Are Stocks the Bargain You Think?The NY Times’ David Leonhardt tackled that question today, taking on conventional wisdom and some of Wall Street’s most legendary investors in the process. …
Daily Archives: October 29, 2008
Fed Set to Slash Rates: Two of Three Likely Outcomes Are Bad
The Federal Reserve is widely expected to cut rates later today; the only real question is by how much. Perhaps a better question is whether rate cuts will do any good in the short term, and what kind of long-term affect they will have on the economy.Shor
Goldman $ach$ names partner$
It’s not all bad news on Wall Street, at least not for those at the top of the heap.
Goldman Sachs, who pays out the most in bonuses each year, on Wednesday named 94 new members to its elite club of partner managing directors. This group of 443 men and women typically share a fifth of the firm’s bonus pool, which is nothing to sneeze at, even if compensation is down this year.
Below is the memo and the list:
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October 29, 2008
Goldman Sachs Announces the Partner Class of 2008
We are pleased to announce that the following individuals have been invited to become partners as of November 29, 2008, the start of our next fiscal year. These appointments recognize the contributions and potential of some of the firm’s most valued senior professionals.
Paul R. Aaron
Sean J. Gallagher
David M. Marcinek
Heather K. Shemilt
Sanggyun Ahn
Gonzalo R. Garcia
Blake W. Mather
Magid N. Shenouda
Philip S. Armstrong
Paul E. Germain
John J. McCabe
Suhail A. Sikhtian
Charles Baillie
Paul Graves
John J. McGuire Jr.
Gavin Simms
Philip R. Berlinski
E. Glenn Hadden
Milton R. Millman III
Marshall Smith
Robert A. Berry
Jonathan J. Hall
Christopher Milner
John D. Storey
Oliver R. Bolitho
Jan Hatzius
Christina P. Minnis
Patrick M. Street
Patrick T. Boyle
Martin Hintze
Takashi Murata
Ram K. Sundaram
Stephen Branton-Speak
Todd Hohman
Todd G. Owens
Robert J. Sweeney
Anne F. Brennan
James P. Houghton
Craig W. Packer
Michael J. Swenson
Samuel S. Britton
Paul J. Huchro
Gilberto Pozzi
Jeffrey M. Tomasi
Jason G. Cahilly
Hidehiro Imatsu
Lora J. Price
David G. Torrible
Martin Cher
Alan S. Kava
Lorin P. Radtke
Frederick Towfigh
Denis P. Coleman III
Dimitrios Kavvathas
Richard M. Ramsden
Greg A. Tusar
Kevin P. Connors
Larry M. Kellerman
Michael J. Richman
Andrea A. Vittorelli
James V. Covello
Hideki Kinuhata
Michael Rimland
Paul Walker
Jeffrey R. Currie
Michael E. Koester
Luigi G. Rizzo
Alasdair J. Warren
Albert F. Dombrowski
J. Christopher
A. Kojima
Scott A. Romanoff
Dominic A. Wilson
Thomas M. Dowling
Michiel P. Lap
Julian Salisbury
Steve Windsor
L. Brooks Entwistle
Brian J. Lee
Paul D. Scialla
Martin Wiwen-Nilsson
Stephan J. Feldgoise
David A. Lehman
Peter E. Scialla
Denise A. Wyllie
Benjamin W. Ferguson
Deborah R. Leone
Peter A. Seccia
Han Song Zhu*
Wolfgang Fink
John S. Lindfors
Rebecca M. Shaghalian
Timur F. Galen
H.C. Liu
Devesh P. Shah
* Employee of Goldman Sachs Gao Hua Securities Company LimitedWe congratulate all of those selected and wish them continued success in their careers. These decisions are extremely difficult and we would like to acknowledge the contributions of those who were not selected this year. We are confident that many of them will be selected in the future.
Lloyd C. Blankfein Jon Winkelried Gary D. Cohn
Bottom Fishing: Let’s Hope It’s Different This Time
Tuesday’s huge rally and expectations for rate-cuts not just from the Fed but central bankers worldwide helped global stocks rally Wednesday.U.S. …
Steeling for a fight
With commodity prices sagging in line with global growth, BHP Billiton’s mammoth, unsolicited bid for rival Rio Tinto might seem a lot less threatening. Certainly the price of the deal has a lot less wow in it, having fallen from $170 billion to under $70 billion in just a few short months. And in a few days, efforts to put the deal together will be one year old. Happy birthday.
Japan, woefully devoid of such resources, is home to two of the world’s biggest steel companies. Nippon Steel and JFE Holdings account for 6 percent of global steel output. The Nikkei business daily reports the country is stepping up pressure to block the deal.
The paper said Japan’s vice minister for international affairs at the trade and industry ministry will urge the European Commission to join it in blocking the merger, though a ministry official said there were no plans to make such a request.
It might seem petty to stir things up with global commodity prices in retreat. But unlike other industrial metals like copper, iron ore prices are not softening much. Analysts we polled said prices are likely to remain flat or rise modestly in 2009 contract talks, after the stunning hike of up to 96.5 percent in 2008.
And Japan’s outdated competition law makes it hard for the country to take any meaningful action to block the deal on its own. Its competition regulators ordered BHP to submit information on its bid for Rio last month, but BHP has refused to look at the request.
The EU commission has set a Jan. 15 deadline for making a final ruling on the deal, which has already been cleared by Australian and U.S. competition regulators. BHP’s share price is down 35 percent this year, and Rio’s is off 47 percent. By next year, the merger may be looking even less like a mighty move towards a monopoly and more like a necessity.
Deals of the day:
* Foster’s Group, the world’s second-largest wine group, said it has yet to receive any proposals on its wine business, whose future it is reviewing.
* U.S. private equity firm Ripplewood Holdings was picked as the favored bidder for the purchase of South Korea’s Daewoo Electronics from its creditors, leading creditor Woori Bank said.
* Sumitomo Mitsui Financial, Japan’s third-largest bank, is in talks to buy around a 2 percent stake in South Korea’s KB Financial for about 20 billion yen ($201.8 million), a person familiar with the matter said.
* Norwegian oilfield services group Sevan Marine said it was in talks with potential investors in its Sevan Drilling unit.
* Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek Holdings has agreed to a further investment of up to 12 billion rupees ($147 million) in Pakistan’s NIB Bank via a rights issue, NIB said.
* China Southern Airlines, the country’s largest carrier by fleet size, said it will invest more than 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) in Liaoning Airport Group to help fund its expansion.
* Germany’s BASF has tightened its grip on Ciba to nearly 70 percent of the share capital and voting rights of the specialty chemicals company.
Wall Street Gives Up on Yahoo-Google Search, Wants MSFT Deal
From Silicon Alley Insider, Oct. 29, 2008:Yahoo management’s moves over the past year are rapidly slipping into tragicomedy. As we’ve noted frequently over the past few weeks, the Yahoo-Google search deal is on the rocks, and both the company and now Wall
Dow Soars 889: The Upside of Volatility
Hindsight being 20-20, it was clear the stock market was primed to rally, as it did with reckless abandon on Tuesday. Following big gains in overseas proxies, the Dow jumped 889 points, its second-biggest point gain in history; all 30 D
Big Tech Loses Its Safe-Haven Status
Big tech stocks have taken a beating lately, but does that mean it’s time to buy, or is there more pain on the horizon?The problem, says my guest Paul Kedrosky, is that the facets that once gave tech its safe-haven status are now seen as detrimental. In p