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Wednesday, 6 April 2016

Scandals Have Been Boring For Too Long!

Scandals Have Been Boring For Too Long!
(The #PanamaPapers: Of Tax Evasion / Avoidance)
Inspiration for the title of this post is from an ad-slogan "Ships have been boring for too long" - How the great Cunard's QEII ocean liner was promoted at its launch in 1967.
Fund Portfolio Management - FPM looked at the latest whistle-blowing leaks of confidential / secret / private etc information. Particularly the significance of the #PanamaPapers dissemination. The revelations of the expose have similitude and character to a duplicitous grand theft from public-purse spanning over 40 years. Mere media cantation of whistle-blowing, leaks and scandal is wastefully "jobsworth" paper-selling newscycle. The seriousness of high profile Snowden, Assange, Clinton, Libor-fixing etc etc have sadly not been addressed and followed up to serve as tier of public-interest protection. Agencies do exist, but they are often Government-funded and therefore stymied by their regulatory enforcement efforts by unincentivised and overworked civil servants: for case in point, at least in the U.K., Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs - HMRC, the tax collecting authourity. Hence why scandals have created ennui and apathy in the accustomed-to-corruption public. FPM believe this "scandals" should be scintillating for the agencies concerned for years to come - not at all boring!
 
What is critically important TODAY is that we live in epoch-changing times with confluence of technological and geopolitical factors affecting the whole world – from globalisation. The joined-up thinking indicates that the #PanmaPapers serve to remind and ultimately remedy the biggest social problems of the past and TODAY, wealth-inequality - seriously. Climate change is indeed another one that threatens mankind, but while we exist the quality of existence is indeed measured by wealth. Especially so in a world imposed by money-lenders and money-changers in the "money game". People! we live in a plutocracy not a democracy - tax havens are an inevitable symptom of former type of organisation of society. Just as once Christianity was imposed on so-called pagan worlds, and theology used to exercise control power and influence (also sex!) over the subjects of religion.  The global oligarchy of wealthy establisment people and organisations in various countries have been exposed on global mass, for their shady practices equal to theft in complicity with law-makers and politicians. A grand theft from the majority of the public who have in essense been distracted and defrauded of tax revenues. Robbed blind! As the saying goes. And as further insult from these ruthless thieving classes of establishmentarians - upper-class elites devoid of human empathy that have always existed - the 99% of population now faces public spending austerity and public-assets privatised via corrupt crony capitalism. And isn't that indicative or cause of the biggest problem of global societies TODAY, great wealth inequality?
Mushrooming billionaires and millionaires inevitability means greater amount of common people poorer in debt servitude – zero-sum “game of money” (one wins another loses; then print and/or create more money via cycle of  asset-bubbles and lending).

So what makes the #PanamaPaper a catalyst for revolution by the proletariat and the middle classes? And who are these money-lenders and money-changers and accomplices  who make vast fortunes, exploiting the public? The various Biblical-proportions leaks revealing a shadow world of corporate and finacial malfeasance is treated by "Murdoch's MainStreamMedia Muppets" (a nickname from FPM's #NoSmokeWithoutFire: Of Reputation for bad journalists), as a "scandal". These sharing of secrets by whistle blowers in the interest of humanity could and should mean much more if big media were more responsible independent and didactic. Simply put, the public's induction and their deductions have been too long manipulated. FPM shed more joined-up-thinking perspectives on #PanamaPapers:

1) Examined in particular instances i.e. scrutiny of the deluge of data from JUST ONE organisation helping to avoid and or evade national taxes for the wealthy via offshore tax structures, we see the hypocrisy and blatant disregard for the public interest. Tax avoidance is meant to be illegal and evasion is permissable within rules. A public, who most of these wealthy classes,  entrepreneurs to politicians, claim to serve in their economic life and careers are arguably self-servingly exploiting and preying on the wider, majority and fellow humans. "Animals" is too insulting a word for wildlife, to describe this ruthless morality and behaviour: "beasts" seem apt! Not only of public figures like David Cameron, Prime Minister in the U.K. accumalating wealth from trusted public positions, but also of his ancestors and descendents indirectly; as the British PM shamelessly distance himself from his own deceased father through embroilment over Blaimore Holdings Inc.. This is exactly the case in point why FPM use the term "CORRUPT CRONY CAPITALISM". Most of these wealthy people rely on  their PUBLIC REPUTATION for their livelihood. Therefore it is not a stretch of the imagination to believe, for example, that David Cameron's has guilt by association, even though his father used tax shelter schemes. A case in point is the resignation of Iceland Prime Minister after the #PanamaPapers leaks – more later. So the high-impact value of these Mossack Fonseca company's operational files is not just about money laundering and discrete transactions in asset management – which to the many unsuspecting public would seem unusually like business as normal!

Instead the greater mass of the public, as in any peoples' revolutions of the past, have and have had an opportunity to hold accountable these wealthy individuals. Specifically to interrogate the difference in the public communication policy and their deeds towards accumulating wealth. David  This investigation of individual and corporate entities is KEY and CRITICAL as a catalyst for people's revolution to create or simply expect a fairer society, or at least re-dress the balance (until another and next era produces inequality!)

Q. Why is FPM certain that a comprehensive investigation of these #PanamaPapers and their information is key to opening Pandora box of the deceitful backward two-faced individuals and corporations?

