Hey Joey, Joey, listen to me it's Jimmy yer talking to. When I said the market had got it wrong and everything would be OK I thought it would, I mean, how was I to know this was going to happen" "Margin call, schmargin call, vats it matter?" "well yeah I sold a few shares but that was for the condo, and I got a lotta grandchildren who want to go to college"
Final tally (not adjusted for possible hedging) is in: 11 million shares in @ $107.30 11 million shares out @ $2.00 Spent 60 years building his $2.5 billion net worth, and loses $1.16 billion of it in 6 months. Ouch.
The fact is, no one knows what his net position was, whether he hedged etc. No one knows what he is worth either, since he lives in an offshore tax haven. I'm a bit sceptical that a guy who has been a market speculator for over 30 years would bet the ranch on one stock without any kind of stop loss or hedging program. Until we see this quarters SEC filings, and/or he comes out with an official statement, we don't really know how much he has lost. For all we know he could have bought all those puts last week and actually turned a profit on the move.
"With a fortune of 2.8 billion pounds ($5.6 billion) according to the latest Sunday Times rich list, Lewis ranks in a Top 20 list of the richest Britons and is the 369th wealthiest person worldwide, according to U.S. magazine Forbes."
Apparently he "deeply unhappy" with the price and is trying to block the deal - rmifications for the Fed it seems, but how could there be as this was not a bailout right? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/03/18/cnlewis118.xml