3 Small Wall Street Firms Close This Month

bonus clawback at BNP Paribas--2008 deferred gets cancelled!

good for NYRE, right?

Kaufman was new to me. Thanks.

There have been at least two small shops in London also. Times are tough.

Oh, and bullish.

In other news, confirmation biased renters who missed the greatest real estate jackpot/run-up are still bitter and are praying for a crash.

"The firm also had loans outstanding to 14 employees totaling $4.81 million as of that date, with interest rates as low as 0.5 percent, according to the annual report.
WJB Capital simultaneously was borrowing a combined $3.5 million from two stockholders, Rothfeld and co-founder Michael N. Romano, at interest rates of 10 percent to 15 percent."

well... this way of doing biz could have only worked under a super rosy scenario. let's face it, a lot of the shrinkage in the financial sector will be done by the exit of those with the worse performance. which is positive in the long run. similar to what had happened in real estate. anybody was an appraiser, anybody was making it as a real estate broker. skill begins to matter again, which is positive imho.

dealboy, get the memo. Prices are still falling, so you are still getting paid to wait in the sidelines while prices fall. For us, a 2% decline is enough to get paid to wait. What's your number? Nov vs Oct decline was more than 1%.

Declines are just resuming, as the foreclosure pipeline cannot be delayed forever. I don't expect a solution regarding underwater homeowners. Unfortunately principal cuts are not realistic imho.

On a positive note, watching prices go down is sure more fun than watching prices rise!

How is it legal to lend to employees at 0.5% and borrow at 15%? Throw the bums in jail, and seize their assets to pay the IRS.

> How is it legal to lend to employees at 0.5% and borrow at 15%? Throw the bums in jail, and seize their assets to pay the IRS.

I know! Sounds like the brokerage like some of their employees way much more than the 2 stockholders... BUT, they could be the same person too! That will make the scheme, a short-term free-lunch.

notadmin, are those loans just a way of laundering money to the insiders, and then stiffing the investors why filing bankruptcy? Brilliant !

...WHILE filing bankruptcy

I was in business school when the run-up happened and had enough money for a down payment by the time it was obviously a bubble (as in, when the word "bubble" was in nightly newscasts.) I was hardly in a position to buy at the outset. Dealboy is an odd fellow, expecting single graduate students to buy NYC condos.

facebook's suckerberg will hire thousands of suckers in the new ny office

Do you hate Zuckerburg or the fact that his company will hire people in NY?

Why would they be suckers for working for a fast growing company? Assuming they make more than are making now, they would not be suckers.

>> jason10006 says: "Why would they be suckers for working for a fast growing company? Assuming they make more than are making now, they would not be suckers."

One word: overhiring.

Fast-growing companies generally are hiring not just for their current needs, in my experience, but in anticipation of the future. (Hiring people today to staff initiatives or expand departments, with hopes that they'll be up to speed when by the time they need them.)

So, it's a bit like a round of musical chairs, where there's so many chairs being added that people assume there's little risk in leaving a secure situation to jump for more money.

As always, that's a good trade as long as you're already hired, productive, and have proved yourself in your new role once the music stops.

Now, don't get me wrong, you can definitely clean up for the first couple of years. But in my view it could be a de facto "sucker bet" if you're leaving a place with some stability, only to be lower on the totem pole in a new place should the business cycle cool down.

P.S. Remember the dot-coms!

You mean like amazon.com? Depends what you think is stable...

Seriously, I wonder whether they hired anybody away from the stability of Arthur Andersen in the late 90s/early 00s.

Facebook is already profitable, already cash-flow positive, already growing at a rapid clip. Google has more JOB OPENINGS than Facebook has EMPLOYEES. Facebook is in no near-term danger over over-hiring. you confuse them with Groupon, which has 20% the market cap and three times the number of employees.

"In other news, confirmation biased renters who missed the greatest real estate jackpot/run-up are still bitter and are praying for a crash."

Why would we need to pray? It already happened... loving it...

methinks we just hit the nerve of a bitter bubble buyer (dealboy)

But these firms do not hire at the kind of salaries even close to what finance paid. They often get prime talent at a huge discount because they promise long hours at low pay but throw in the promise of stock, casual attire, an a foosball table in your office lounge.

I remember sitting by a pool in a Hamptons sharehouse in 1999 when one guest mentioned to another that her firm was hiring and would she be interested in the position, salary being about $80,000. The 2nd woman responded to the effect of "salary shmalary, are they offering options?!". Ahhh, good times.

"The company's revenue has more than quadrupled over the past few years. In 2009 it generated $777 million and in 2010 the company hit $1.97 billion.

In terms of profit, Facebook made $1 billion in 2011, up from $660 million in 2010 and 37 percent more than Amazon made in the past year."

http://www.thewrap.com/media/column-post/facebook-files-5b-ipo-8th-anniversary-sits-4b-cash-35011

"Facebook IPO set to create 1,000 millionaires"

http://www.itp.net/587785-facebook-ipo-set-to-create-1000-millionaires

Sounds awful. Hellish place to work.

"For example, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg made $30 million in 2011 and online gaming company Zynga accounted for 12 percent of the company's profits."

Phhhtt. She would be better off selling CMBS at JP Morgan.

Wait until you look at the list the selling shareholders (including hundreds of employees) and see how much stock each owns. Why, its barely enough to buy a few penthouses. Poverty, really. Better they should have been engineers programming for Cit's prop desk.