Going Private

Whisper Loudly

Business School Cafe Line - Tuesday Afternoon

Second Year One: "Are you going to the [bulge bracket bank] presentation?"
Second Year Two: "No, the [top consulting company] presentation is at the same time and three of their associates threw a huge blast at their hotel suite afterwards last year, so I need to find out where they are staying this year."
Second Year One: "Seriously?"
Second Year Two: "Yeah.  That was the party where Paul got really hammered and puked in the lobby of the Four Seasons.  He got an offer too."
Second Year One: "Oh.  Wait, was I at that?"

-ep

She Got The Job

Recruiter: "Would you hire you if you were me?"
Candidate: "No.  This interview has been a car wreck."

Unbalanced

First Year #1: "Did you hear about the [big foreign bank] presentation yesterday?"
First Year #2: "No."
First Year #1: "This managing director is up in front of the podium answering a question about work-life balance someone asked, the junior guys are sitting in chairs on the stage behind him.  Fifteen, maybe twenty seconds after the question one of the junior guys literally passes out and falls out of his chair onto the stage.  They called the paramedics and everything.  It was crazy."
First Year #2: "Is he ok?"
First Year #1: "Fine, apparently.  Exhaustion.  Just got off the plane from London, no sleep for a week because of a deal he was working.  Right after the managing director just talked about how great the work-life balance is."
First Year #2: "They have a London office?  Are they hiring for the London office?"

-ep

Carl Icon

Carl Icahn on the last hours of his negotiations with Time Warner:  "I had a martini or two and then I was back on the phone until about 2 a.m."

What a class act.

Debit or Credit?

Of a famous (or infamous) accounting professor known for sending his students checks for $0.05 for every mistake in his newly published accounting textbook they found:

Second Year #1:  "What the hell is that?"
Second Year #2:  "It's one of [accounting professor's] checks."
Second Year #1:  "What the hell did you frame it for?"
Second Year #2:  "It's going on my wall.  This way, his credits and debits will never balance out.  Not ever."

Two Girls and a Guy

During interview wrap-up meetings for a "bulge bracket" bank:
Recruiter #1: "I actually know her quite well.  She isn't a team player.  Hard to see her working well in small groups."
Recruiter #2: (Whispered) "Weren't you two seeing each other as recently as last week?"
Recruiter #1" (Whispered) "Yeah, like I said.  Not a team player.  No small groups."

The Living Dead

Sell Side Managing Director (age: 53): "What you have to understand is that companies are not static.  They are dynamic.  They shift and move.  They pulsate with the beat of the economy.  They consume, they respirate, they are alive.  Living things."

Private Equity Associate (age: 26): "Maybe some companies, not this one."

Study Habits

After winter quarter abroad in Switzerland:
Second Year:  "Switzerland doesn't have a visa problem really.  Switzerland is just a place where they keep exchanging your large bills for smaller bills until finally you have to go home."

Fly, My Pretties, Fly!

Second Year #1: "I'm totally mortgaging my future.  An MBA is beyond expensive.  I'm going to be so far in debt after next quarter.  It's scaring the piss out of me."
Second Year #2: "What's different about next quarter?"
Second Year #1: "Oh, I'm going abroad to Italy for winter quarter."
Second Year #2: "Yeah?"
Second Year #1: "Yeah, I'm just going to ski the entire time.  I heard from the class who went last year that the workload is a serious joke."

Private Equity Apprentice

After putting the finishing touches on a deal that took 3 months to orchestrate:
Armin: "So long as they leave the management team intact we have a deal."
Associate: (Bursting in)  "They just fired the CFO!"

Surprise

Associate #1: "Tara slept her way into that job."
Associate #2: "With that Vice President?"
Associate #1: "Yep."
Associate #2: "Alan? You've got to be kidding. That guy is a serious asshole."
Associate #1: "Uh no.  With the other Vice President.  Jessica."

Executive Liability

Armin, in response to alarmed looks from bankers on being invited to hunt on The Estate:
"Don't worry.  The Vice President is not invited."