A. As proof, World governments have come out one-by-one to publically announce that they are starting investigations into these files and the tax affairs of en-masse wealthy (not just isolated ephemeral cases like Bernie Eccleston or Lionel Messi!). Tackling tax-avoidance is an appeasement rhetoric or platitudes often expected from lip-service sound-bite politicians. Keep these politicians and governments to account for their pledge in the afternmath of the terroist bomb of secret information.

2) These confidential information leaks and those to follow, as whistle-blowers get legal status and protection, are NOT merely a part of the ever-changing "NEWS CYCLE"; perhaps leak is itself agenda-driven, this time to appease  the disgruntled left-wing public and activists, or anything of the sort. FPM suggests "The Force Awakens: In Investigative Journalism!" The nature of Panama Papers is probably designed to have revolutionary impact: ICIJ · The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists have been handed this confidential information about the shadowy world. And they seemingly are responsible as a worldwide journalist community of named individuals (Project Managers: Marina Walker Guevara and Gerard Ryle), to adduce and disseminate findings from the leaked confidential secrets into the mainstream consciousness. At least until tax laws are effectively changed by the #politicianRcriminal class towards wealth-equality (among the other more prominent rhetoric about "gender equality", "racial equality"etc). Treatment of this #PanamaPapers will be tracked by FPM to ensure the sorting of  "the wheat from the chaff"; between mainstream media and new technological advent of private independent blog media.


To repeat, the global game-changing factors are: 1) Technological, 2) Geopolitical and 3) Wealth Inequality. ("Climate Change" is also key factor and FPM classify it under technological - as man-made phenomenon)
 
3) FPM just mentioned a technological factor in the above point, and more to follow. Now we demonstrate a geopolitical factor such as events in Iceland. FPM concludes that the purest form of democracy has been demonstrated by the most isolated yet fiercely independent society in the modern era. Iceland's premier has been impeached after the leaked Panama files, following public protests. Now that's true democracy from a coherent   nation of people! Remember that Iceland, along with a few other countries took a different path to the financial crisis that caused the "Great Recession".  Instead of fearing a national banking crisis, the Government's policy was to let their insolvent banks fail, rather than use tax-payer funds to plug the black-hole (i.e. difference in the bottom-line balance sheet of the banks between their liabilities and assets). It seems the people could not forgive the perfidy of the Icelanic PrimeMinister: on the one hand seeming to be tough on banks, and on the other using offshore tax haven to hide away profits (of his wife).

4) The final equation of the game-changing epoch or revolution which FPM explore is the state of the people. Do the people have enough "bread and circus" to pre-occupy them while rulers freely rule? Or, as reformers of in 19th century England  used to discuss: "the condition of England question". How do we reconcile the two distinct groups of economic interests, the haves and and the have-nots (rich and poor, bosses and workers, etc), which now and then starkly arises, and with hostility to one another. This embryonic revolution  was witnessed in the Arab Spring protests in the Middle East recently. As monarchies once knew how to gauge the sentiment of its people before carrying out its sovereign will, so as to not foment uprising and revolution by the people; similarly governments also were meant to be in touch with popular sentiment before enacting and enforcing regulation. However, there is a mechanism of feathering-one's nest where politicians rule the people via corrupt crony capitalists motivations, instead of ruling for them, the people, as elected representatives. If politicians are indeed out of touch with the depravity and outrage of its citizens, an incendiary background or circumstances exist for igniting a peoples revolt against the order of society.

5) Collaborative investigative journalism versus mainstream propaganda media is viewed by FPM as technological innovation of news organisations. One or two investigative journalists on large press / TV networks with secret leaked information may be putting his/ her job or career at stake in exposing powerful wealthy persons and organisations. In extreme cases, the exposing journalist/s may have their life threatened, and mostly sidelined or excommunicated from the press fraternity. Wasn't Glen Greenwald denounced for publishing Snowden leaks? With the scale of the #PanamaPapers information (2.3 terrabytes of digitised data) and the manner of its scrutiny and publication is indicative of an highly organised platform of the ICIJ consortium (109 news organisations and 370 named 'journos' worldwide have shared the high-level mass data). This augurs an effective dissemination of potent information to have societal impact; as much impact as handful of oligarchy colluding editors and their press-baron billionnaires owners have had to now(in the U.K. currently Mr Murdoch, Lord Rothermere, Barclay brothers and Mr Lebedev). Hopefully, the Force Has Awoken indeed: FPM has consistently criticised #msm while espousing alternative independant media in its financial services analysis.

6) The greater impact of the #panamapapers is only beginning to unfold i.e. now only the proverbial tip of the iceberg. FPM have long been speculating that geopolitical risks WILL cause the next economic and capital markets crash. Our capital markets strategic research points to a tsunami in currency trading markets, related to the $Euro foreign exchange crashing or even its existential demise. The Eurpean Union - E.U. itself not long ago faced an existential crisis with national deficit problems in member "PIIGS" countries. FPM have from the beginning espoused the doomed project that is the Eurpean Union in its blogs and commissioned / subscription research. The ultimate events and the catalyst for E.U. breakup are on stage following #panamapapers leaks. (Citation is Stratforumn)... to see complete doomsday-mongering on coign moment for capitalism's disaster, including end of carried-interest tax treatment), please contact FPM.

