Comments on: Bloomberg’s Jonathan Weil Probes Lehman-R3 Hedge Fund Relationship

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 12:10:00 +0000

One factual error (small) in this blog- it is not highly unusual for a dealer to allow stock to continue to vest to an employee who departs to a client. In this case ‘client’…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:19:00 +0000

As this is obviously a material transaction, how is it not law that the details of the transaction not be released? The fact this institution can operate in this fashion without it being in breach of some SEC disclosure regulation is astounding to me.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:47:00 +0000

And these are the slime-balls that the Fed is loaning Treasury Notes in exchange for whatever toxic sludge they want to get rid of. The Government should not be loaning our money (I know the Fed is private, but who will the Fed turn to when the SHTF) to non-regulated institutions that will not answer questions. They dont want the regulation so they can be free. Let them be free to fail without taxpayer help.

By: Lune

Lune — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:09:00 +0000

All eyes will be on the earnings report this month. What baffles me is that Lehman’s top brass are risking jail time engaging in practices which will probably just delay the inevitable BK by a few months.

When the new administration comes into power, be it McCain or Obama, I suspect there will be a very public hunt for fall guys for this mess. They’ve already started with BSC. Now why would you risk going to jail when you could just wind up the firm now, keep all your bonuses, probably get a nice severance package to boot, and leave shareholders and the Fed with the mess while you go off and start a new distressed asset fund in the Caymans or something?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:17:00 +0000

Come on, these guys used SIVs with unspoken agreements and haven’t been arrested, why wouldn’t they do it again under a different name?When Boesky did it, it was called stock parking. How else do you think these guys sold these bad CDOs at the height of the debacle? They deleveraged by selling to themselves. It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes of the Financial World, winked at by the authorities.

By: Skeptical

Skeptical — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:05:00 +0000

Has it been disclosed whether Lehman Brothers will act as Prime Broker for R3 as it does for One William Street (Dave Sherr’s fund)? If so, in addition to keeping things close to home, it could be bc none of the other large broker-dealers wants to take its clearing risk.

Just asking.

By: Independent Accountant

Independent Accountant — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:05:00 +0000

Take a look at Citigroup’s $800 million purchase of Old Lane from Vikram Pandit & Co. What really happened there? What did Citigroup buy? I suspect the sales Weil is questioning were just “accounting maneuvers” like those we saw at Enron. Or GM’s having Delphi assume some of its pension liabilities.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:58:00 +0000

Sounds like Lehman and R3 have concluded that the Cheney values on disclosure — namely, “Never do it” — trump generally accepted accounting principles and all other form of related practices.

Hey, why not?

We can not expect to benefit from the power of free markets if we insist on any form of regulation of those markets. So quit whining about transparency and let free markets prevail!!