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  1. #1

    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Montpeculiar VT
    Posts
    161

    Win Smith, Former Merrill Executive, Is Buying Shares Again.

    From my bloomberg today..... I like your call here but I have to say that is if I was a long term shareholder I would be furious beyond words.

    Win Smith, Former Merrill Executive, Is Buying Shares Again

    By Zachary R. Mider

    July 29 (Bloomberg) -- Winthrop Smith Jr., the former head of Merrill Lynch & Co.'s international brokerage unit, said he's buying the firm's shares again after Chief Executive Officer John Thain announced plans to shed risky assets and raise capital.

    Smith, who left the firm in 2001, sold all his shares before Thain took charge of the third-biggest U.S. securities firm last year, he said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. Thain raised $8.55 billion of equity today and sold $30.6 billion of bonds at a fifth of their face value to preserve credit ratings threatened by mortgage losses.

    ``John Thain inherited a sick patient,'' said Smith, 58. ``I think this is medicine which is a little bit bitter, but I think it's a good move, and I think it does remove a lot of risk, if not most of the risk from the balance sheet.''

    Smith worked at Merrill for almost three decades before exiting when he lost out to Stanley O'Neal in the race to become Merrill's president. Under O'Neal, Merrill became the leading underwriter of collateralized debt obligations, bonds created by packaging other debt securities. O'Neal was ousted last year after a decline in the U.S. housing industry caused a collapse in the market for CDOs and mortgage-backed securities.

    Smith's father, who bore the same name, was CEO of Merrill from 1959, when Merrill converted into a public corporation from a partnership, until his death in 1961.

    Merrill rose 36 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $24.69 at 1:18 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Before today, the stock fell 56 percent this year.

    `Good Value'

    ``I've started to buy a little bit here, and I think this is good value going forward,'' Smith said.

    Banks and securities firms have raised more than $350 billion after the global credit contraction led to credit losses and writedowns of more than $470 billion. The crisis cost Bear Stearns Cos., the fifth-biggest U.S. securities firm, its independence when it was forced to sell itself to JPMorgan Chase & Co. to avert bankruptcy.

    ``Usually there's an event both at the top of the market and the bottom of the market that's climactic,'' Smith said. Merrill's asset sales and capital-raising ``appears to be one sign that maybe the market is beginning to bottom out and maybe the worst of the troubles are over,'' Smith said.

  2. #2
    Moved to Misc.


    I like your call here but I have to say that is if I was a long term shareholder I would be furious beyond words.
    Not sure why you are saying you would be furious, were you to be a long term shareholder.

    People buying drives the price up, and I would think Win's buying, with his experience, would be more helpful to driving the price up.

    So if you were a long term shareholder, wouldn't you be happy to have the price driven back up?


    Or have I got something wrong, in my thinking? (I admit to not being the sharpest knife in the drawer on stocks. . . among other subjects. )
    .
    Two roads diverged in a wood,

    and I- I took the one less traveled by,


    And that has made all the difference.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Lostone
    Moved to Misc.


    I like your call here but I have to say that is if I was a long term shareholder I would be furious beyond words.
    Not sure why you are saying you would be furious, were you to be a long term shareholder.

    People buying drives the price up, and I would think Win's buying, with his experience, would be more helpful to driving the price up.

    So if you were a long term shareholder, wouldn't you be happy to have the price driven back up?


    Or have I got something wrong, in my thinking? (I admit to not being the sharpest knife in the drawer on stocks. . . among other subjects. )
    I think he was referring to being furious at the prior management for having gotten so deep into this mess in the first place.

    I certainly hope Win is right and this is the bottom. Personally, I think commodity prices have to come down and we are seeing the beginning of that.

    Interestingly, when the Japanese RE bubble burst their banks hid the bads loans and continued lending to questionable enterprises leading to a decade of negative growth. US financial institutions are being forced to deal with the same issue much more precipitously, taking massive losses and reducing lending in the short term. Wonder how it will play out.

  4. #4

    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    North NJ and SB (every chance I get)
    Posts
    99
    ``I've started to buy a little bit here, and I think this is good value going forward,'' Smith said.

    For some reason I suspect that my idea of "a little bit" is a LOT less than Win's idea...

