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Since the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed in 1999, financial institutions have been free to offer an almost limitless range of financial services to their commercial and investment clients. Citigroup, the result of the merger of Citibank and Travelers Insurance Company, which owned the investment bank and brokerage firm Solomon Smith Barney, was an early beneficiary of investment deregulation. Citibank regularly dispensed cheap loans and lines of credit as a means of attracting and rewarding corporate clients for highly lucrative work in mergers and acquisitions. Since WorldCom was so active in that mode, their senior managers were the targets of a great deal of influence peddling by their banker, Citibank. For example, Travelers Insurance, a Citigroup unit, lent $134 million to a timber company Bernie Ebbers was heavily invested in. Eight months later, WorldCom chose Salomon Smith Barney, Citigroup's brokerage unit, to be the lead underwriter of $5 billion of its bond issue.30 在1999年被废除格拉斯 - 斯蒂格尔法案“以来，金融机构已经到他们的商业和投资客户提供金融服务的范围几乎是无限的。花旗集团，花旗银行和旅行者保险的公司，该公司拥有的投资银行和经纪公司所罗门美邦的合并的结果，是一个投资放松管制的早期受益者。花旗银行定期分配廉价的贷款和授信额度，作为吸引和奖励企业客户在兼并和收购高利润的工作的手段。由于世通公司在该模式下如此活跃，他们的高级经理是他们的银行家（花旗银行）大量兜售的目标。例如，旅行者保险，花旗集团（Citigroup）单元，借给1.34亿美元给一家木材公司，伯尼•埃伯斯也大量的投资。八个月后，世通公司选择萨洛蒙史密斯巴尼（Salomon Smith Barney），花旗集团的经纪部门，成为债卷发行50亿美元的主要承包商。 But the entanglements went both ways. Since the loan to Ebbers was collateralized by his equity holdings, Citigroup had reason to prop up WorldCom stock. And no one was better at that than Jack Grubman, Salomon Smith Barney's telecommunication analyst. Grubman first met Bernie Ebbers in the early 1990s when he was heading up the precursor to WorldCom, LDDS Communications. The two hit it off socially, and Grubman started hyping the company. Investors were handsomely rewarded for following Grubman's buy recommendations until stock reached its high, and Grubman rose financially and by reputation. In fact, Institutional Investing magazine gave Jack a Number 1 ranking in 1999,31 and Business Week labeled him "one of the most powerful players on Wall Street.32 但这些纠葛是双方的。由于埃伯斯的贷款由他持有的股票作抵押，花旗集团有理由支撑世通的股票。他们没有一个人比所罗门美邦公司的电信分析师杰克•格鲁曼更好。格鲁曼第一次见到伯尼•埃伯斯在20世纪90年代初，当他抬头的前身世通公司，LDDS通信。两人一拍即合社会，格鲁曼开始炒作公司。投资者丰厚的回报，格鲁布曼推荐买进，直到股价达到其高，格鲁曼财务及声誉上升。事实上，于1999年“机构投资”杂志给了杰克排名第一，“商业周刊”称他为“华尔街上最强大的玩家之一。 The investor community has always been am bivalent about the relationship between analysts and the companies they analyze. As long as analyst recommendations are correct, close relations have a positive insider quality, but when their recommendations turn sour, corruption is suspected. Certainly Grubman did everything he could to tout his personal relationship with Bernie Ebbers. He bragged about attending Bernie's wedding in 1999. He attended board meeting at WorldCom's headquarters. Analysts at competing firms were annoyed with this chumminess. While the other analysts strained to glimpse any tidbit of information from the company's conference call, Grubman would monopolize the conversation with comments about "dinner last night."33 It is not known who picked up the tab for such dinners, but Grubman certainly rewarded executives for their close relationship with him.34 Both Ebbers and WorldCom CFO Scott Sullivan were granted privileged allocations in IPO (Initial Public Offering) auctions. While the Securities and Exchange Commission allows underwriters like Salomon Smith Barney to distribute their a llotment of new securities as they see fit among their customers, this sort of favoritism has angered many small investors. Banks defend this practice by contending that providing high-net-worth individuals with favored access to hot IPOs is just good business.35 Alternatively, they allege that greasing the palms of distinguished investors creates a marketing "buzz" around an IPO, helping deserving small companies trying to go public get the market attention they deserve.36For the record, Mr. Ebbers personally made $11 million in trading profits over a four-year period on shares from initial public offerings he received from Salomon Smith Barney.37 In contrast, Mr. Sullivan lost $13,000 from IPOs, indicating that they were apparently not "sure things."38 There is little question but that friendly relations between Grubman and WorldCom helped investors from 1995 to 1999. Many trusted Grubman's insider status and followed his rosy recommendations to financial success. In a 2000 profile in Business