7) FPM's indicated in point 2 above about #panamapapers, that "perhaps leak is itself agenda-driven". Our veracity or disbelief in the potential impact and deductions that society draws from the modus operandi of a secretive global financial system, of essentially preserving and compounding wealth, is the involvement of George Soros funded Open Society Foundation. They report themselves as  'general support funding' the consortium of independent journalists charged with using the leaked data - the ICIJ. George Soros's "NoSmokeWithoutFire" reputation is not necessarily the public perception of him, through propaganda pandering mainstream media. Equally therefore, FPM prinicipals are somewhat dubious about the aims and source of this Panama leak. For instance, the bias in data revelations seemingly does more damage to developing countries' public figures than ones in developed countries. And lesser historical and extended family seem targets than uber-wealthy powerful figures of the USA etc. Further, as George Soros is a billionnaire money-lender, and some suggest staunch supporter of Zionist aspirations and one-world-government, FPM suspects a furtive  stealth agenda to usefulness of leaked transparency. Notice that Mr Soros is from the opaque world of hedge-funds and private-equity financial investments; he famously bet against the British currency the sterling being pegged too high against the Deutschemark in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism - a forerunner currency union to the E.U. and the Euro itself. Then in September 16, 1992 pound exchange-rate crashed and was eventually withdrawn from the ERM; and unsurprisingly is STILL out of the Euro-Zone member countries. Mr Soros made a reported billion-dollar-region fortune with his clients' money, for them and no doubt, significant proportion for himself through management and carried-interest fees, when the pound crashed on what is dubbed "Black Wednesday". The British taxpayers' public-purse lost that much money to Mr Soros and other cabal hedge funds in foreign exchange financial trading.

8) Threading points 6 and 7, it is remarkable that Mossack Fonsec, the Panama-based law firm, as the source of the leaks covering 21 tax-shelter jurisdictions around the world does not include Cayman Island.... To Be Continued.

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Sexy and saucy embodiment to a scandal is the reputation of the entity (corporate and corporeal perhaps) attributed as adduced from "No Smoke Without Fire" research!... Samples from FPM enterprise:

Www.FundPortfolioManagement.com
FPM's #NoSmokeWithoutFire: Of Reputation
© NSWF:Reputation
Did Blackstone Group Sponsor Insider Trading?

Friday, 1 April 2016

Did Blackstone Sponsor Insider Trading?



The past is often an indicator of the present and even of the future! 

Or simply the reverse and, may not be at all indicative of anything - à double entente! The point being: the title of this Loud Calumny post could equally have been “Does Blackstone Sponsor Insider Trading?

Fund Portfolio Management - FPM, examines the increasingly accepted normality of "systemic corruption in corporate and political activities", and which the mainstream media  labels as “crony capitalism”.  A public induction information or label which grossly understates the scale of fraud, theft and malfeasance in the name of economics, by a cabal of business leaders. The deduction from such misrepresentation in the media is  that the beguiled public believes that this is the natural corrupt state of ethics in business. FPM prefers the nomenclature "Sickly Paradise", for the current mode of collusive capitalism referred to as technically as "oligarchies".

The damning evidence for this systemically rigged aspect of international economic life is through understanding the latent double-meanings in financial services, particularly nowadays.  Looking at a period of the last 30 years and inspecting the advent of financier billionaires, FPM have tracked and listed many purely self-serving professionals (and implicitly professions too), that are organised in society as worthwhile liquidity financiers for the public good (see relevant list below of the 5 billionaires at just Blackstone Group, which was founded in 1985 - 30 years ago!).

Public Reputation is a media-hyped generalisation to respect that these listed and other billionaires made money legitimately through industry skill luck and whatever else to succeed. The misused corporate intelligence by mainstream media is simply the requisite "organised lying" by various classes of mercantilism. This organised lying extends to the profession of government and politicians, who by their complicity as legislators condone and even perpetuate duplicitous activities. The stark “wealth inequality” in society in the new millennium is concomitant of this sickly paradise of billionaires.  FPM revealed the embodiment of this “sickly paradise” in its enterprising examination of Blackstone Group (BX) and S.A.C. Capital; the latter hedge-fund-sytematic cheat is abbreviated to "S.A.C." henceforth.

Even after the multi-billion dollar legal settlement with the government authorities in winter 2013 for a guilty corporate criminal conviction, Steven A. Cohen still has not, and probably cannot, be indicted on criminal charges. His management of an organisation culture manifest with insider trading suspicions since at least 1992, formerly bearing the initials of his full name, S.A.C. Capital, is much benignly reported in the sycophantic journalism of mainstream media. Mr Cohen's embroilment  in insider-trading allegations stem from as far back 1985, as alleged by Patricia Cohen, his former wife - she effing should know! S.A.C. changed its name to Point72 Asset Management after its guilty-plea and record penalty-fine conviction; a superficial makeover representing a shallow marketing and re-branding exercise. Done in complicity with #msm and #PublicRelations duplicity. Part of the main-name re-branding is "Point72", which is actually based on its current address! And would you believe it, S.A.C's address is and was, 72 Cummings Point Road, Stamford, Connecticut.

General Ethical Digression: This symptom of “too-big-to-jail” (as headlines satirically underplay), speaks hideous volumes of the protagonists’ natures and their ethical modus operandi in financial services, and extended organisations, if told in the context of reputation and calumny. Especially following that the decade long multi-agency investigation and legal prosecutions  turns out in the main to be a dumb-show of reprimanding white collar financial perpetrators for the cause and public-cost of “The Great Recession”. A public cost which imposed austerity instead of prosperity on the majority of the taxpaying population. The explanation of this dubious empty tactic is embedded in the political atmosphere of the day, where the tag “politicianRcriminals” seems highly appropriate. This latter aspect of crony capitalism is relevant, when considering that the President of The U.S. (#POTUS2016) elections is in November this year. American primaries or caucus for the nomination of the respective party leaders is currently underway.

