Posts Tagged ‘Goldman Sachs’

The Week Unpeeled

Bloomberg terminals and the journalists behind them made headlines last week, after an exclusive in The New York Post alleged that reporters were “spying” on customers by looking at what functions were being used and whether they were logging into terminals (prompting calls to Goldman Sachs at one point about whether a partner had left the firm when a terminal had been left idle).  The story, which became front-page news over the weekend, Goldman and JP Morgan officials were blasting Bloomberg for snooping over security in using the ubiquitous boxes. The Fed and Treasury are now looking into the issue, so the story will have long legs no doubt.

Elsewhere:

  • The Dow continued its rally, ending at a record close Friday of 15,118, and the S&P 500 another record close of 1,633;
  • The Fed said it is planning (timing uncertain) its wind-down its massive bond-buying program, which was designed to stimulate the economy;
  • NBC News is expected to name Deborah Turness, the head of ITV News in Britain, as president, the first woman president of a network news division in the US;
  • Alan Abelson, a top editor of Barron’s and columnist for “Up and Down Wall Street, died; and

Researchers last week announced that carbon levels have reached their highest levels in “millions of years” on earth, which no doubt will brings more attention to climate change issues. End of Story

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The Week Unpeeled

Hot water all around: First and definitely foremost last week, the Senate slammed JP Morgan for its London “whale” trades amid accusations that the bank “brushed off internal warnings and misled regulators and investigators.” (Some estimates put firm’s loss as much as $6.2 billion on the trades.)  In addition, the Fed cited weaknesses in stress tests capital planning for JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, which could limit plans for dividends or buybacks. And then, SAC Capital was hit with a more than $600 million penalty to settle two insider-trading cases.  What gives, especially post Dodd-Frank and bailouts and cliffs (oh, my!).  More to be seen but certainly questions on ethics, control and hubris will surface.

Elsewhere:

  • The Dow, after a 10-day streak of gains, which included several for the record books, ended Friday at 14,514, up 11 percent for the year;
  • Amid the record-setting advances, it’s interesting but no surprise that Lipper Funds (with Oppenheimer) ran a six-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on Friday built on theme that “stocks are back”;
  • Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S4, with kinda wild features like a SmartScroll that can follow your eyeballs or hand motions to scroll, in an aggressive bid to take a bigger share of the US market;
  • FLOTUS Michelle Obama will appear on the cover of Vogue in April;
  • Anna Wintour was named artistic director of Conde Nast, adding to her 25-year role as editor of Vogue; and
  • The conclave of Cardinals elected Jorge Mario Cardinal Bergoglio from Argentina, aka Pope Francis, as first Latin American pontiff. End of Story
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The Week Unpeeled

Big media-related news – traditional and social alike – all week, with Newsweek announcing that it would end its print edition (interesting to read print stories day after announcement – all second day leads because all news broke and swirled the day before, highlighting the reason for the move); Google stock dropped like a rock (about 8 percent) on disappointing earnings – released early, btw, by “human error” from another firm sending results to the SEC -- as the search behemoth tries to figure out the mobile world (along with most of the world) as a business model;  and former Goldman Sachs PR chief, Lucas van Praag, started his own shop called LvP & Associates, no doubt with a  focus on crisis communications and reputation management.

Elsewhere:

  • Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit exited the bank, replaced by insider Mike Corbat, a surprise probably just in timing;
  • Goldman Sachs “Suffered a Solid Quarter” in a return to profit and in an odd choice of words in The Wall Street Journal headline that seems to show uncertainly about the economy and uncertainly about maybe even Goldman in fiscal and reputational health;
  • Former cyclist Lance Armstrong lost his advertising income (Anheuser-Busch, RadioShack, Nike and a few others) post allegations of doping (maybe he should sponsor a juice company);
  • Friday marked the 25th anniversary of Black Monday when a surge in panic selling on Wall Street triggered a global stock market collapse; the Dow responded in a like but smaller manner, falling more than 200 points on Friday to end at 13,343, spooked by weak earnings and expectations for a weak earnings season;
  • US economists Lloyd Shapley and Alvin Roth win the Nobel prize for economics on the theory of “stable allocations” or matching people and things together;
  • European leaders agreed a timetable to set up a single eurozone-wide banking supervisor run by the European Central Bank
  • The Office for National Statistics released data indicating UK unemployment in August fell by 50,000 to 2.53m to stand at 7.9pc. and UK inflation also fell to 2.2pc in September from 2.5pc in August
  • Starbucks is facing criticism after it was revealed the coffee chain paid just £8.6m corporation tax in the UK over the last 14 years and nothing in the last three through legal tax minimization techniques
  • Paintings with a combined worth of £50 million by Picasso, Matisse, Gauguin, Meyer de Haan, Lucian Freud and two by Monet were stolen from a gallery in Rotterdam; and
  • Johnny Depp is starting his own literary imprint just to add more cool to his coolness. End of Story
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The Week Unpeeled

Who would have thought that the Muppets would become a popular term on Wall Street last week?  Not many no doubt until Greg Smith submitted his explosive op-ed to The New York Times (was that his first choice, I wonder?) on Wednesday titled, “Why I’m Leaving Goldman Sachs,” where we learned Muppets are what Goldman allegedly calls clients. No real second choice for a job for Smith after that retirement letter, which raised chatter among bankers, Twitter and everyone and everywhere else at the end of last week and really quite a few Goldman defenders by the weekend. (Mayor Bloomberg told the Financial Times that even God would be given a hard time leading Goldman Sachs.)  The piece, which really was a short-term PR nightmare, highlighted lots of issues worthy of discussion like company culture, client service, money and greed and maybe how best to improve the place where you work (bad example here).  But if you want a real juicy attack on Goldman, read the judge’s opinion in El Paso/Kinder Morgan deal.  That’s high drama and seems to have caused the bank to review its policies on transaction conflicts. '

Elsewhere:

  • Encyclopedia Britannica announced it was leaving the stacks and focusing on its digital future, a story that got volumes of coverage showing the nearly 250-year publication has a following;
  • Former Newscorp exec Rebekah Brooks is arrested and questioned a second time on a kind of obstruction of justice charge;
  • A growing number of reporters voiced their concerns that the UK faces another economic shock and many were bracing themselves for what Chancellor George Osborne will slash in his upcoming Budget;
  • An annual study of boardroom gender by the Cranfield School of Management highlighted the lack of women on boards revealing that 10 percent of Britain's biggest companies still do not have any women on their boards; and
  • The Dow ended its best week of the year up 2.4 percent at 13,232. CJP
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Talk about a bad first day on the job. Only several hours after the New York Times announced the hire of new Goldman Sachs head flack, the same publication printed an op-ed from disenchanted Greg Smith, former executive director and head of the U.S. equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In his one-two shot on the Wall Street giant, Smith reduces the motivations of the Bank to money grubbery and paints the demise of a once superior culture he is no longer proud of. Looks like van Praag escaped just in time, this is definitely any corporate PR pro’s worst nightmare. On the other hand, for my colleagues here at CJP, many of our clients and any of our readers who share the mission of maintaining reputation and creating value for stakeholders in big brands, the unwinding of the situation is certainly one to keep close tabs on and lob into the category of “lessons learned”.

Since the news broke yesterday morning, both traditional and social media outlets have exploded with chatter of the now viral resignation letter and what has been a much anticipated response from the bulge bank. Smith, who resides in London, has incited a cross-continental ripple of buzz – tweets, posts, and spoofs alike such as the thedailymash’s article “Why I am leaving the Empire, by Darth Vader” and U.S. humorist, Andy Borowitz’s,  fabled letter to clients from the Bank’s chairman (as reported by BrandChannel). The Wall Street Journal (most likely grieving over the scoop by hometown press rival) yesterday afternoon posted a letter to their employees  from Goldman’s Blankfein and Cohn, regarding the “disgruntled” employee’s spectacular exit.

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