So what are EX Drexel Burnham Lambert alumni doing now ?... * Abby Joseph Cohen, partner and chief U.S. investment strategist at Goldman, Sachs & Co * Marc Faber, formerly managing director of Drexel's Hong Kong office, famous for the Gloom Boom Doom investment report "Dr Doom" * Michael Milken, former head of the non-investment-grade bond department; almost single-handedly created the market for "high-yield bonds" (also known as "junk bonds") * Richard Sandor, Father of Interest Rate Futures and Current Chairman of the Chicago Climate Exchange * Roderick M. Hills, former Chairman of U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) * Dennis Levine Chairman & CEO, Adasar Group, Inc. * Joel Greenblatt, founder of Gotham Capital * Joseph Cassano, founder of AIG Financial Products * Ken Moelis, former President and Head of Investment Banking at UBS; founder of Moelis & Company * Jeffrey Chanin, founder of Chanin Capital Partners * Todd Fisher, Senior Partner at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co * Terren Peizer, current CEO of Hythiam Co * Leon Black, leader of Apollo Management * Gary Winnick, founder and former chairman of Global Crossing * Steve Feinberg, Cerberus Capital Management * Paul Biddelman, President Hanseatic Corporation * Mitch Julis, Canyon Capital Partners * James Howard Hemsley, Partner at Hamilton Bushard * James Stephen Fossett, American aviator, sailor and adventurer * Guy Adami, panelist on CNBC's Fast Money * Richard B. Handler, current C.E.O. of Jefferies & Company * Brett Clancy, current C.E.O. of Japan Assets * Bennett Goodman, co-founder of GSO Capital now part of Blackstone * Tripp Smith, co-founder of GSO Capital now part of Blackstone * Frederick H. Joseph, co-founder of Morgan Joseph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexel_Burnham_Lambert
Ought to put Ivan Boesky on that list. He may not have been on the payroll, technically, but as much cash passed back and forth, I am...highly confident...he was working for DBL.
I thought at one time Levine had a web site dedicated to his innocence, doesn't seem to be one anymore.
His company has a single page website with directions to his office, that's about it. In the book Den of Thieves, James Stewart really portrayed Levine as a buffoon. So much so that I thought maybe there was bad blood between them for some reason. But then a few years after Levine was released from prison he gave an interview to 60 minutes, and it was clear that Stewart's portrayal of Levine was spot on, Levine really was a buffoon. Why did he even bother to give them an interview in the first place?
That was the impressions I got, but you seldom see mentioned as a comparision. Nothing new under the sun unless I have this pegged wrong.
See kids, you too can be from a shamed company and go on to even larger fortunes and really start making money. $$$$ Adami must of been right out of college when he started , he is till pretty young. EF
Michael Lewis spoke in Ohio (I think, going from memory here) and told the Wall Street story to college kids and exposed WS for what it is, soon after Lewis was getting e mail response from everyone to see if he would help them get a job on the street.
Joseph Cassano grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where his father was a policeman. He earned a political science degree from Brooklyn College in 1977. He worked at investment bank Drexel Burnham Lambert during their junk bond phase. In 1987, AIG hired Cassano as one of the first ten people in the Financial Products unit, as Chief Financial Officer.[5] In 1994, Thomas R. Savage appointed Cassano as head of the Transaction Development Group. Cassano accepted the 1998 proposal by J.P. Morgan to package credit-default swaps on Broad Index Secured Trust Offering (nicknamed Bistros). Cassano considered these collateralized debt obligations a key event: "It was a watershed event in 1998 when J.P. Morgan came to us, who were somebody we worked with a great deal, and asked us to participate."[6] During his career at AIGFP from 1987 until he was forced to retire in March 2008, Cassano received $315 million: $280 million in cash and an additional $34 million in bonuses.[7] An initial $1 million-a-month consulting fee was later canceled.[8] According to Matt Taibbi: In fact, Cassano remained on the payroll and kept collecting his monthly million through the end of September 2008, even after taxpayers had been forced to hand AIG $85 billion to patch up his mistakes. When asked in October why the company still retained Cassano at his $1 million-a-month rate despite his role in AIG's losses on credit default swaps, CEO Martin Sullivan told Congress with a straight face that AIG wanted to "retain the 20-year knowledge that Mr. Cassano had." (Cassano, who is apparently hiding out in his lavish town house near Harrods in London, could not be reached for comment.)[9] In the wake of the scandal, United States regulators and the United Kingdom Serious Fraud Office began investigating Cassano's dealings to determine whether they were just excessive and risky, or criminal.[10] Cassano was a political contributor to the campaigns of Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and the Republican Representative Nancy L. Johnson [11] In March 2009 Cassano was linked to e-mails he authored in 2006 which solicited contributions from AIG executives for Dodd's campaign due to Dodd's position as incoming chairman of the Senate Banking Committee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Cassano
And John Arnold worked at Enron. In other words, working at a firm that *other people* fucked up does not mean that a person can't do their job well. Only people who should get tarred by working at a failed firm are senior management responsible for failed oversight, and those who were actually responsible for the collapse. Not the mail boy or someone at a desk who performed in their role successfully.