The New York Times
As March comes to an end and the NCAA basketball tournament heads into the Final Four, most office pools are likely to be in tatters. But Joshua Brown — a financial adviser for Fusion Analytics Investment Partners who blogs and tweets as The Reformed Broker — is giving Wall Street fans another chance at bracket dominance.
With his first book, “Backstage Wall Street,” hitting shelves this month, Mr. Brown sketched out a new type of tournament, a face-off between 16 well-known financial scandals. He calls it “March Badness.”
His rules are simple: the biggest scandal wins. Will Jon Corzine take down Jimmy Cayne? Will John Thain pull out an upset over Greg Smith, like Lehigh did over Duke?
Mr. Brown has come up with his own matchups for the Sweet 16, winnowing it down to the Elite Eight. In the end, he believes Mr. Cayne will take home the glory. It’s “too much money involved and too many livelihoods at stake,” said Mr. Brown.
Leave your own match-ups in the comments below.
Dick Fuld (Lehman Brothers) vs. Jimmy Cayne (Bear Stearns)
In the battle to see who could blow up their firm faster, Jimmy Cayne had a slight edge on the timing, having fortuitously spent as much time as possible out of the office playing bridge and other extracurricular activities. Dick Fuld preferred a more hands-on approach in his firm’s implosion, turning away suitors and masking losses right up to the buzzer.
Winner: Jimmy Cayne.
Alex Wong/Getty ImagesJon S. Corzine at a House panel last year on MF Global’s collapse.
MF Global vs. the Rogue Trader All-Stars
How does one trump the world’s sneakiest rogue traders operating at firms like SocGen? How about getting the board of directors to allow you to put the entire firm on the line with a half-court Hail Mary of a European sovereign debt trade! Why skulk in the shadows, quietly losing the firm’s cash with unauthorized trades when you can actually do it all in broad daylight from a BlackBerry – and with increased leverage to boot! Sorry Jérôme Kerviel, Jon Corzine wiped the floor with you guys – he beat you so badly there’s still a billion dollars in the wind somewhere!
Winner: MF Global
Raj Rajaratnam vs. Martha Stewart
It’s the insider trading showdown of the century – the Domestic Doyenne put on quite a defensive show on the court, complete with horrible legal advice and the stonewalling of federal agents. But in the end, Raj was just too much for poor Martha – the man was getting assists from tipsters, company executives, expert networks and even rival players in the hedge fund game. Raj’s moves were unstoppable, and poor Martha had no answer to the flirtatious offensive moves of his point guard Danielle “the Refrigerator” Chiesi.
Winner: Raj Rajaratnam
Fred Prouser/ReutersMichael Milken at a health conference in 2009.
Long Term Capital Management vs. Michael Milken
L.T.C.M., led by the unsinkable John Meriwether, brought his A game out to the courts, leveraging every instrument he could get his hands on and wrapping them altogether into a wicked knot that only the entire Wall Street brain trust could unravel in time to prevent the world’s end. But Michael Milken would emerge victorious in terms of absolute damage across the entire economy. By the time he was done, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house nor was there an unleveraged balance sheet in the country – you name it, he indebted it, and sold the bonds off for a double-dip fee on the other side. A crossover dribble so vicious he ought to have been jailed. Oh, wait a minute…
Winner: Michael Milken
Dennis Kozlowski vs. John Thain
The Koz, C.E.O. and master of everything he surveyed at Tyco, got off to an extremely promising start. His raiding and spending of shareholder cash and his “versatility” with accounting seemed like an invincible combo – a $2 million Sardinian birthday party complete with seminude entertainers and a Jimmy Buffett concert, man that’s unbeatable! But Sir John Thain, the cybernetic new C.E.O. of credit crisis-era Merrill Lynch wasn’t backing down so easily. Did Thain let the fact that Merrill was facing losses of capital in the $39 billion range get him down? No, sir! An $87,000 area rug – bang! A $68,000 credenza and a $1,400 parchment waste can – boom! Thain looked Kozlowski dead in his eye and said “Watch me drop $35,000 on a toilet, Homeboy.” And he did. Thain’s $1.2 million office renovation at the bankrupt Merrill Lynch put him over the top in terms of sheer audacity. Better luck next time, Dennis.
Winner: John Thain
Fred Prouser/ReutersGreg Smith said that Goldman Sachs employees referred to clients as “Muppets.”
Abacus vs. Muppetgate
Two Goldman Sachs alums, but only one can advance to the next round! Fresh from the European League, “Fabulous” Fabrice Tourre came to win. Pecking out a half-French, half-English e-mail about the coming real estate collapse was one thing. But then turning around and producing a 65-page flipbook to sell the billion dollar Abacus portfolio of real estate loans? Transcendent! But then Greg Smith comes bounding up the court, fire in his eyes and an acute attack of conscience in his gut. Smith, a former Jewish Olympics bronze medalist in table tennis, is in peak condition as he resigns from Goldman Sachs via an opinion article in The New York Times. He head fakes Fab under the basket, then pivots with his revelation that Goldman MDs refer to their clients as Muppets. In the end, the eyeball-gouging Smith article is simply too viral to be defeated.
Winner: Muppetgate
Tony Avelar/Bloomberg NewsFrank Quattrone, the founder of Qatalyst Partners, at a technology conference in 2010.
Jack Grubman vs. Frank Quattrone
The Ranking for Banking Bowl is one of this tournament’s most anticipated matchups as two, shall we say, morally agile Wall Streeters face off for the title. Jack Grubman is the fan favorite (and at $20 million a year during the telecom bubble’s heyday, one of Wall Street’s highest paid analysts in history). His ability to guarantee Strong Buy ratings to secure lucrative I.P.O. business for Smith Barney put him squarely ahead of the field in the early going. ButFrank Quattrone goes hard in paint for Credit Suisse. He is based in Silicon Valley and runs the vaunted “Friends of Frank” offense — you play by Frank’s rules or you don’t exist. In the end, Grubman was simply no match for Quattrone, a banker who controlled the analysts with an iron fist.
Winner: Frank Quattrone
Stan O’Neal (Merrill Lynch) vs. Angelo Mozillo (Countrywide)
On paper, Angelo Mozillo is easily the more devastating in this head-to-head, and he’s certainly the more orange hued. Having steered his mortgage machine to a $200 billion monstrosity by the peak of the housing bubble, Mozillo walked off just in time to watch it blow up in someone else’s hands (BofA – who else?). Ol’ Angelo nailed the timing walking off the court at halftime with a mere $65 million in fines and disgorgement. But his rival, Stan O’Neal had driven Merrill into the ground in spectacular fashion, turning the old stalwart brokerage firm into a leveraged debt hedge fund almost by accident. O’Neal’s negligence was magnificent to behold, golfing while his firm went to 20, then 30, then 40-to-1 debt to equity all in the name of slathering their bank accounts with bigger and bigger bonuses. And the losses at Merrill were simply breathtaking. From July 2007 to July 2008, a total of $19.2 billion vaporized – or $52 million in losses per day! Reached for comment after the game, the oblivious O’Neal was quoted as saying, “Wait, what happened again?”
Winner: Stan O’Neal
