A Merry Christmas to the lawyers of Labaton Sucharow and their staff.
I mentioned in an entry on Veterans' Day that somebody at Labaton, a prominent securities-litigation law firm, had googled the name "Hank Greenberg" and ended up at this blog as a result.
Labaton, a New York based firm, represents the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, which is lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against AIG and Greenberg for their use of sham reinsurance agreements that made the books look unrealistically favorable and allegedly induced pension fund executives to buy and/or hold the stock when they wouldn't have otherwise.
I'd like to extend an invitation to anyone from Labaton to comment on this blog about the nature of that lawsuit.
A couple of questions come to mind. First, are the managers of public employees retirement systems supposed to be very sophisticated folk, knowledgeable in the ways of the investment world? If they lost some money on AIG ... so what? my guess is the portfolio was diversified, and nobody has missed any pension payments as a consequence of a dip in the value of this particular stock, have they?
Shouldn't there be anything of "caveat emptor" in our reactions to such situations?
Of course, in the case of blatant corruption there should be some recourse. If somebody on AIG's payroll had bought a really nice beachside condo on the Gulf Coast of Florida for somebody in the relevant Ohio bureaucracy, and the day after that sale closed the pension plan suddenly put a lot of $ into AIG stock ... okay, I can see how the people of the fine state of Ohio would be ticked off at that.
But so far as I can tell, there's been no such allegation. In fact, since I'm too lazy to go to PACER right now to look it up, let's count that as my second question. Am I right that there's been no charge of that sort of corruption at AIG?
So: in your own words Labaton ... what gives?
Showing posts with label Labaton Sucharow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Labaton Sucharow. Show all posts
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Miscellaneous News
Three things today:
1) Icahn has reached a confidentiality agreement with BEA Systems Inc. I wrote about BEA and its rebuff of Oracle in the waningdays of October. Management apparently hopes to persuade him that they are in the right in insisting that they won't sell control for anything less than $21 a share, and they'll share confidential material with him in order to pull off this feat of persuasion.
2) AIG reported its third-quarter operating profit Wednesday: and the news was bad. The third-quarter operating profit fell by 13% percent, or 27 cents a share below analysts' estimates.
In a conference call the following day, AIG honchos warned that revenue in some parts of the company probably wouldn't improve in 2008.
It warned in a conference call on Thursday that revenue in some parts of the company, such as the mortgage insurance unit, probably would not improve in 2008.
This has had the predictable effect upon AIG's stock price and may well lead stockholders to look kindly upon whatever Greenberg is cooking up.
3) By the way, I'd like to say a big "hello" to anyone who is reading this from Labaton Sucharow LLP, a prominent securities-litigation law firm. Labaton reprsents the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, which is lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against AIG and Greenberg for their use of sham reinsurance agreements that made the books look unrealistically favorable and allegedly induced pension fund executives to buy and/or hold the stock when they wouldn't have otherwise.
I infer that somebody at Labaton has the job of periodically googling the name "Hank Greenberg" and writing a report on what he finds. In that case, he's reading this, too. Welcome.
1) Icahn has reached a confidentiality agreement with BEA Systems Inc. I wrote about BEA and its rebuff of Oracle in the waningdays of October. Management apparently hopes to persuade him that they are in the right in insisting that they won't sell control for anything less than $21 a share, and they'll share confidential material with him in order to pull off this feat of persuasion.
2) AIG reported its third-quarter operating profit Wednesday: and the news was bad. The third-quarter operating profit fell by 13% percent, or 27 cents a share below analysts' estimates.
In a conference call the following day, AIG honchos warned that revenue in some parts of the company probably wouldn't improve in 2008.
It warned in a conference call on Thursday that revenue in some parts of the company, such as the mortgage insurance unit, probably would not improve in 2008.
This has had the predictable effect upon AIG's stock price and may well lead stockholders to look kindly upon whatever Greenberg is cooking up.
3) By the way, I'd like to say a big "hello" to anyone who is reading this from Labaton Sucharow LLP, a prominent securities-litigation law firm. Labaton reprsents the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, which is lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against AIG and Greenberg for their use of sham reinsurance agreements that made the books look unrealistically favorable and allegedly induced pension fund executives to buy and/or hold the stock when they wouldn't have otherwise.
I infer that somebody at Labaton has the job of periodically googling the name "Hank Greenberg" and writing a report on what he finds. In that case, he's reading this, too. Welcome.
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