Fox Business’ Charlie Gasparino is reporting that the U.S. Treasury has specifically excluded Goldman Sachs from one of the biggest equity deals of all time: the sale of Citigroup stock. Morgan Stanley got the lead underwriting deal. This comes soon after a high-profile private deal went to JP Morgan: the sale of CKX, owner of the rights to American idol, etc.
Investment banking and underwriting deals for Wall Street firms can only be accomplished when the broker dealers involved have good reputations. The slightest bad PR can tarnish an entire company. Goldman Sachs has been the target of the worst publicity any Wall Street firm has ever received, arguably. As a result, Goldman officially listed bad PR as a material risk in the SEC filings.
See the “Wall Street” category for more information on Goldman Sachs.
The new healthcare reform law will impact local hospitals and state budgets as the number of Medicaid patients increase. The plan to close St. Vincent’s is related to Medicaid issues. Healthcare systems in states across the country are struggling and concerned about the changes in store. As a result, numerous Attorneys Generals have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the new healthcare reform law.
Georgetown Law Center Legal Theory Professor Randy Barnett discusses the core arguments being made by numerous State Attorneys Generals that the newly passed healthcare reform law is unconstitutional. In Part 1, the “commerce clause”, whether that empowers the federal government to mandate health insurance, and the tax penalty for those not purchasing insurance, are evaluated on the merits.
In Part 2, Professor Barnett discusses whether the new law infringes on the sovereignty of the states, and privacy rights of individuals. He then estimates the chances of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Attorney General’s lawsuits.
On March 14, 60 Minutes featured the author Michael Lewis and his new book about the collapse of Wall Street due to the subprime mortgage debacle. The video replay can be found here. In the story, the central villain, according to Mr. Lewis, was Goldman Sachs and how they duped AIG into insuring the CDL subprime mortgage securities. The story essentially blames Goldman Sachs for causing the global financial collapse.
As we reported previously, the bad publicity surrounding Goldman is now a material risk to business and officially listed as such in the SEC documents. Goldman Sachs has a launched a PR campaign. It remains to be seen whether it will be effective.
Perhaps related to our story last week about a freelance article in the NY Times that was conspicuously favorable to Goldman Sachs and the “10,000 Company” promise to lend $500 Million to small business, the NY Times issued this reminder today.
“Your freelance contract obliges you to comply with the applicable provisions of The Times’s policy on Ethical Journalism (http://www.nytco.com/pdf/NYT_Ethical_Journalism_0904.pdf ) and to take care to avoid conflicts or the appearance of a conflict. The provisions pertaining specifically to outside contributors are reproduced below, but you should review the entire document. Readers do not distinguish between freelancers and staff reporters in The Times, so as far as possible we expect outside contributors to adhere to the same standards as Times staff members.”
The NY Times printed an article on March 10 that was favorable to Goldman Sachs. Any positive article about Goldman Sachs these days is noteworthy. The story, written by Peter Carbonara, mentioned how Goldman was helping small businesses via the November 2009 pledge to loan $500 Million to small business. Recall, BatteryPark.TV previously reported that this program was stalled and had actually made zero loans as of January, 2010. The Fox Business Network also covered the story.
We tried to contact Mr. Carbonara at the NY Times, but no one seemed to know who he was. He was not in the operator’s database, and the “Business desk” person answering the phone had never heard of him either. An online search indicates that Mr. Carbonara was a former BusinessWeek employee, although he does not work at Bloomberg now (the new owner of BusinessWeek). People at The NY Times suggested Mr. Carbonara was a freelance journalist, but we could not confirm his actual status and how his article made it into the NY Times.
Was this favorable story about Goldman Sachs caused by the new public relations campaign getting started to clean up Goldman’s image, as reported by Fox Business network’s Charlie Gasparino? We cannot determine this at the moment.
Some early bloomers in Wagner Park. The top white flower is Galanthus (Snowdrop). The middle yellow flower is Eranthus (Winter aconite). Note the black fly pollinating the aconite.
Wall Street | admin | 
March 29, 2010 2:03 pm | 
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