Straight Talk

At a dinner on the Estate, just before the desert course:

Fortune 500 CEO: "The thing is, once the gays move into the neighborhood it picks up.  They have a dual income household, no kids to drain their money and they pour cash into the property they buy."
Room: *20 seconds of silence*
Fortune 500 CEO: "The next thing you know the entire place is on a real-estate upswing and the original owners are looking to sell to move into the next 'unique fixer-upper' opportunity."
Armin: "Shall we have more wine?"
Fortune 500 Corporate Development Officer: "You know, this could be a hedge fund strategy."
Wife of Fortune 500 CEO: *clears throat*
Fortune 500 Corporate Development Officer: "We could track demographics, identify the new gay homeowner pockets and invest in the area.  This could be very profitable!  We could put a REIT together easily."
Armin: "How exactly do you plan to describe this strategy in your offering documentation?"
Fortune 500 General Counsel: "Well, it is gay arbitrage, isn't it?  Gay arb.  'Garb!''"

They Didn't Become Artists for the Pay

In the Adolphe-William Bouguereau exhibit at the Getty:

Associate: "You know, I really want to know where all these paintings came from.  Where is the place on earth where I can walk around and just happen upon a nude woman bursting forth from a seashell?  What park is it nearby where unclothed women writhe around together in the foliage?  Look at this one.  I swear that's a nude Maria Sharapova!  Where are the police that would surely descend upon this orgy scene within seconds if Sharapova was really nude in public?  Where are the throngs of ravenous males?  This exhibit is total bullshit."

Not Safe for Work

Associate #1:  "Ooooo.  That's hot."
Associate #2:  "Are you surfing porn over there?"
Associate #1:  "No, my model is showing a 26% IRR for my conservative assumption set."

2 + 2 = 5

IT Guy: "Hello?"
Equity Private: "Hi, IT Guy, it's Equity Private from [your parent company]."
IT Guy: (Guarded) "Oh, hello."
Equity Private: "I heard you are missing some projectors?"
IT Guy: "Uh, yeah."
Equity Private: "I've been asked to figure out what happened."
IT Guy: (To background) "Hey, Mike?"
Mike: (From background) "Yeah?"
IT Guy: "How many projectors are missing?"
Mike: "Uh.  Four."
IT Guy: "We are missing five projectors."
Equity Private: "He just said four."
IT Guy: "He means five."

It's Dirty

Sign in Wall Street bathroom:  "Employees must wash hands after handling money."

It's Just My Day Job

Umbrella Cart Hot Dog Vendor on Cell Phone (54th and 6th):  "You're talking about a goddamn billion dollar company here and they are just using it for a tax write off."

Not Falling for It

Sell Side Investment Banker: "That is really going to have no impact on EBITDA going forward."
Private Equity Associate: "Uh, yeah.  You know, I may have been born yesterday, but I stayed up all night."

On the Job Hazards

Woman Lawyer Eating a Burger:  "I hate you.  You are so thin all the time."
Woman Lawyer in size 2 Brooks Brothers suit: "Really, don't worry.  This job will fix that right up.  In a pair of years my metabolism will grind to a halt and I will put on 50 pounds overnight.  Then I will go around with some bullshit excuse like "It's a thyroid problem."

Closer Than You Think

Business Suit Clad Professional Standing Directly Across from the Las Vegas Style, Billboarded Lehman Brothers Building: "Excuse me, where is the Lehman Brothers Building?"
Private Equity Associate: -pause- "Oh, you've got a ways to go.  About 5 blocks that way into Time's Square."

Whatever Floats Your Boat

Sub Rosa Associate: "Someone told me that they were looking at IMDB and that in American Psycho all the women on the set turned up out of the woodwork to watch Christian Bale do the shower scene."
Equity Private: "The most memorable image I have of him is running through the hallway bloody and naked except for white sneakers."
-long pause-
Equity Private: "The most memorable non-sexual image..."

The John Lennon of the Sell Side

Sell Side Investment Banker: "I imagine that the increases in revenue will be unimaginable."

How Do You Think Their Hearing Got That Way?