  5. #5

    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Montpeculiar VT
    Posts
    161
    I was referring to the fact that MER has written down or lost more than 50B, loosing more than their entire shareholder equity in the last year. A firm I work with participated in yesterdays offering but MER hit our price target this morning and we are done. $22.5 to $28 in 24 hours...

    I find the connections between wall street and our little vermont ski areas to be fascinating so that's why I posted this. AIG/Stowe is another example...'

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Last Tracks
    I was referring to the fact that MER has written down or lost more than 50B, loosing more than their entire shareholder equity in the last year. A firm I work with participated in yesterdays offering but MER hit our price target this morning and we are done. $22.5 to $28 in 24 hours...

    I find the connections between wall street and our little vermont ski areas to be fascinating so that's why I posted this. AIG/Stowe is another example...'
    Not to mention Fortress/Intrawest and Stratton

  7. #7

    Join Date
    Mar 2006
    Location
    warren
    Posts
    1,217
    Please don't put me in the same box and them! We are not remote investors but rather people who own for the long-term to enjoy and make everything better for all who want this Valley to sustain itself.

  8. #8

    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Montpeculiar VT
    Posts
    161
    Win, every time that I go to sugarbush I see you milling (or skiing) around with all the other customers and employees, keeping an eye on everything.

    It's obvious to me, and I ski 40+days at sugarbush, that you really do care about the sport and the valley and it shows at so many levels...

    I don't get that impression anywhere else in central Vt. and that's one of many reasons why I ski at the bush.

  9. #9
    ouch...

    $16...

    fire sale...

    or FIRE, run for the exits!!

    bunch of crooks ruined this country, all of them.

  10. #10

    In a nutshell..

    the fed had to lower interest rates last summer in an otherwise sound period of economic growth in an effort to prevent all of this from happening...

    that created weakness in the dollar, commodity inflation, and put a hurtin on the consumer...

    hindsight 20/20, the move obviously didn't work...

    and now, after sucking it up and paying higher prices for everything under the sun for the past year, we are worse off than ever, brokers are going broke anyway, state's and their respective pension funds will be going broke and remind me again who made out in all of this??

    Maybe these guys will get into the ski business...

    December 13, 2007
    Lehman chief receives $41million share bonus
    James Rossiter
    Thousands of bankers at Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers will celebrate record bonus payments today, despite the global credit crunch.

    Lehman kicked off the good cheer as it emerged that it had handed Richard Fuld, 61, its chief executive, a $41 million (£17 million) share award.

    Goldman began to tell staff on both sides of the Atlantic yesterday of their share of what is expected to be an $18.8 billion pool – $2.3 billion more than last year’s annual awards. The payouts average $600,000 for each of its near30,000 staff worldwide.

    Heads of investment banking at Goldman are each thought to have been awarded cash and share payments worth up to $10 million, level with last year’s bonus. Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive of Goldman, is thought to be on course for a 30 per cent rise in his pay package, to about $70 million. Hundreds of high-performing dealmakers in their twenties – those with vice-president ranking and about five years’ experience – collected cash payments of $500,000 each, according to sources.

  11. #11

    Thieves

    I have to say I never understood what value these people created to justify the money. It is obvious it was just a shell game. And don't get me going on the stories of the employees crying leaving the buidlings on Monday. A couple years of $500K bonuses, and you should be set for life.

    (I had to correct my spelling!, Thieves!)

  12. #12

    Re: Thiefs

    Quote Originally Posted by castlerock
    I have to say I never understood what value these people created to justify the money. It is obvious it was just a shell game. And don't get me going on the stories of the employees crying leaving the buidlings on Monday. A couple years of $500K bonuses, and you should be set for life.
    Not that I disagree with you as there are plenty of people who made out like bandits the last decade, but there are plenty of employees who did not share in the largess who are now out of a job.

  13. #13
    less than $7.50 today, is Merrill going bankrupt?

    will this affect SB at all?

  14. #14
    Paying customers from NYC financial community will absolutely be affected...

    STOCK PRICES
    LEH .032
    C 3.97
    MER 7.27
    MS 9.17
    UBS 9.25
    and the winners...
    JPM 20.71 vs. 47 10/2007
    GS 51.87 vs. 250 10/2007

    AS OF 11/20/2008
    DJ YTD -43.07
    S&P 500 YTD -48.75
    NASDAQ YTD -50.38
    EAFE YTD -51.00

    Brother can you spare dime?

    Enjoy opening day.


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