| JJ Ingersoll, our head of global focus, can't stop talking about a top rival's global head of sales. I think he wants to hire him. But no, it seems, the police are saying this guy doesn't just sell bonds. He whips. But not clients. Young people who can't even buy fixed-income assets, let alone junk. JJ says he won't rest until he gets to the bottom of this Marquis Michael de la Pain scandal. It involves our bulge bracket enemy, Bare Stern and so I suggest we take a look at its chairman Alan Iceberg's legendary memos. We'd burned the last copy, it emerged, so JJ calls Missouri, where his call is bounced to Michigan and back to Vancouver and then onto a small bookshop in Greenwich village. Yes, they have the collected memos of Mr Iceberg but in return for a pre-funded short position on the upcoming ReichsTelekom privatization they say they could "pass us" Iceberg's uncut version. It certainly must brim with great management advice, I tell JJ even more so than the published version, which is surely the best book since Who sank all the customers' speedboats? It arrives 15 minutes later in a brown paper bag, and JJ closes the door. |