In respect of serving the public interest - which is the genuine part of FPM’s mission and aim - the worst possible ending to a decade long investigations and prosecutions for insider-trading illegality / fraud and conspiracy has come about. This is the 30-years carry-on of excessive capitalism, mentioned as the sickly paradise, or corrupt crony capitalism, and elaborated with an inaugural case-in-point enterprise.

Back to our case-in-point protagonists: Not only that a civil liability proceedings was the only punitive action against the targetted kingpin of this era's insider-trading enforcement, Mr Cohen as a reputed "Artful Dodger", has been given a mere proverbial “slap on the wrist” by the regulator and U.S. Justice. Government funded regulator of the securities laws in America, the Securities and Exchange Commission - S.E.C, in conjunction with Department of Justice - D.O.J. and even the Federal Bureau of Investigations - F.B.I. have all been expediently outwitted by the "Disgracefully Dubious Coign". View below and disseminate electronically the FPM poster showing Mr Cohen's public reputation, awarded 20th Jan 2016:


Does the occasional multi-billion settlement compensate for the systematic fraud that creates 1% of billionnaires while 99% wallow in austerity and debt-servitude? There is name-and-shame reprisals if not the furore of the public revolution still to face. Watch this space. For financial operators playing within the written rules of the zero-sum investments game, this “slap” is hardly appropriate for the grand larceny in the conduct of investment management, that S.A.C Capital admittedly conducted. Some real-money equity traders know their positions were shafted by illegal confidential information - right?

To date, the greatest future detriment to the long-term-saving publics' portfolios (pensions, endowments, sovereign wealth funds etc), has been that in this era of insider-trading crackdown, the law has been made EASIER to commit IT, of course without being caught. S.A.C. has been caught and punished for some USD$ 2 bn, yet Mr Cohen its undoubtable orchestrator is scott free, and has reportedly net worth of approximately, USD$ 10 bn - astonishing!  Is that the cost of a firm willing to sell their employees' souls to the devil, and for potentially doing some jail-time?! (Ed note: I do mere over-time when working, that's all!)

Preet Bharara, representing U.S. justice and acting as district attorney for Manhattan in this era of enforcement, is the running parody that FPM dub “The Punch and Judy Show”. The Department of Justice – DoJ in the U.S., have now had their numerous convictions and jail sentences for insider trading being vacated / quashed. The exoneration of insider-trading perpetrators,  yet earlier judged and convicted in U.S. Court proceedings, demonstrates disproportionate justice in financial services as at a historic low, not to say farcical shambles. Acquitted on a technicality of insider-trading laws, include S.A.C. heavyweight honcho Michael Steinberg. The other small fry at S.A.C. who is serving time for his crime is Mathew Martoma.

In the era of insider-trading investigations following the TMT-bubble crash at the turn of this century, Arthur J. Samberg, founder of Pequot Capital Management, and others were prosecuted largely on circumstantial evidence, given that insider trading by its ambiguous nature is difficult to prove. Read more of this historic account in New York Times from 2006: S.E.C. Is Reported to Be Examining a Big Hedge Fund. Again, remarkably some 30 or so years ago, these hard working Jewish coterie (See picture below, Dennis Levine later), actually served jail time as senior executive financiers in that era of insider-trading rackets. Lady Justice worked then, sadly she has nowadays been bought and paid-for!
Insider Traders Properly Punished in 1986 - left to right: Ivan Boesky, Michael Milken and Martin Siegel
No Smoke Without Fire: Of Repuatation
#NSWF:Reputation 

1) From the inaugural exhaustive study of insider trading, FPM grants the S.E.C. “Dog Without Teeth” Degree. FPM elaborating on this Federal regulator's stymied enforcement would not be as pertinent as a former trial attorney at the S.E.C. Jim Kidney's parting shot at his retirement. Read about it in extracted form here (The original full speech has been removed from public domain by S.E.C. workers union!)

2) One of S.A.C. Capital’s earliest and biggest backers was Blackstone Group’s division, Blackstone Alternative Asset Management - BAAM. A NSWF:Reputation Degree awarded to BAAM: “Sham Sponsoring Schwarz[1] 

BAAM bragg on their corporate website:
Blackstone Alternative Asset Management (BAAM®) is the world’s largest discretionary allocator to hedge funds, with $69 billion in assets under management as of December 31, 2015". 

Blackstone Group, as a prominent sponsor and investor in the discredited, disreputable and now defunct in name S.A.C. Capital, is attributed a degree of guilt by association, as well as others (on the “FPM Reputation Blacklist”). Our induction and deduction suggests that certain executives, especially its chief executive officer J. Tomlinson Hill, also known as Tom Hill, probably did know about illegal activities at Mr Cohen's firm, and perhaps actively encouraged it for the spectacular returns; and that Blackstone even chose to turn a blind eye about early suspicions and reputation for insider trading by S.A.C. Capital’s owner manager. FPM adduces this thick-as-thieves conclusion from its template analysis, and is not intended as any slighting slander, and indeed to speculate on reputation:

Mr Hill, did you know about Steven A. Cohen’s insider trading reputation, and what was your basis for investing with a reputed cheat; was his evasion of legal indictment a reputable kudos as source of exceptional trading returns?FPM Princpal

FPM cite below a summary of "Circumstantial Evidence", once used in law to convict illicit traders. From these, FPM adduces between the hidden motivations with the public pretext:

1) Blackstone Pulled-Out Its Investment With S.A.C. At The Last Hour -
By fleeing a sinking ship at the last moment demonstrates conviction and faith in S.A.C. being able to survive the regulatory and legal enforcement onslaught. FPM belives the last minute exit was less about courage and support that their man was innocent, and more about face-saving exercise done to avoid guilt by association, and to limit wild-fire damage to its reputation. Remember that hedge fund investing firms that had wittingly or otherwise invested in Bernard Madoff's fraud lost a lot of credibility for their due diligence e.g. Union Bancaire Privee - UBP

2) Blackstone Sponsored Convicted DiamondBack as Investors Too -
The S.A.C. related insider-trading investigations also included, now failed, Diamondback Capital. The fund manager there was Todd Newman. As a former S.A.C. Capital workers, along with another convicted manager and co-founder of Level Global Investors, Anthony Chiasson, they both were handed a landmark verdict in the appeals court. Their criminal inider-trading convictions verdict from December  2012 was overturned and reimbursement of fines to them is underway. Blackstone connections to those with an edge in hedge funds is well known in inner circles but discussing it publically is much a taboo as anti-semitic construed remarks. FPM has made lists of associates of Blackstone principals, potentially acting-up as rogue traders - talk about "laying off risk"!

3) Blackstone and S.A.C. Have Relationship of Decade or More -
Aside of the opportunity for complicity and duplicity in a long marriage, FPM is also concerned about the quality of relations between the principals of these billionaires. We have looked into their occasional functional "meetups" like Council For Foreign Relations - CFR:...  

4) Founders of Blackstone and SAC Both Share A Jewish Heritage - 
The social or racial grouping provide both exclusivity and mutuality for operating as a cabal (a word with Hebrew origins), helping traditionally to keep the wealth within a family. The darker behavioural aspects of such ethnocentric groups are numerous and many for the report, needless to say that secrets, especially confidential business information may be passed without expectation of betrayal. The term "thick as thieves" comes to mind for this context of insider-trading rings.

5) Blackstone's Stephen Schwarzman Worked with Dennis Levine - 
Mr Schwarzman, a co-founder of Blackstone and Mr Levine as convicted insider-trader in the mid-1980s worked together as Mergers and Acquisitions bankers at Great Recession blow-up bank Lehman Brothers.
Insider trader of mid-1980s Dennis Levine (Source: "Den of Thieves" / FPM)
"Dennis was stealing my deals... It’s the most traumatizing thing that’s happened in my business career, to know that the person…in the next office, is a thief... When we started Blackstone I vowed that would never happen, and it hasn’t... Stephen Schwarzman

From the practical experience of Milken, Levine, Siegel and Boesky era of insider-trading enforcement cira 1986, Mr Schwarzman understood the mechanism of insider trading, as well as the super easy certain investment returns, from the special relationship between deal-makers and traders, who under Glass-Stegall were prohibited from co-operation by Chinese Walls.

6) J. Tomilson Hill (Tom Hill),  Managed Dennis Levine -
Mr Hill, now head of Blackstone Alternative Asset Management - BAAM, had as then head of "Mergers and Acquisitions at Smith Barney in New York 1979 recruited, or correctly, hand picked and groomed Dennis Levine (notice the old school slivked back similarity of the two men?)

7) Dennis Levine Alleged That Tom Hill Was Insider Trading -
Mr Levine claimed J, Tomilson Hill had a secret trading account and was swapping inside information with an investment banker at Dillion, Read and trading on deals leaked by others. Levine had remonstrated  that:

"I could bring Hill down with what I know!" 
(Source: James B. Stewart, "Den of Thieves", 1991)
etc etc!
(N.B. Mr Hill and Mr Schwarzman, as far as FPM principals know, have never been formally accused of any misuse of confidential information; Mr Levine has been convicted and is unashamedly whistle-blowing)/


Among other smoke signals, the smoke from the reputation wild-fire which FPM tracks, was that FPM's check of Form 4 and 13F filings for listed Blackstone suggests an opportunity to buy into the correction before the impending market crash. Aside of the geopolitical bomb, we believe a market-led crash catalyst to be high-yield debt bust in oil and other fossil fuels, or perhaps a hedge fund blow-up - ala Long Term Capital Management - LTCM.

 Blackstone redeemed its investment just before SAC Capital was expected to be found guilty of insider trading. Any respectable organisation connected with a firm spawning a litany of insider trading advocates (see FPM's "SAC Capital's Litany of Litigation and Proceedings" from an post from xxxx), could reasonably be expected to disassociate themselves for lasting reputation sake. Especially, as they seemingly promote such ethical corporate governance values (cough cough!) – see screen-dump below explaining Blackstone’s “Guiding Principles”:



Bullshit! No, indeed they can manage this corporate perfidy?!
For disregarding the Blackstone Group's Guiding Principles, and even betraying them, as the potential fall-guy. FPM's ©NSWF:Reputation, with considered and adduced opinion, award J Tomilson Hill a Degree of "Schwarz Bullshit Artist". Indeed, James B. Stewart's epochal coverage of the insider-trading era of mid-1980s with Milken and Boesky, in "Den of Thieves" suggests that, Mr Hill sensed that Dennis Levine was in his terms, a "bullshit artist". Hence FPM's NSWF:Reputation Degree.  What goes around comes around eh!

