Archive - Mar 2009

Well, it wouldn't be fun if it didn't include Citadel... and it does...but also everyone's favorite Stevie Cohen and Henry Swieca.

A very riveting overview by one of our anonymous readers charged "with 14 counts of wire fraud. Total monetary figure of loss $265,000. [he faces] a maximum sentence of 240 years." While we can not vouch for the legitimacy of the narrative, it provides some very good insight into the MCC (where Madoff is right now) and the process of transitioning to a federal facility.

Worth your time.

And Zero Hedge hadn't even started...

*****

Goldman Sachs CFO to Host Call for Media

Business Wire

NEW YORK -- March 19, 2009

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) today announces that David Viniar, Chief Financial Officer, will host a call on Friday, March 20^th at 11am to answer questions from journalists and clarify certain misperceptions in the press regarding Goldman Sachs' trading relationship with AIG.

Things at Citadel going from worse to much worse. Hedge Fund Alert reporting that Peter Jenson, Citadel's controller is likely to leave Citadel in the next few days to become COO of Harbinger. As ZH disclosed previously, the split between Harbinger and Harbert has made many institutional investors nervous, and Falcone is seeking to reassure them by making several high profile hires.

Earlier, I discussed the return by Chris Dodd of his AIG campaign contributions, which recently had amounted to over $100,000. CNSnews is reporting that the return of AIG contributions is only now starting to pick up, after Republican Mike Pence started a campaign for full refunding.

Among the individuals implicated are:

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), $103,100; (Some more on Chris here)

Even as the company scrambles to arrange a forbearance before its 5pm deadline tomorrow, rumors swirled earlier today that BoNY, the trustee on GGP's 3.625% 2009 which were supposed to mature this Monday, has served the company with a default notice. According to the notice, the company is obligated to pay past due amounts, and makes a full blown bankruptcy that much more likely.

Populist anger level reduced to deep orange from bright red.

On occasion, Zero Hedge has discussed the utility of such programs as the TALF and the Public-Private Investment Fund, all core components of the Financial Stability Plan, which, when first presented by Tim Geithner in Feruary, shocked the capital markets with its alleged insufficiency and opacity.

The NY AG and the SEC have charged that former deputy NY State controller David Loglisi was receiving kickbacks to steer pension funds to certain hedge funds and private equity firms. Also charged is Henry Morris, top political advisor and chief fundraiser for former NY State Comptroller and CIO of the New York State Common Retirement Fund David Havesi.

Much has been said on Zero Hedge about Paul Kanjorski and his interpretation of what happened to money market funds on September 18. Now the Investment Company Institute chimes in with their own view. While the entire report is a massive 220+ pages, the relevant section (S. 6) for Money Market flows begins on page 47.

Some very interesting leaks during today's GECC investor update. While the bulk of what was presented is fluff, mostly about the company assuming profitability under the most dire scenarios (those Calcutta-outsourced financial models tend to have an ever so slightly bullish angle to them, just ask Erin Callan), GECC, during its live webcast, noted that it would consider 2010 funding needs through more TLGP debt.

The Moody's/REAL Commercial Property Price Index posted a 5.5% decline from December, representing the largest drop in its history. Price are now down 19.1% from a year ago and 15.4% lower than two years ago.

New York, March 19, 2009 -- Commercial real estate prices as measured by Moody's/REAL Commercial Property Price Indices (CPPI) decreased in January by 5.5% from the previous month. The January decline was the largest in the history of the index, which has followed commercial real estate prices since December 2000.

Chris Dodd has taken Zero Hedge's advice and has decided to refund his campaign contributions from not only criminals with a record, and destroyers of the free market such as Joe Cassano but everyone else at AIG.

In an interesting development in CDS land, holders (and sellers) of Abitibi protection are looking to dealers for determination whether a credit event has occurred at Abitibi, or so debtwire reports. If anyone has followed the story here, last week Abitibi received a stay from acceleration on yet another "peak-of-the-bubble" term loan arranged by the helpful people at Goldman Sachs (batting ratio of about 100% in loan-to-bankruptcies so far).

Cheerleader rally just got the delta force reinforcements... So when is the last time anyone cared about Reg FD... Or capitalism...

Notes from an investor presentation going on right now:

Notes difficult market expected for 2009... pockets of increased liquidity for consumers and mid-market business... industry losses continuing... delinquencies and non-earnings assets pressured in both Consumer and Commercial... says very difficult to execute asset sales in todays market but believe TALF will help.

Company also says: