Bank Merger Quotes

It is just when people are all engaged in snooping on themselves and one another that they become anesthetized to the whole process. Tranquilizers and anesthetics, private and corporate, become the largest business in the world just as the world is attempting to maximize every form of alert. Sound-light shows, as new cliché, are in effect mergers, retrievers of the tribal condition. It is a state that has already overtaken private enterprise, as individual businesses form into massive conglomerates. As information itself becomes the largest business in the world, data banks know more about individual people than the people do themselves. The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.

As always, behind the flow of money necessary for such mergers and acquisitions were the banks. Once there were hundreds of banks in America, owned by individuals and local families. But due to government regulations put into place during the Reagan-Bush years, these banks either faded away or consolidated. In 1990, there were thirty-seven major banks in the U.S. By 2009, buy-outs, mergers, and bankruptcies had reduced this number to four. Those left standing were Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, according to the General Accounting Office. Ominously, in June 2012, the giant global rating agency Moody’s downgraded the ratings of Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan, citing concerns for the stability of the world’s financial system.

The courtship continued through January 2000, causing Musk to postpone his honeymoon with Justine. Michael Moritz, X.com’s primary investor, arranged a meeting of the two camps in his Sand Hill Road office. Thiel got a ride with Musk in his McLaren. “So, what can this car do?” Thiel asked. “Watch this,” Musk replied, pulling into the fast lane and flooring the accelerator. The rear axle broke and the car spun around, hit an embankment, and flew in the air like a flying saucer. Parts of the body shredded. Thiel, a practicing libertarian, was not wearing a seatbelt, but he emerged unscathed. He was able to hitch a ride up to the Sequoia offices. Musk, also unhurt, stayed behind for a half-hour to have his car towed away, then joined the meeting without telling Harris what had happened. Later, Musk was able to laugh and say, “At least it showed Peter I was unafraid of risks.” Says Thiel, “Yeah, I realized he was a bit crazy.” Musk remained resistant to a merger. Even though both companies had about 200,000 customers signed up to make electronic payments on eBay, he believed that X.com was a more valuable company because it offered a broader array of banking services.

Many aspects of the modern financial system are designed to give an impression of overwhelming urgency: the endless ‘news’ feeds, the constantly changing screens of traders, the office lights blazing late into the night, the young analysts who find themselves required to work thirty hours at a stretch. But very little that happens in the finance sector has genuine need for this constant appearance of excitement and activity. Only its most boring part—the payments system—is an essential utility on whose continuous functioning the modern economy depends. No terrible consequence would follow if the stock market closed for a week (as it did in the wake of 9/11)—or longer, or if a merger were delayed or large investment project postponed for a few weeks, or if an initial public offering happened next month rather than this. The millisecond improvement in data transmission between New York and Chicago has no significance whatever outside the absurd world of computers trading with each other. The tight coupling is simply unnecessary: the perpetual flow of ‘information’ part of a game that traders play which has no wider relevance, the excessive hours worked by many employees a tournament in which individuals compete to display their alpha qualities in return for large prizes. The traditional bank manager’s culture of long lunches and afternoons on the golf course may have yielded more useful information about business than the Bloomberg terminal. Lehman

The power of the big fish in general to regroup is hardly restricted to banking. When Standard Oil was broken up in 1911, the immediate effect was to replace a national monopoly with a number of regional monopolies controlled by many of the same Wall Street interests. Ultimately, the regional monopolies regrouped: In 1999 Exxon (formerly Standard Oil Company of New Jersey) and Mobil (formerly Standard Oil Company of New York) reconvened in one of the largest mergers in US history. In 1961 Kyso (formerly Standard Oil of Kentucky) was purchased by Chevron (formerly Standard Oil of California); and in the 1960s and 1970s Sohio (formerly Standard Oil of Ohio) was bought by British Petroleum (BP), which then, in 1998, merged with Amoco (formerly Standard Oil of Indiana). The tale of AT&T is similar. As the result of an antitrust settlement with the government, on January 1, 1984, AT&T spun off its local operations so as to create seven so-called Baby Bells. But the Baby Bells quickly began to merge and regroup. By 2006 four of the Baby Bells were reunited with their parent company AT&T, and two others (Bell Atlantic and NYNEX) merged to form Verizon. So the hope that you can make a banking breakup stick (even if it were to be achieved) flies in the face of some pretty daunting experience. Also, note carefully a major political fact: The time when traditional reformers had enough power to make tough banking regulation really work was the time when progressive politics still had the powerful institutional backing of strong labor unions. But as we have seen, that time is long ago and far away.

The payments system is the heart of the financial services industry, and most people who work in banking are engaged in servicing payments. But this activity commands both low priority and low prestige within the industry. Competition between firms generally promotes innovation and change, but a bank can gain very little competitive advantage by improving its payment systems, since the customer experience is the result more of the efficiency of the system as a whole than of the efficiency of any individual bank. Incentives to speed payments are weak. Incrementally developed over several decades, the internal systems of most banks creak: it is easier, and implies less chance of short-term disruption, to add bits to what already exists than to engage in basic redesign. The interests of the leaders of the industry have been elsewhere, and banks have tended to see new technology as a means of reducing costs rather than as an opportunity to serve consumer needs more effectively. Although the USA is a global centre for financial innovation in wholesale financial markets, it is a laggard in innovation in retail banking, and while Britain scores higher, it does not score much higher. Martin Taylor, former chief executive of Barclays (who resigned in 1998, when he could not stop the rise of the trading culture at the bank), described the state of payment systems in this way: ‘the systems architecture at the typical big bank, especially if it has grown through merger and acquisition, has departed from the Palladian villa envisaged by its original designers and morphed into a gothic house of horrors, full of turrets, broken glass and uneven paving.

In light of the well’s legendary status,” Swift said, “I’d hate to overlook a good opportunity.” He reached into a pocket, rummaged briefly and pulled out a large silver coin. It had been forever since Daisy had seen American money. “You’re supposed to throw in a pin,” she said. “I don’t have a pin.” “That’s a five-dollar piece,” Daisy said in disbelief. “You’re not going to throw that away, are you?” “I’m not throwing it away. I’m making an investment. You’d better tell me the proper procedure for making wishes—it’s a lot of money to waste.” “You’re mocking me.” “I’m in deadly earnest. And since I’ve never done this before, some advice would be welcome.” He waited for her reply, and when it became evident that none was forthcoming, a touch of humor lurked in one corner of his mouth. “I’m going to toss the coin in regardless.” Daisy cursed herself. Even though it was obvious he was mocking her, she could not resist. A wish was not something that should be wasted, especially a five-dollar wish. Drat! She approached the well and said curtly, “First hold the coin in your palm until it’s warm from your hand.” Swift came to stand beside her. “And then?” “Close your eyes and concentrate on the thing you want most.” She let a scornful note enter her voice. “And it has to be a personal wish. It can’t be about something like mergers or banking trusts.” “I do think about things other than business affairs.” Daisy gave him a skeptical glance, and he astonished her with a brief smile. Had she ever seen him smile before? Perhaps once or twice. She had a vague past memory of such an occasion, when his face had been so gaunt that all she had received was an impression of white teeth fixed in a grimace that owed little to any feeling of good cheer. But this smile was just a bit off-center, which made it disarming and tantalizing…a flash of warmth that made her wonder exactly what kind of man lurked behind his sober exterior. Daisy was profoundly relieved when the smile disappeared and he was back to his usual stone-faced self. “Close your eyes,” she reminded him. “Put everything out of your mind except the wish.” His heavy lashes fell shut, giving her the chance to stare at him without having him stare back. It was not the sort of face a boy could wear comfortably…the features were too strong-boned, the nose too long, the jaw obstinate. But Swift had finally grown into his looks. The austere angles of his face had been softened by extravagant sweeps of black lashes and a wide mouth that hinted of sensuality. “What now?” he murmured, his eyes still closed. Staring at him, Daisy was horrified by the impulse that surged through her…to step nearer and explore the tanned skin of his cheeks with her fingertips. “When an image is fixed in your mind,” she managed to say, “open your eyes and toss the coin into the well.” His lashes lifted to reveal eyes as bright as fire trapped in blue glass. Without glancing at the well, he threw the coin right into the center of it.

That meant that Bank of America would be taken off the table as a merger partner.

At a time when banks and laws and governments were still enormously unstable, marriage became the single most important business arrangement most people would ever make in their lives. But marriage in the Middle Ages was certainly the safest and smoothest means of passing wealth, livestock, heirs, or property from one generation to the next. Great wealthy families stabilized their fortunes through marriages much the same way that great multinational corporations today stabilize their fortunes through careful mergers and acquisitions. Wealthy European children with titles or inheritance became chattel, to be traded and manipulated like investment stocks.

Close your eyes and concentrate on the thing you want most.” She let a scornful note enter her voice. “And it has to be a personal wish. It can’t be about something like mergers or banking trusts.” “I do think about things other than business affairs.

Unfortunately, the Bull that gilded Renaissance New York did little for most Americans. Eighties Wall Street was about institutional money released by deregulation, mergers and acquisitions, and, most of all, the debt that made it all possible. As John Kenneth Galbraith points out, financial euphoria always starts with new ways to borrow money; this time it was triggered by the Savings & Loan crisis. Volcker’s rocketing interest rates had forced S&Ls to offer double digits to new depositors while only getting back single digits on the old thirty-year mortgages on their books. S&Ls were going under, and getting a mortgage was nearly impossible, so in March 1980, with the banking system and the housing market on the brink, Carter had signed a law to allow them to issue credit cards, invest in commercial real estate, and offer checking accounts in order to stay in business. Reagan then took it a step further with a change that encouraged S&Ls to sell their mortgages in search of higher returns, freeing up a $1 trillion that needed to be invested in something. Which takes us back to Salomon Brothers, where in 1978 one Lew Ranieri had repackaged an old investment product the government had clamped down on during the Depression: A group of home mortgages all backed by government insurance would be bundled together, then sliced into bonds, thus converting the debt some people owed on their homes into an asset for others. Ranieri had been a bit ahead of the curve then—the same high interest rates that killed the S&Ls also made his bonds unattractive—but now deregulation let Salomon buy up the S&Ls’ mortgages at a deep discount, bundle them into bonds, and sell them back to the S&Ls who believed they’d diversified into the bond market when in fact they’d just bought ground meat made out of their own steaks. In June 1983, Salomon Brothers and Freddie Mac together issued the first collateralized mortgage obligation bonds (CMOs), which bundled up debt and cut it into tranches based on the amount of risk: you could choose between ground chuck and ground sirloin. It would be years before technology would allow doing this on a huge scale, but the immediate impact was that all kinds of debt, not just mortgages, were bundled, cut into bonds, and sold: credit card debt, car loans, you name it. Between 1983 and 1988, some $60 billion of CMOs were sold; GM’s financing arm became more profitable than its cars. America began to make debt instead of things. The

