Lehman Bros head took home $300m

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Lehman Bros head took home $300m

Postby bigearth » Mon Oct 06, 2008 8:14 pm

Lehman Bros head took home $300m

Richard Fuld: "I don't expect you to feel sorry for me"

The head of failed US investment bank Lehman Brothers has told Congress that he took home about $300m in pay and bonuses over the past eight years.

Richard Fuld, whose firm went bankrupt last month, made the statement during testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The panel is holding its first hearing into the cause of the financial crisis.

It is being held amid renewed market turmoil, with shares plummeting further in Europe and the US.

Committee chairman Henry Waxman opened the hearing by saying the credit freeze threatened the entire economy.

"To restore our economy to health, two steps are necessary," he said. "First, we must identify what went wrong. Then we must enact real reform of our financial markets."

'Feeling horrible'

Turning to Mr Fuld, Mr Waxman asked whether it was true he had received $480m (£276.2m) in pay and bonuses since 2000 - and whether this figure was fair.

Mr Fuld replied that the correct total was about $300m (£172.6m).

"We had a compensation committee that spent a tremendous amount of time making sure that the interests of the executives and the employees were aligned with shareholders," he said.

Mr Waxman also criticised Mr Fuld for requesting multi-million dollar bonuses for departing executives just days before last month's collapse.

"In other words," he added, "even as Mr Fuld was pleading with [Treasury] Secretary [Henry] Paulson for a federal rescue, Lehman continued to squander millions on executive compensation."

Mr Fuld said he took "full responsibility for the decisions that I made and for the actions that I took" and defended his actions as "prudent and appropriate" based on information he had at the time.

"I feel horrible about what happened," he added.

Lehman's failure set off a financial panic which prompted a $700bn rescue package approved by Congress last week.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7655178.stm
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Postby bigearth » Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:06 am

Monday

Protestors hold signs behind Richard Fuld, Chairman and Chief Executive of Lehman Brothers Holdings, as he takes his seat to testify at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on the causes and effects of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, on Capitol Hill. Fuld told Congress on Monday that US banking regulators knew exactly how Lehman was pricing its distressed assets and about its liquidity in the months before its collapse

Image

http://www.independent.co.uk/



Richard Fuld "took home nearly half-a-billion dollars in total compensation between 1993 and 2007. Last year, Fuld earned about $45 million, according to the calculations of Equilar, an executive pay research company. That amounts to roughly $17,000 an hour to obliterate a firm."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_S._Fuld,_Jr.
. is it a wise man, who knows that he is not wise
. it's good to have cynicism but not be cynical
. the more truth you live with, in your life, the stronger you are
. intelligence is merely an attitude to knowledge and learning
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Postby FourthBase » Wed Oct 08, 2008 11:44 am

So I heard this story in the car on the radio, and I raged like a motherfucker, I was literally screaming, in the middle of a Boston intersection, "Punch him in the fucking nuts!!!!!!" and was very happy to learn later that day of someone who'd actually punched this guy at a gym (unfortunately only in the face). Wherever this Fuld motherfucker goes, he'd better be surrounded by bodyguards with machine guns, because eventually there will be crowds of disenchanted and nothing-to-lose commoners following him, each waiting for the chance to kick him in the nuts. More realistically, there very well might come a day when thousands of people in need of shelter forcibly (but nevertheless peacefully...save a nut-punch or two) remove him and his family from his mansions and cottages, and trade all his possessions away as bartering chips for food and entertainment.
“Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight,
that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.” - Bill Russell
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Postby FourthBase » Thu Oct 09, 2008 12:38 am

Co-worker had a brilliant idea: Every person who punches Fuld in the face will need to be bailed out of jail. So, not to encourage physical violence, but if any face or nut puncher needs to be bailed out, I will gladly help bail them out.
“Joy is a current of energy in your body, like chlorophyll or sunlight,
that fills you up and makes you naturally want to do your best.” - Bill Russell
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Postby bigearth » Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:44 am

Probe of Lehman collapse escalated: report
Sat Oct 18, 2008 5:36pm EDT


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Prosecutors have stepped up the investigation into the collapse of Lehman Brothers, with at least a dozen subpoenas being issued including one to the investment bank's chief executive, Richard Fuld, The New York Times reported on Saturday.

Citing people close to the probe who requested anonymity, the Times said federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, Manhattan and New Jersey were examining events leading to Lehman's collapse and bankruptcy filing.

One person said New Jersey prosecutors were looking into whether Lehman executives including Fuld misled investors involved in the $6 billion infusion of capital announced by Lehman in June about the bank's condition, the Times said. That infusion came as Lehman disclosed a $2.8 billion third-quarter loss, which caused its shares to plunge.

The Times said the New Jersey Division of Investment, which put money into the capital raising, had been subpoenaed, and that the division's director did not return a call seeking comment.

Brooklyn and Manhattan prosecutors meanwhile are looking into remarks made by Lehman executives during a September 10 conference call, which was five days before the company's bankruptcy filing, the newspaper said, and are also investigating whether Lehman assigned proper values on its large commercial real estate holdings.

It remains unclear whether any of the offices will bring their cases, the newspaper said.

And while the Times said no conclusions had been drawn, legal experts expected prosecutors would likely try to build fraud cases against Lehman executives by finding internal documents that contradicted public statements about the bank's status.

Representatives of the prosecutors' offices declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Fuld, the Times said, although Fuld has said his statements about Lehman's condition were based on the best information he had at the time.

Other subpoenaed current and former Lehman executives include Joseph Gregory, the former president, and Erin Callan, former chief financial officer, the Times said, citing a person with knowledge of the matter.

(Writing by Chris Michaud, editing by Patricia Zengerle)

http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/id ... LQ20081018
. is it a wise man, who knows that he is not wise
. it's good to have cynicism but not be cynical
. the more truth you live with, in your life, the stronger you are
. intelligence is merely an attitude to knowledge and learning
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