Those guys are total retards, in a way intelligent and smart, but completely unwise. They toil their whole life and earn big just to get a mansion next to some other idiot and even living in paradise seems to turn to hell for them. What's all the money good for when a person is too short sided and dumb to enjoy it. So in the end money does not buy happiness.
No greater status than a shitty looking home that is coming off at its seams? I see your point re land value but why would those people not invest another 2-3 million to build a proper home on that land? Makes zero sense to me. Now you can tell everyone that you live in a toilet in the Hamptons with decor of the 1930s so you can imagine to get properly raped by your grandma
You'd advocate keeping an employee with discretion over several hundred million dollars after displaying what was pretty clearly a rather public display of poor judgement, along with lying on the contract to rent the house? Because poor judgement is something most people compartmentalize really well, no chance that could be part of the guy's actual personality right? I'm guessing you've never actually run a business managing other people's money?
I currently run a business managing others' money. And to your question, yes I would rather keep such employee around than some of his bosses who got divorced 2 or 3 times and displayed a much bigger flaw in their judgement skills. Someone who likes to occasionally party and this time under pretense obtained access to a Hampton home is in my book not disqualified from the job of running a portfolio, at least not on this basis alone. However, a guy who cannot get his shit together in his marriage is a much bigger question mark to me. I think there 1000 more questionable character flaws than partying a bit too much. And hey, can we look for a minute at Bacon of Moore capital? This is the most ridiculous kid, fighting with a neighbor in the Bahamas like like a little high school boy who could not grow up. If you read the details of this story then you may understand my rational better. In contrast to that a 31 year old who partied a bit too wild but shows up on time on Monday morning for work is not subject to dismissal. Context in those kind of stories is incredibly important. Had Warren Buffett dismissed this PM then no questions asked. But Bacon who displays serious character flaws himself... OK... Sounds a bit hypocritical. I as investor of Moore Capital would have raised my eyebrows over Bacon's weird personal fights with Nyquest a long time ago. Going all ape over a guy who partied a little too much seems outright weird. And next time you lie to your wife or lie to your neighbor or anyone else in public domain is enough for your boss to destroy your career?
Let me play devil's advocate here. As long as Moore Capital is making money, everything is wonderful. But when they start losing money, this is the type of thing investors and ultimately a lawyer is going to go after. They are going to look for negligence, incompetence, etc. This is one of the reasons why hedge funds try to keep a low profile. So their behavior or the behavior of their employees cannot be used against them. Whether this is fair or not does not matter, they make very attractive targets for ambulance chasers. This kid is a walking time bomb for a firm like Moore Capital. And I didn't see anything in the article about the guy being a party animal, this is the only event mentioned. He throws this annual summer party which does not make him a party animal. But walking out on the tab makes him a thief. And that is NOT someone you want managing others money. Look, it's not like hedge fund managers have the reputation of being an honest school teacher, most people hold the image of them as being crooks, spoiled, privileged and dishonest. So that is their starting point, they have to work hard to overcome that reputation whether that describes them accurately or not. This kid makes it easy for those stereotypes to take deep root. He is a cancer to a firm who is trying to convey they are everything but the behavior he displayed. And furthermore, he is the exact persona of the spoiled rich white guy that hedge funds are trying to get away from. Having said all of what I have said, if the dude was making money, they would probably would have kept him. Clearly this made it easy for them to drop this kid like a bad habit because chances are, he was not a value add for the firm.
Then Bacon should himself resign. Because he poses the biggest PR disaster to his own fund and is not only ridiculing himself but everyone who works with him because of his pathetic and childish attitude regarding http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/12/peter-nygard-louis-bacon-legal-battle-bahamas. And I have not even mentioned the rumors that connect him with KKK.
But what you just said validates my point. You see, I knew nothing about this guy(Moore)...nothing, until this happened. Because of this dimwit, people are now going to direct their attention to him (Moore). And that is exactly my point. Moore could have been the senior advisor to the KKK for all I know, I never would have been the wiser. This kid just turned on the lights in the house. Cockroaches there are plenty. And this is precisely my point.
what a bs. Just because you are uninformed does not mean that kid is responsible for bad publicity. Bacon's (More Capital head) war with a play boy has been covered all over for years. Should you ever steal an unpaid strawberry from your company's pantry I hope you will not be made responsible should your company ever engage in large scale accounting fraud. It is called spurious correlation, my friend.
Conduit, I'm going to make this easy for you. Answer honestly please. If this kid was making money do you think he would be fired? If this kid was not, would you keep him? Come on, these guys are not running a non profit. It's only about the money. It's really that simple. I have no idea why you are being so difficult about this. I've worked in this business for two decades. I've seen managing partners looks the other way for rape, dealing drugs, even sex trafficking. Losing money on Wall Street....that's a deal breaker. If you want to believe he was a star trader and THIS is the only reason he was fired, then that is your choice. Having worked in this business long enough I know the real reason 99% get fired is because of bad performance. This behavior in the Hamptons just made it easy to let him go. Personally I don't care, I don't have my money with them and if I did, I would pull it because the fact that they hired this douche bag is reason enough to convict them on bad judgement.
Perhaps, but it shows just again how disingenuous most in this industry are. You can fire someone for bad performance without any other reason. But using this incident as reason to fire someone is weak and points to bad management. So, as shareholder I now have to ask the question: If it was really bad performance why did they not fire him much earlier...did my investments suffer due to bad management decisions? Plus I am not sure how attractive such fund is to some who are highly profitable PMs and to those who do care about ethics and moral values. I would not want to work for a hf owner who conducts himself like a clown and needs to wait for his poor performing PMs to have pool parties so he can fire them. Sorry but the more I think about it the more ridiculous this whole story becomes. Teenager party with twitter and facebook kids in the Hamptons...hedge fund owner who himself conducts himself like a teenager in the Bahamas but goes all ape on his employees because he is too much a coward to fire them straight for bad performance...soap opera? Probably...