Nazarbayev had learned that Westerners could be just as adept as he was in turning money into power and power back into money. Some, like Dick Evans and Jonathan Aitken, went about it from positions at the top of business and government. Others had to wait until they had left office to monetise their access and influence. They had to get theirs from what they called ‘consultancy’. Blair was said to have made $1 million from Ivan Glasenberg’s Glencore for three hours spent talking the Qatari prime minister out of blocking its merger with a mining company. JP Morgan, the Wall Street bank that had won the financial crisis, retained him too, as did a Swiss insurance company, the government of Kuwait and Abu Dhabi’s investment fund. Some days he was a business consultant, others a philanthropist, or a governance guru, or a peacemaker. His money sat in a web of companies that almost rivalled the complexity and opacity Nazarbayev’s Swiss bankers had devised. By one estimate, less than a decade after he resigned as prime minister, his fortune stood at $90 million.

Labor and employment firm Fisher & Phillips LLP opened a Seattle office by poaching partner Davis Bae from labor and employment competitor Jackson Lewis PC. Mr. Bea, an immigration specialist, will lead the office, which also includes new partners Nick Beermann and Catharine Morisset and one other lawyer. Fisher & Phillips has 31 offices around the country. Sara Randazzo LAW Cadwalader Hires New Partner as It Looks to Represent Activist Investors By Liz Hoffman and David Benoit | 698 words One of America’s oldest corporate law firms is diving into the business of representing activist investors, betting that these agitators are going mainstream—and offer a lucrative business opportunity for advisers. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP has hired a new partner, Richard Brand, whose biggest clients include William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management LP, among other activist investors. Mr. Brand, 35 years old, advised Pershing Square on its campaign at Allergan Inc. last year and a board coup at Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. in 2012. He has also defended companies against activists and has worked on mergers-and-acquisitions deals. His hiring, from Kirkland & Ellis LLP, is a notable step by a major law firm to commit to representing activists, and to do so while still aiming to retain corporate clients. Founded in 1792, Cadwalader for decades has catered to big companies and banks, but going forward will also seek out work from hedge funds including Pershing Square and Sachem Head Capital Management LP, a Pershing Square spinout and another client of Mr. Brand’s. To date, few major law firms or Wall Street banks have tried to represent both corporations and activist investors, who generally take positions in companies and push for changes to drive up share prices. Most big law firms instead cater exclusively to companies, worried that lining up with activists will offend or scare off executives or create conflicts that could jeopardize future assignments. Some are dabbling in both camps. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, for example, represented Trian Fund Management LP in its recent proxy fight at DuPont Co. and also is steering Time Warner Cable Inc.’s pending sale to Charter Communications Inc. Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP have done work for activist firm Third Point LLC. But most firms are more monogamous. Those on one end, most vocally Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, defend management, while a small band including Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP and Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP primarily represent activists. In embracing activist work, Cadwalader thinks it can serve both groups better, said Christopher Cox, chairman of the firm’s corporate group. “Traditional M&A and activism are becoming increasingly intertwined,” Mr. Cox said in an interview. “To be able to bring that perspective to the boardroom is a huge advantage. And when a threat does emerge, who’s better to defend a company than someone who’s seen it from the other side?” Mr. Cox said Cadwalader has been thinking about branching out into activism since late last year. The firm is also working with an activist fund launched earlier this year by Cadwalader’s former head of M&A, Jim Woolery, that hopes to take a friendlier stance toward companies. Mr. Cox also said he believes activism can be lucrative, pooh-poohing another reason some big law firms eschew such assignments—namely, that they don’t pay as well as, say, a large merger deal. “There is real money in activism today,” said Robert Jackson, a former lawyer at Wachtell and the U.S. Treasury Department who now teaches at Columbia University and who also notes that advising activists can generate regulatory work. “Law firms are businesses, and taking the stance that you’ll never, ever, ever represent an activist is a financial luxury that only a few firms have.” To be sure, the handful of law firms that work for both sides say they do so

The deals the government and Wall Street worked out that weekend to save the likes of AIG, Goldman, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch were unprecedented in their reach and political consequence, transforming America into a permanent oligarchical bailout state. This was, essentially, a formal merger of Wall Street and the U.S. government.