Monday, December 15, 2008

Lehman CEO to turn advisor?

Richard Fuld, the disgraced CEO of Lehman Brothers, is in no mood to call it quits, according to an FT report, quoted in rediff.com.

The 62-year-old Fuld, who run Lehman for nearly 15 years, is considering to launch a firm to advise small companies on financial and strategic issues.

British daily the Financial Times has reported that Fuld plans a comeback and has told friends that he might launch a small advisory firm to harness his contacts in US companies.

Fuld is in good company. Two other CEOs, who quit in the sub-prime crisis, Chuck Prince of Citigroup and Stanley Oneal of Merrill Lynch, have resurfaced.

Prince joined Stonebridge International, a strategic consulting firm, as vice-chairman in September, while ONeal is believed to be considering an offer from Vision Capital Advisors, a small hedge fund and private equity group," the report added.

Call it the value of networking- you build tremendous contacts in such positions and this will always be valued by the market. Leave it to " market forces", what? Anyway, I don't think we in India have any right to moralise. People convicted by the courts remain active in politics or in celebrity fields such as films.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Am not sure ...but is Fuld completely responsible for the downfall of Lehman (I think he was carrying a hope that some bank or the Fed will save them in worst case scenario, which proved to be fataly wrong; Nomura with USD 1B bonus and Barclays came in; quite late though).

I feel the role played by Goldman (current staff and rev. alumnus holding significantly important positions in significantly important regulatory bodies, policy making institutions etc) ensuring that no one saves Lehman cannot be undermined.

I'm not showering any respect on Fuld but I assume he did a good job for a very long time (at least post 9/11 and we should not forget the awards presented to Lehman by the Banking Institutions/Bodies on Fixed Income, Equity research etc)

2jaipm said...

To support the comments made by me as Anon (had issues signing in while posting)


Kindly visit:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/12/16/business/sorkin.php

Some Excerpts:
In the early hours of Sept. 15, after the U.S. government refused to rescue a foundering Lehman Brothers, something odd happened. The Federal Reserve lent tens of billions of dollars to a subsidiary of the newly bankrupt bank


Henry Paulson Jr., the Treasury secretary, and Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed, have said they did not have legal authority to lend any money to Lehman. The firm, officials said, did not have enough collateral.



"We didn't have the powers," Paulson insisted. He also said Lehman's bad assets created "a huge hole" on its balance sheet, adding that he had actually tried to find a way for the government to provide money to help support a deal between Lehman and Barclays, but legally could not. His explanation has evolved over time, however. He said the day after Lehman went bankrupt: "I never once considered that it was appropriate to put taxpayer money on the line in resolving Lehman Brothers."

I also got an answer in the same article NOT a very satisfactory one though:

Maybe the Fed's belated loan to Lehman helped avoid an even deeper crisis. As Barney Frank, chairman of the Financial Services Committee of the House of Representatives, said Sunday on the CBS News program "60 Minutes": "The problem in politics is this: You don't get any credit for disaster averted, going to the voters and saying: 'Boy, things really suck. But you know what? If it wasn't for me, they would suck worse."'

One doubt:

Paulson gets PENSION from Goldman even when he is holding the chair of Sec....is this statement correct? if yes, isn't there a conflict of Interest.