Toluu : The Epicurean Dealmaker

The Epicurean Dealmaker

An occasional review and commentary on the wild and wacky world of mergers and acquisitions, from an enabler's point of view. Sometimes we will venture out into the broader landscape of capital markets, corporations, and economies to poke and peer at their curious denizens and bring back amusing reports. * * * Names will be changed to protect the innocent, if we find any.

Et in Arcadia EgoJanuary 1: The Dude: "Look, nothing is fucked, here, man."
The Big Lebowski: "Nothing is fucked?! The goddamn plane has crashed into the mountain!!"

— The Big Lebowski

Dealbreaker.com did a nice job yesterday quoting the I-Ching of all earthly wisdom, The Big Lebowski, in its blog post title referring to Drew Faust's November 10th letter to faculty, students, and staff of Harvard University.

In a remarkable and surprisingly realistic appraisal of the Stanford of the East's financial prospects now that the cream of Western Civilization is migrating from Park Avenue and Nob Hill into dingy caves in the West Texas Hill Country lighted only by Sterno, President Faust1 has warned her various constituencies that All Is Not Well:
... we must recognize that Harvard is not invulnerable to t
Ring, Ring! It's the Cluephone, for YouJanuary 1: [Fred] Joseph, the former Drexel CEO, said companies that don't pay bonuses risk losing employees who are unwilling to settle for salaries. Salaries in the industry range from about $80,000 to $600,000 a year.

"A lot of guys wouldn't want to work this hard just for salaries,'' he said. "You'd have a serious exodus from the business by a lot of really talented people—they'd become CFOs of companies, go to firms that didn't participate in the TARP program, go to hedge funds, or start hedge funds.''

God, Fred, I love ya dearly, but you've gotta stop granting interviews.

Fred Joseph, dusty old fart and erstwhile Pillager in Chief from the Dark Ages when Drexel Burnham Lambert stalked the earth, has simply been out of the game so long he doesn't realize we have traded in leather skullcaps for more modern headgear. To be fair, he is not alone among investment bankers in this regard, and the venerable old i-banking i
Greatest Hits of 2008January 1: Whew! I'm glad that's over.

What a miserable and bloody year 2008 was. I don't know about you, Dearly Beloved and Much Suffering Readers, but I couldn't wait to see the back of it. Alas, my relief is tempered by certain knowledge that we will only be allowed to doff last year's stylish habiliment of funereal black in exchange for donning this year's model of sackcloth and ashes.
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

— T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men"

Anyway, I am sure many of you are wondering why I am troubling you on the morning after what should have been an epic quest to forget 2008, so I will make my remarks brief.

Dedicated followers of these pages will remember that I have been accustomed in the past to intermittently publish a brief list or
Holiday Tonic IIDecember 19 2008: December 19, 2008:
As I came over Windy Gap
They threw a halfpenny into my cap,
For I am running to Paradise;
And all that I need do is to wish
And somebody puts his hand in the dish
To throw me a bit of salted fish:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

My brother Mourteen is worn out
With skelping his big brawling lout,
And I am running to Paradise;
A poor life do what he can,
And though he keep a dog and a gun,
A serving maid and a serving man:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

Poor men have grown to be rich men,
And rich men grown to be poor again,
And I am running to Paradise;
And many a darling wit’s grown dull
That tossed a bare heel when at school,
Now it has filled an old sock full:
And there the king is but as the beggar.

The wind is old and still at play
While I must hurr
The Three Faces of BernieDecember 17 2008: Will the real Bernie Madoff please step forward?

Stories, news articles, and rank speculation continue to rocket around the mainstream media and the blogosphere concerning everyone's favorite bubeleh, Bernie Madoff. As of this writing, real information about the nature, extent, and Bernie's motivations for what appears to be the investment shitstorm of the century1 remains in short supply, so it is difficult to get a good handle on the former knacker's character. (I do not know the man personally, but he always seemed balbatish to me.)

Since nature—and human perversity—abhors a vacuum, commentators, kibbitzers, and assorted know-it-alls have jumped in to offer their opinions on the great man. Currently, there seem to be three leading theories in circulation:

1) Bernie as goniff
Goniff: Crook, thief, burglar, swindler, racketeer2
As in Snidely Whiplash,