Week, he seemed to mock the ethical norm against conflict of interest: "What used to be a conflict is now a synergy," he said at the time. "Someone like me would have been looked at disdainfully by the buy side 15 years ago. Now they know that I'm in the flow of what's going on."39 Yet, when the stock started cratering later that year, Grubman's enthusiasm for WorldCom persisted. Indeed, he maintained the highest rating on WorldCom until March 18, 2002, when he finally raised its risk rating. At that time, the stock had fallen almost 90 percent from its high two years before. Grubman's mea culpa to clients on April 22 read, "In retrospect the depth and length of the decline in enterprise spending has been stronger and more damaging to WorldCom than we even anticipated."40An official statement from Salomon Smith Barney two weeks later seemed to contradict the notion that Grubman's analysis was conflicted: "Mr. Grubman was not alone in his enthusiasm for the future prospects of the company. His coverage was based purely on information yielded during his analysis and was not based on personal relationships."41 Right. 有一点小问题，要不是从1995年至1999年格鲁曼和世通公司的友好关系有助于投资者。许多受信任的了格鲁曼的内幕地位和跟着他红润的建议，取得财务上的成功。 “商业周刊”在2000年的轮廓，他似乎在嘲弄避免利益冲突的伦理规范：“曾经被认为是冲突，现在是一个协同作用，”他当时说。“像我这样的人会被轻蔑地看待为15年前收买。如今他们知道，我所发生的一切。”然而，那年当股市开始缩孔的时候，格鲁曼对世通公司的热情依然存在。事实上，直到2002年3月18日，当他终于抬起其风险评级的评级，他保持着最高的级别。当时，股票已下跌了近两年前高点的90％。4月22日格鲁曼的测量过失给客户读，“现在回想起来在企业消费方面逐渐衰弱的深度和长度， 对世通公司比我们预计更强大，更具有破坏性”。两周后，来自萨洛蒙史密斯巴尼的一份官方声明，似乎矛盾格鲁曼的分析冲突的概念，即：“格鲁曼先生独自一人在他的热情为公司未来的发展前景，他的覆盖完全基于信息的过程中取得了的分析，并没有基于个人关系。”。 On August 15, 2002, Jack Grubman resigned from Salomon where he had made as much as $20 million/year. His resignation letter read in part, "I understand the disappointment and anger felt by investors as a result of [the company's] collapse, I am nevertheless proud of the work I and the analysts who work with me did."42On December 19, 2002, Jack Grubman was fined $15 million and was banned from securities transactions for life by the Securities and Exchange Commission for such conflicts of interest. The media vilification that accompanies one's fall from power unearthed one interesting detail about Grubman's character-he repeated lied about his personal background. A graduate of Boston University, Mr. Grubman claimed a degree from MIT. Moreover, he claimed to have grown up in colorful South Boston, while his roots were actually in Boston's comparatively bland Oxford Circle neighborhood.43 What makes a person fib about his personal history is an open question. As it turns out, this is probably the least of Jack Grubman's present worries. New York State Controller H. Carl McCall sued Citicorp, Arthur Andersen, Jack Grubman, and others for conflict of interest. According to Mr. McCall, "This is another case of corp orate coziness costing investors billions of dollars and raising troubling questions about the integrity of the information investors receive."44 媒体污蔑，伴随着一个人的下台出土格鲁曼的性格的一个有趣的细节，他反复说谎关于他的个人背景。毕业于波士顿大学，格鲁曼先生声称来自麻省理工学院的学位。此外，他声称自己已经长大了，在丰富多彩的南波士顿，而实际上，他的根在波士顿的相对清淡牛津圈附近。是什么让一个人FIB有关他的个人历史，是一个开放的问题。事实证明，这可能是至少杰克•格鲁曼目前的后顾之忧。纽约州审计长H.卡尔•麦考尔起诉花旗集团，安达信，杰克•格鲁曼，和其他的利益冲突。据麦考尔先生，“这是另一种情况下，股份掉时的舒适感成本核算投资者数十亿美元，并提高投资者收到的信息的完整性棘手的问题。”#p#分页标题#e# 30 Morgenson, G. (2002). More Clouds Over Citigroup in its Dealings with Ebbers. New York Times (November 3), 1. 31 Smith, R., & Solomon, D. (2002). Heard on the Street. Ebber's Exit Hurts WorldCom's Biggest Fan. Wall Street Journal (May 3), C ‐1. 32 Rosenbush, S. (2002). Inside the Telecom Game. Business Week (August 5), p. 34+. 33 Ibid . 34 On December 20, 2002, Jack Grubman was fined $15 million and was banned for securities transactions for life by the Securities and Exchange Commission for such conflicts of interest. 35 Editors. (2002). Citi Defends IPO Allocations to Shamed WorldCom Execs. Euroweek (August 30), 18. 36 Murray, A. (2002). Political Capital: Let Capital Markets, Not Financial Firms, Govern Fate of IPOs. Wall Street Journal (September 10), A‐4 37 Craig, S. (2002). Offerings Were Easy Money for Ebbers. Wall Street Journal (September 3), C ‐1. 38 Ibid . 39 Rosenbush, op. cit ., 34. 40 Smith, op. cit., C ‐1 41 Ibid . 42 Editors. (2002). Salomon's Jack Grubman Resigns. United Press International (August 15), 10082777w0186. 43 Rosenbush, op. cit ., 34. 44 Weil, J. (2002). Leading the News: An Ebbers' Firm Got Citigroup loans. Wall Street Journal (October 14), A‐3. http://www.ukassignment.org/mgessaydx/ |
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