In summary, FPM's three posters advertising FPM's ®NSWF:Reputation: 


S.E.C: “Dog Without Teeth” Degree
B.A.A.M: "Sham Sponsoring Schwarz"
J Tomilson Hill "Schwarz Bullshit Artist"







Of the person's mentioned or the protagonists of this ©NSWF:Reputation post, whom FPM are careful not to falsely accuse and slander, or in high-English “calumniate”. Bearing in mind that a) it is not slander if it is the truth and b) a reputation verdict is merely that, and everyone and everything can or does have one, even under constitutional freedom of speech laws, and c) in a context of financial services research being especially speculative in their nature. FPM's reputation enterprise is based on ‘mosaic’ research is indeed a veritable due diligence.
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Advert for ©NSWF:Reputation:





[1] This NSWF:Reputation Degree is no way implies that Stephan A. Schwarzman, co-founder of Blackstone, is guilty by association; simply that “Schwarz”  has German etymology, from schwarz, an adjective for black)
 

Tuesday, 2 February 2016

Loud Report: The Organ of Calumny #1


FPM's NoSmokeWithoutFire: Of Reputation

© NSWF:Reputation
#NSWF:Reputation

Loud report issued from FPM's inception case study named after maxim that "there is no smoke without fire", in terms calumny and reputation for an entity, whether an individual or an institution. FPM's interest in the matter is to present a persistent reminder of historical wrong-doing and associated reputation of capital market operatives. The mainstream media is intent on distracting the public interest with ever-changing newsflow with public-relations dressed up reporting of corporate and white-collar criminality.
 
A multi-billion dollar hedge fund management operation in America has acquired an inaugural rating and listing in the financial community's calumny and reputation. Point72 Asset Management ("Point72") is now sidelined as an 'investment family office' dealing opaquely in the global social-eco-political order through its capital markets activities. Point72 was previously operating as SAC Capital. a renowned hedge fund operations since 1992. The exile for Point72 is suggested by its dishonourable exclusion as a money manager for public or external capital.
 
This banishment for Point72 from accepting and managing public money stems from a securities fraud crackdown started in 2007 as "Operation Perfect Hedge". SAC Capital, as it was known then, among others was implicated in illegal "systematic insider-trading". To be clear, insider-trading or insider-dealing is  basically a swapping of illicit professional secrets for mutual benefits. "Illict professional secrets" are formally known as "Material Non-public Information".

A cornerstone judgement involving former SAC Capital employees have set new legal precedents on December 9, 2014. This represents a sneaky time to announce a legal verdict against the interest of capital market integrity  and the public. A major 'hideaway'  news when most people are distracted by seasonal festivities. The United States of America's Department of Justice ("DoJ") and multi-agency regulation enforcers have turned an immense corner in making insider trading harder to prosecute, and thereby letting securities fraudsters off the hook. The precedent was set when an appeal court overturned the insider trading convictions for Newman and Chiasson). 

While the multi-billion dollars business owner, Steven A Cohen, escapes any accusation of wrongdoing or criminality, the business bearing the initials of his name, SAC Capital, settled out of court or simply reached an agreement with the US Justice system to handover more than US$ 2 billion. Some perfidious cynics in the asset management game have laughed-off the matter of multi-billion dollars legal settlement as simply "the cost of doing business". FPM counters that kind of cynicism, which creates an uneven playing field for stock market investors, and undermining of the integrity of the capital markets. We actively campaign under "NSWF-reputation" and dub the investment manager at the centre of SAC Capital as the  "The Artful Dodger" and "The Unconscionable Mr Cohen". Or loud report reputational identity:


Point72 Asset Management’s

Steven A Cohen reputation degree:

 “Disgracefully Dubious Coign”.

Note that "Coign" is a play on nomenclature of the protagonist, and with another meaning to the circumstances. The word means also a cornerstone and keystone. FPM's principals don't allege "palms being greased" between billionaires and professional regulatory enforcers for the sake of some political expediency; we simply present debate and actively campaign against perceived and actual "Corrupt Crony Capitalism at the C-Level".

SAC Capital (now renamed Point72 Asset Management) is awarded NSWF: Disgracefully Dubious Dogma degree.

Saturday, 3 October 2015

FPM's Exchange Traded Products Performance $ETF

FPM Sectoral and Select Exchange Traded Products Performance - 3-Years to Sept'15
1) We'd cautiously like consumer and healthcare / biotech sectors $XLY, $XLP, $XLV and $FBT:

Both consumer discretionary and  less so consumer durable / staples, of the sector ETF SPDRs (Spider) have not suffered a negative 12 month return. So respectively the worst year long drawdown was +9.2% between Oct'13 and Sept'14; and for the durable / one-off purchases sector, up 4.2% between between Oct'14 and Sept'15.

Consumer sectors are defensive sectors, where-ever in the business cycle we are in on Sept 2015. However, we identify transition firms: less liking Coca-Cola Company - $KO and Pepsico - $PEP type conglomerates and preferring Vita-Coco (privately-held producers of coconut water drink). The Top 10 Holdings of these consumer sector proxy below.See other analysis here.


2) Our least favoured sectors are on a secular downward trend. The unravelling of the  energy-scam perpetrated by inventor Alva T. Edison, J.P. Morgan and cabal a century earlier is now upon us. These protagonists effected a capitalist-motive and over-rode potential human social progress and an innovative one. A result of this short-termism enterprise ambition is that capitalism and fossil-fuel activities are now endangered from the sovereign debt-bombs and fretful climate change premise. Mr Edison, famed as inventor of the light-bulb and electric current was favoured over alternative free-at-source energy-solution as proposed by Nikolai Tesla. 