Flight Attendant #1 (plugging ears with painful wince): "Woah, the safety video is really loud."
Flight Attendant #2: "Yeah, company policy is to turn it to 9 for the Florida market and Crystal forgot to reset it to 5 after the Tampa leg."

Precious Metals

Sub Rosa Associate: "You leave and things go to hell in a hand basket.  The 10 year is over 5%, the real estate market is tanking, oil is over $70 a barrel.  The metal in a penny is now worth more that $0.01.  What gives?"

Equity Private: "The market was unnerved by my absence?  Are you serious about that penny thing ? Sounds like an arbitrage opportunity."

There's Long Term, and Long Term

"People don't understand the time frame that we operate in. We operate in terms of 10-, 20-, 30-, 40-year cycles and to put that in context, that's 20 Congresses. A single quarter or a single year, which may mean everything from a political circus point of view, is not really all that significant in the time frame that we operate in."

- Former Exxon CEO Lee Raymond

A Rounding Error

Former Analyst: "At one point I remember explaining to one of my hedge fund clients that when you ask the CEO of a precious metals refining company where $40 million worth of refined platinum that's missing from inventory is, "somewhere in Peru" is probably not an acceptable answer."

The Limitations of Divination

Louis Rukeyser: "I never make a prediction that can be proved wrong within 24 hours."

Time to Consider Time

"We couldn't have achieved the profitability we have if we had been a public company. No investor would have been patient enough to allow us to build a firm oriented toward long-term growth and profits.... The short-term infatuation with quarterly earnings on Wall Street restricts the earnings potential of Fortune 500 publicly traded firms. Public firms are also feeding grounds for lawyers and lawsuits."

- Charles Koch (CEO Koch Industries, largest privately held firm in the United States)

The Time To Make Money is When...

Sub Rosa Vice President: "Wow, I expected some convictions, but... wow."  Any wagers on the effect this has on private equity?

It Takes More Than One

Sub Rosa VP: "The incompetence displayed here is far too insidious, too pervasive to be the work of one person.  This is clearly the work of a committee of the Board of Directors."

The Economist, China and Outsourcing

"Giving a subscription to Economist.com is an ideal gift for any occasion. Choose from either a physical gift pack, including a free 32MB memory stick, or a subscription voucher sent via email. Gift subscription pack with free 32MB stick (1 year) This striking gift pack includes a 1-year subscription to Economist.com, plus a free 32MB memory stick."

-----Original Message-----
From: Sub Rosa Vice President
Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 2:22 PM
To: Equity Private
Subject: Economist Letter

EP:

Do you think I went too far?

-VP

-----Original Message-----
From: Sub Rosa Vice President
Sent: Friday, June 02, 2006 2:13 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Economist Gift Subscription

Sirs-

I am an enthusiastic print and electronic subscriber to The Economist, a
publication I view as among the most important reading I do.  Your
reputation for quality discourse compelled me to subscribe again after an
unfortunate one year lapse involving an unrelated automobile accident and
brain injury.

As I am sure you can appreciate, as a busy professional my time is short.  I
am also a directed leader of men and women and, accordingly, often prone to
vocalizing my displeasure with the current state of affairs with a mind to
inspiring change.  Tired of these repeated vocalizations, my significant
other took matters in hand and delivered to me a gift subscription of The
Economist.  As I am certain you will have access to my subscription files
and wish to look up the records for verification, please look upon the curt
gift card engraving ("Now, please shut up,") with the knowledge that we have
unrestrained lines of communication in our relationship.

Of course, I use The Economist nearly daily.  My citing one or another
Economist article during meetings on important topics is a regular
experience for my colleagues.  You can imagine their elation, therefore,
when I repeatedly announced over the 4 week waiting period that my
complimentary gift from the Economist (a thermal coffee mug colored in
Economist Red(tm) and branded in black with your elegantly simple and
familiar logo), was due any day.

You probably, however, cannot imagine the brutal mocking to which I was
subject on the arrival of said mug.

