Evidently Size Does Matter for UBS Brokerage Unit
Banks like private clients because most of these individuals don’t know very much and are therefore quite easy to stick with high-fee products that line the pockets of the financial advisor and the firm. So it’s not hard to understand why UBS, which is trying desperately to overcome a bad case of penis envy towards it larger peers Merrill and Smith Barney, opted to drop $500 million to acquire Piper Jaffray’s 842 brokers. We gather that many of the Piper brokers live in a large town called Minneapolis. Ever heard of it?
UBS Buying Piper Brokerage Unit [Wall Street Journal]
Former Friends Star Takes On Insider Traders
We’re glad to see that Matthew Perry has finally found a steady paying gig after a post-Friends dry spell. Here he is announcing the insider trading charges against a trio of young Wall Streeters, including a Merrill Lynch analyst and two Goldman Sachs bond execs. Goldman employees Eugene Plotkin and David Pajcin allegedly paid the Merrill banker, Stanislav Shpigelman, for private information about six pending M&A deals, including Reebok’s purchase of Adidas. The pair also are charged with bribing a printing plant employee to get them advance copies of Business Week magazine, which they’d use to trade ahead of the “Inside Wall Street” column. The suit claims that the illegal activities generated over $6 million in proceeds, including $2 million in an account of Pajcin’s aunt, a seamstress in Croatia. It doesn’t look like another plot that involved strippers getting insider info out of Wall Street patrons ever panned out. But at least Matthew Perry’s gettin’ paid again.
2 Wall Street Employees Charged [NY Times]
Insider Mix: Goldman, Biz Week, Croatia [Wall Street Journal]
Analysts Charged in Insider Trading [Crain’s]
It’s Good To Be The King
The Journal’s got beaucoup data on CEO compensation for last year. We highlight a few stand-outs below (with total comp):
    Ken Chenault American Express $13.5 million
    Ken Lewis Bank of America $18.8 million
    James Cayne Bear Stearns $25.1 million
    Charles Prince Citigroup $20.9 million
    Hank Paulson Goldman Sachs $30.1 million
    William Harrison J.P. Morgan Chase $9.4 million
    Dick Fuld Lehman Brothers $29.4 million
    Stan O’Neal Merrill Lynch $35 million
    Richard Kovacevich Wells Fargo $7 million
CEO Compensation Survey 2006 [WSJ]
Goldman’s “Long-Term Greedy” Strategy
In a world in which Goldman increasingly makes its profits by wisely investing its own capital, the firm may be starting to view its investment banking business as one giant marketing exercise not designed to make any money. That’s what some people are taking away from the firm’s decision to sell $2.1 billion of stock in a secondary offering for Google for just $1 million in fees. “Goldman is doing it from the point of view that this is a powerful new company that could be doing more deals in the future,” said Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Brad Hintz. “Goldman may have decided to do the deal to be associated with Google,” echoes Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida.
Loss Leader-Like Sales [Bloomberg]