Due to global climate warming, right now the global economy, which contributes to  anthroprogenic global warming needs to be in a "freeze" mode to contain CO2-emission  i.e. economic stagnation VERITABLY needs to be the authorative accommodating policy order of the day. If indeed matter-factly, we are SERIOUSLY concerned about the state of humanity and its effect on our mother planet. A planet where almost every natural resource is securitised / monetised towards economic consumption and indebtedness to balance books. A world gorged by ever increasing populations and degrees of prosperity in a globalised capitalism. The Orwellian horrors to mind needs no rocket-scientist, simply extrapolate the effects of BRICs nations joining 20th century plutocratic economic model. Remember that economics was about the scarcity or finiteness of resources within limitless demands for it. And how politically that is balanced. But now in the 21st Century a global paradigm is upon us: as opposed to few western countries (viz. from G7 to G20 countries meeting Nov’15), in the 20th Century competing for the limited resources, there are “Three Billion New Capitalists”[1] competing or creating substitute resources, for SUSTAINABILE harmony with the environment. 

Sector SPDR ETFs as per Crude Oil - $OIL and Natural Gas - $FCG. These two are down 60% and 65% respectively over the last three years to end-September 2015 - which is our window of analysis period. Wider energy ETF SPDR - $XLE presumably constitutes  horizontal and vertical industries of oil and gas assets, and fared negatively depreciated by 9% over the 3-years.

Since stored energy reserves (carbon fossil fuels in the main) outweigh the safe capacity before climate change impact ensues, we think these large oil-gas based industries face secular decline, as their reserves become "STRANDED ASSETS". Fracking and Carbon-Capture-and-Storage ventures are mistaken or diversionary offshoots that will undergo the creative-destruction process from misallocated capital and vested competition (viz. Opec lowering price to force out new entrants to the energy game). These enterprises marketed in the name of "energy security" is more public relations flannel in view of long-known carbon-emission reduction goals. More fool the sponsoring entrepreneurs and duped investors having bought into it!Take a look at performance metrics of a medium-term oil proxy below:

FPM Sector Proxy ETF - $OIL. Source: Yahoo.com

3) Following on from FPM’S primacy of geopolitics themes, based on socio-political-environmental driven economic forces, and with oil and carbon-fossil industries as a bellwether sector in vogue transition, we base our macro and markets recommendations. We have medium-term sideways-trading cycle with long-term secular lows views, based on prospects for macro economic fundamentals i.e. selective geopolitical vision.

Gold at the bottom of its 52-week range is cyclically about...

Qualitative Analysis - To Be Completed - $

[1] Reference to “Three Billion New Capitalists” is a book by Clyde Prestowitz about “the great shift of wealth and power to the East”. FPM’s contect is similarly about a wider sense of new BRICs nations.

Wednesday, 29 July 2015

FPM's Macro Economic Fundamental View

FPM awarded disingenuous or mistaken journalists of the mainstream financial press "MSM Murdoch Muppets" degree and incumbent self-serving politicians pandering paymasters as reputedly "politiciansRcriminals" degree. The political economy we find now, at the turn of another new milieu, has given free field to anti-capitalism, trade unions activism and left-wing political radicalism. While we may have generalised about the character of politicians, financiers and media people - we naturally believe that their utilitarianism in an aged mature organisation of socio-economic order, ultimately carved out by politicians and legislators, calls for social and economic revolutions.

Similar to drug-testing of professional cyclists, such as at the recent Tour d'France, where the winning Sky Team (sponsored by Rupert Murdoch's media empire) are avowing full transparency to vindicate that their sponsored winner (Chris Froome) and team ARE probably drug-free; not withstanding lies of statistics! Most of the public and ex-professionals are cynical that anyone in the top-order of cyclist race finishers are NOT on drugs team (unless presumably he was Superman). Onus of proof has shifted: in cycling it is assumed you're a professional vested drug-cheat unless otherwise proven.  

Hence FPM predominantly turn to other sources for fundamental FPM's macro and markets analysis. In the “new alternative media” – NAM, which we contrast with traditional media-mogul owned / funded main stream media - MSM, we like innovative technology enabled internet sources and their breaking-the-set commentators.

Below we feature one such truth-buster, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, originally on NAM “USAWatchdog.com”. FPM discovered this alternative news media via “InvestmentWatchBlog.com”. Other NAM sources we found en route was OpenSecrets.com and PaulCraigRoberts.org. FPM have NOT exhaustively researched the independence of any of these information sources; maybe they are registered with the “Institute for Nonprofit News”. Dr Roberts’s credentials in career as a political economist are impeccable. As Assistant Treasury Secretary under President Ronald Reagan between 1981-82 he has the best perspective on World developments over the last 30 odd years to the present year 2015. Cover picture of his book below:

The public or professionals' informative value from the views of executive financiers "banksters" (or in wider industry of  CEOs and Presidents opinion) are of even less merit: as they generally are the paymasters and orchestrators of a self-serving corrupt crony capitalism. Their common interest is clearly unaligned with the proportionally bigger public at large. Yet using slick highly-paid under-the-radar PR-firms / media strategists / communications in the "dark arts"; and government lobbying to exact their bribed will in industry deregulation etc, towards ultimately lining their pockets, with trickle-down to their sycophantic cronies at expense of unsuspecting and yet trusting gullible public, we are.

FPM are not talking of systemic-wide corruption through their proverbial hats as gibberish rant! FPM principals have understood a similar broken state of capitalism leading up to and after The Great Crash 1929[1]. To validate our crony capitalism of bribes to politicians, in graphic table below we cite ONLY the bribes by the financial sector in the United States of America, referred to as Wall Street, over a roughly 10-year measurement period[2]. The financial sector invested more than US$5 bn in political influence purchasing in the United States over the last decade to 2008. Now just imagine what multiple of US$ dollars that was returned or begotten to the financial sector as payback! Absolutely a backhander or illegal payments for favours.