The package was opened by my assistant and the mug removed from its packing
material before being gingerly set on my desk in a prominent place, awaiting
my eventual arrival.  Because of its positioning, several of my colleagues
examined the mug before I had a chance to claim it.  Several flaws were
immediately apparent:

1.  The prominent sticker on the bottom of the mug's rubber footing read
"Made in China."  I was initially concerned by the mugs humble manufacturing
lineage, but then realized that if it stood for anything, The Economist, and
therefore its proponents, must stand for the sensible efficiency of
outsourced manufacturing.

2.  Upon attempting to remove the sticker (other less sophisticated
employees of my firm might be less conversant in the benefits of offshore
manufacture) the rubber padding on the bottom of the mug-- essential to
prevent it from slipping on slick surfaces or leaving rings on the desk of
the Senior Vice President during our morning chats-- came unglued.  Two
associates witnessed this event causing me much embarrassment.  The word of
the rubber footing issue spread about the office quickly.

3.  On first use, the safe and stable storage of the hot coffee from the
boardroom here, condensation developed inside the "vacuum chamber" of the
mug and now sloshes around visibly, (and audibly) as the outside is a
translucent red.   This makes a mockery of the thermal insulation properties
of the mug-- a flaw that is visible to all my colleagues.

4.  On washing the mug after its first use your logo immediately dissolved
in the harsh detergents employed by our outsourced office cleaning staff.  I
find it convenient that the mug has a particular plausible deniability for
The Economist directly designed into the product.

All in all my Economist subscription, which should be a source of pride and
demonstrate me to be a wise and erudite individual of exacting tastes, has
instead subjected me to ridicule and embarrassment as a victim of the evils
of outsourced manufacturing.  As a Vice President in a private equity firm I
cannot afford this sort of embarrassment.

I understand that The Economist now offers a free memory stick with gift
subscriptions.  Perhaps you could provide me delivery instructions so that
we could make an exchange of gift products.

Most Sincerely,
Vice President Sub Rosa

P.S. Can you tell me where the memory stick is manufactured?

Stuck With Outsourcing

-----Original Message-----
From: Sub Rosa Vice President
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 9:22 PM
To: Equity Private
Subject: Re: Economist Letter

I don't think I'm getting an exchange.

-VP

----- Forwarded message from [email protected] -----
Dear Sir/Madam,

The Economist appreciates your inquiry and welcomes the opportunity to serve your needs.

The memory stick is for subscribers that place an online only subscription.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. 

Sincerely,
Dana
Customer Service

Terrorists? No, Federal Prosecutors.

"My god!  No!  They killed him!  They killed him!  They did, the bastards killed him."
- Sobbing female first class passenger in the row in front of me just before takeoff on New York bound flight this morning on learning via blackberry of the death of Ken Lay.  She then consumed five vodkas on the rocks during the 90some minute flight.

"What is it?  Terrorists?"
- My panicked seatmate on the same flight

"No, federal prosecutors."
- Equity Private

Let's See Some ID

Amid the chaos that was Newark Airport last night:
Random Passenger: "Are you standing in line to check in for flight 123?"
Debt Bitch, after a long pause: "Excuse me?"
Random Passenger: "Flight 123?  Are you checking in?"
Debt Bitch, after longer pause: "I'm sorry?"
Random Passenger, not yet realizing the gravity of his mistake: "I'm trying to find out if you are checking in for flight 123.  When did you get here?"

Debt Bitch, louder: "Who are you, exactly?"
Random Passenger: "I'm just trying to..."
Debt Bitch, now with the attention of the entire line: "Do you have some identification?  I'd like to see some ID please."
Random Passenger, stuttering but, amazingly, reaching for ID: "Well, I am just a passenger.  I- I've been trying to get on this flight since 6:00"
Debt Bitch with hand out: "Yeah, let's see the ID."
Random Passenger: "Look, all I want to know is..."
Debt Bitch, now examining the wallet she has been handed: "Well, Mr. (pause) Williams.  I think you ask too many questions."
Random Passenger: (stunned silence)
Debt Bitch, handing back the wallet: "Anything else?"
Random Passenger, slinking away: "No."

Insecticide

Senior Hedge Fund Executive:  "Any boom has crevices for the cockroaches of capitalism to hide in."