘video-tracked’ from a central studio to save money.
To be fair, no one else has hit on the solution to print media’s declining fortunes either. Nor has anyone else beat their chest in quite the same way as Michaels or Zell.
“The dearth of decent ideas designed to save newspapers – or reinvent them for the digital age in ways that preserve their crucial democratic functions – is curious and depressing,” wrote Eric Alterman in The Nation. “It’s curious because some of the smartest, most ambitious and most civic-minded people in America are deeply engaged with the problem. It is depressing because the only ones with the self-confidence to undertake radical measures appear to be completely off their respective rockers.”
As Michaels himself promised Tribune employees in January: It’s going to be a wild ride.
As team owner, Stanley Druckenmiller might be another Mark Cuban
If he is successful in acquiring the Pittsburgh Steelers, what kind of owner will money-managing whiz Stanley Druckenmiller be?
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Think Mark Cuban, the fan-friendly owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, who sits behind his team — and yells — at just about every game.
Druckenmiller, chairman of Duquesne Capital Management and a former associate of George Soros, confirmed that he is interested in buying the Steelers. He said he would keep the team in Pittsburgh and indicated that he wanted the Rooney family to continue to be involved in management, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Druckenmiller, lives in New York with his wife, Fiona, a niece of former Morgan Stanley executive Barton Biggs.
A long-time Steelers fan, Druckenmiller flies to every home game. He tailgates in the parking lot, high-fives surrounding seatmates after big plays, and has been know to wear face paint in Steelers’ colors, black and gold.
“With Stanley Druckenmiller, it’s family first,” said friend and philanthropic partner Geoffrey Canada in an interview with the Tribune-Review in Pittsburgh. “I’d like to say friends come second, but the truth, and he’ll kill me for saying this, is that I’d never come between him and a Steelers’ game.”
Druckenmiller is chairman and Canada is CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, which works with at-risk kids.
A major donor to Bowdoin College, his alma mater, Druckenmiller also is a board member of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and an advisor to the Children’s Scholarship Fund.
His wife, a former portfolio manager at Dreyfus, is on the boards at the American Museum of Natural History, Parrish Art Museum, Spence School, Carnegie Corporation of New York and a foundation trustee of the New York University School of Medicine.
Forbes estimates Druckenmiller’s personal wealth at $3.5 billion. The magazine says the Steelers are worth $929 million.
According to The Journal, a tentative purchase price being discussed is $800 million, because the team is organized as a C Corporation. If the team were organized as an S Corporation, it could be worth as much as $1 billion, because of tax advantages, The Journal said.
The Rooney family paid $2,500 for its NFL franchise in 1933.
Druckenmiller’s investing style, which he says he borrows from Soros, might give some clues to the style of football he favors:
Be aggressive and (to mix sports metaphors) don’t be afraid to go for the home run.
“The way to attain truly superior long-term returns is to grind it out until you’re up 30 or 40 percent, and then if you have the convictions, go for a 100 percent year,” he told author Jack Schwager in the book, The New Market Wizards.
That sounds like a team fans would love to watch.
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