The Scale of Wall Street and Washinton Crony Capitalism
And now the interview discussing how the world economics and politics really does works, especially in the last 30 years or so, by someone who ought to know have been there at its instigation and observed the playout of that cycle, which is nearing its end, but not with old fashioned market volatility as we've had but with end of fossil fuels and United States Dollar debt:


[1] “The Great Crash 1929” 1954 by John Kenneth Galbraith
[2] "Sold Out - How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America" March 2009, by Essential Information, Consumer Education Foundation, www.wallstreetwatch.org

Tuesday, 21 July 2015

Is Neuberger Bergman The New Blackstone Group?



FPM’s ‘NoSmokeWithoutFire:Reputation’ propagating enterprise is researching prospective ring leader Neuberger Berman Group LLC (an independent employee-owned investment firm established in 1939) and its investment affiliates for signs of illegal capitalism. Since our illuminating investigation into insider trading by Steven A. Cohen’s eponymous SAC Capital, and involvement of Blackstone Group as its biggest investor, we have compiled public domain surveys, and presented privately commissioned ratings of an entity’s reputation by degrees. This monitoring survey is mockingly entitled 'Potential Rogues And Affiliates Trading' - as below.
The rationale for organising and connecting Neuberger Bergman – "NB" affiliate map are manifold. One rationale we look at here in depth derives from the nature and contradiction of a class of investment funds known as ‘liquid alternatives’. Namely, “Neuberger Berman Absolute Return Multi-Manager Fund” , is an approximately US$2 bn mutual fund listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange in New York. 

This NB thematic hybrid fund depicts FPM convergence demystification in the asset management industry; where returns of constituent fund managers are being arbitrated as more NB profit rather than  full investment returns, even though the stake for investment is mostly the client's money. In fact the key appeal and popularity of the liquid alternative category is for American pension savers or 401K plans. Hedge funds are not intended by nature to be liquid, but this mutual fund version is structured so; which for the next contrived manipulated market panic selling due to idiosyncratic or systemic risk, will intrinsically show appropriate losses. Woe to the pensioners and the feeding trough they really represent under crony corrupt capitalism!

Indeed like the mentioned early days of Blackstone Group, there is a private equity division of Neuberger Bergman known as Dyal Capital Partners which sponsors emerging and existing hedge funds via stakeholding. As far as we can tell there are no cross-over holdings between Dyal and the NB liquid alternative mutual fund. FPM is familiar with the co-heads of that business having worked with the team in their former guise as a Lehman Brother division. This is food for monitoring ‘Alt M&A’ transactions. This corporate finance / rain-maker / deal activity is expected to be invigorated during the cyclical ‘shake-out’ from the next capital market turbulence [of a nature and type never seen before].

Our third proposition for citing NB is their long established heraldry in US finance and industrialism, through its CEO, George H. Walker the fourth. Who is the second cousin of George W. Bush, the last US president from that American dynastic family. FPM believe there are bound to be scrutable executive connections to feed through our ©NSWF:Reputation rating of corruption in crony capitalism.

Under FPM’s trident mission statement this US$251 bn asset manager NB ticked all the boxes; with its divisions’ activities in hedge funds and private equity comprising FPM’s triumvirate application primarily in alternative investments headed simply ‘Convergence’, ‘Alt M&A’ and ‘NSWF:Reputation’. The relatively new Blackstone Group Inc was formed only 30 years ago in 1985 yet has greater assets under management - AuM, closer to US$333 bn. This juxtaposition of Blackstone with Neuberger raises question of business strategy with the meteoric growth of the former compared with the age venerable latter. 

FPM have a stuff and nonsense view of liquid alternative investments. A category with an estimated US$234 bn[1] of monies invested must have an investment rational merely for its existence. However, the terms ‘absolute return’ fused with ‘mutual fund’ is a misnomer and contradictory by their original natures, which FPM invoke as simply ‘convergence’ of traditional long-only investments with edgier fandangled branded alternative investment category i.e. hedge funds. This confusion with nomenclature is asserted to investors as liquid alternatives.

Nothing about this NB multi-manager fund is reminiscent of a fund of hedge funds and the implied premise of absolute returns. It is at first glance merely an appeasement offering, like water for chocolate, as far as investors are concerned. Don’t take our word for it, look at the price action in Yahoo chart below since launch. And if you believe the smarter investors should be institutions rather than individuals then it was reported that only 20% of the fund’s investors are institutions.

NB Absolute Return Multi-Manager Fund Performance
Additionally, the real proof of a vehicle with ‘Absolute Return’ in its name should be stellar hedge fund performance. Yet average annualized returns of 5% over its three years existence is not a significant or remarkable track record, even in an era of zero cost-of-money, and beating the average hedge fund benchmark - See table above. Veritably the tell tale signs of the multi-manager vehicle is the convergence of active management alpha-seeking strategies with passively managed beta-tracking. The real raison d’etre for this fund is the way Neuberger Bergman allocates the fund investor’s money between its hand-picked hedge fund affiliates. NB has segregated account with each of its portfolio constituent manager, and therefore has look-through potency at the portfolio companies. This has many potential alternate alpha-return interpretations, least of all of them being to reduce investors’ operational risk!


[1] Strategic Insight – New York based mutual fund research