Preview Newsletter
Lehman 3/31
-
Ex-Lehman CFO takes on personal, financial crises
Mar 30, 2016 | CNBC
By Jon Marino
..."Full Circle," the self-published book from Callan Montella, ex-chief financial officer of Lehman, represents one of the more candid assessments of the bank's struggle and failure in the 2008 global financial crisis. -
Here's Why the Blockchain Would Have Saved Lehman Brothers
Mar 30, 2016 | Fortune
By Jeff Bukhari
...On Tuesday, J. Christopher Giancarlo, a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said that if the blockchain—the technology that backs bitcoins—had been around in 2008, and had Lehman Brothers used it, then the investment bank bankruptcy that officially kicked off the financial crisis would never have happened.
Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel
Erin Callan Memoir
Blockchain Technology
-
Ex-Lehman CFO takes on personal, financial crises
Mar 30, 2016 | CNBC
By Jon Marino
First, Erin Callan Montella went quietly, but now she's come back swinging.
Callan Montella spoke Wednesday on CNBC's "Closing Bell," and said her decision to publish an autobiography was motivated by a need to explain herself in the wake of her own personal failures and after Lehman Brothers' collapse.
"I wanted to take accountability for my own actions," she told CNBC. "Nobody wanted me to fail. There was no incentive to have me fail."
"Full Circle," the self-published book from Callan Montella, ex-chief financial officer of Lehman, represents one of the more candid assessments of the bank's struggle and failure in the 2008 global financial crisis. But the book also delves deeply into her own failings and broken relationships, while showcasing the pain felt by the executive once viewed as the most important woman on Wall Street.
On "Closing Bell," Callan Montella stopped short of saying her career was ended by gender issues on Wall Street.
Callan Montella (who assumed the second surname after marrying her husband, Anthony Montella) talks about the day she was fired from the bank as it tried to beat back waves of liquidity pressures and press leaks that would undo not just her Wall Street career, but Lehman itself.
"I know I started to cry," Callan Montella wrote, adding, "I'd given Lehman every ounce of myself for 13 years: all of my focus, energy and passion."Source: NBCErin Callan
Callan Montella joined Lehman Brothers in her late 20s in 1995, not long after the bank had been carved out of credit card company American Express. She quickly climbed the ranks, impressed clients and by 2007 was promoted to the role of chief financial officer — a position that would ultimately pit her against famed short-seller David Einhorn. An "antagonistic" call with the Greenlight Capital manager preceded his Lehman short call, and, in Callan Montella's opinion, became portrayed as a battle between individuals.
"I truly felt I had lost all sense of control over myself and how I was portrayed," she wrote. "Our one conversation had snowballed into a complete disaster of unforeseen consequences. And now I was paying the price in the media for decisions I wasn't making."
Callan Montella's personal anecdotes are especially revealing — from early failed attempts to conceive a child, to her fear of humiliating herself at one of the country's finest golf courses with Citadel hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin. The contrast between Callan Montella's frankness and other veterans of Lehman is stark.
Her book comes less than a year after her former boss, ex-Lehman CEO Dick Fuld, spoke at a New York banking industry conference and continued to present a feisty defense of his tenure atop the defunct bank. Unlike Callan Montella, Fuld seemed intent in May 2015 on fighting battles he had lost years before. Speaking at the Marcum MicroCap Conference last year, the former CEO still insisted Lehman was "not a bankrupt company" in fall 2008.
Nearly eight years after Lehman's collapse, Callan Montella said on "Closing Bell" that she has not spoken with Fuld recently, and that she doesn't hold any ill will toward Einhorn for his attack on Lehman in 2008.
"These are not important issues in my life," she said.
Read MoreInside Erin Callan's Hamptons hideaway
"And so the Category 5 hurricane was gathering strength offshore, and the 31st floor of Lehman Brothers was business as usual," she wrote, recalling the bank's and executives' mentality in early 2008. Wednesday on CNBC she declined to discuss specifics regarding Lehman Brothers' 2008 collapse.
It's one thing to be honest in assessments about others; it's a little trickier for many executives to turn that lens inward. But Callan Montella also divulges personal anecdotes, from failed relationships to her professional self-doubt to an attempted suicide that left her recovering in a hospital, with her now-husband by her side...
For full story and video: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/03/30/ex-lehman-cfo-takes-on-personal-financial-crises.html
-
Here's Why the Blockchain Would Have Saved Lehman Brothers
Mar 30, 2016 | Fortune
By Jeff Bukhari
Bitcoins could have saved Lehman Brothers, sort of.
On Tuesday, J. Christopher Giancarlo, a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, said that if the blockchain—the technology that backs bitcoins—had been around in 2008, and had Lehman Brothers used it, then the investment bank bankruptcy that officially kicked off the financial crisis would never have happened.
Giancarlo claims that the use of a blockchain, which is the digital accounting protocol that currently powers Bitcoin transactions but is increasingly being tested for other transactions, would have made it plainly obvious to regulators that the company’s financial moves were veering off into tenuous territory. “If an accurate [blockchain] record of all of Lehman’s transactions had been available in 2008, then Lehman’s prudential regulators could have used data mining tools, smart contracts and other analytical applications to recognize anomalies,” says Giancarlo. “Regulators could have reacted sooner to Lehman’s deteriorating creditworthiness.”
Based on that, Giancarlo says regulators should not get in the way of banks that have recently been testing using the blockchain for uses. Giancarlo compared the emergence of blockchain to the Internet’s evolution, and urged adopting a “do no harm” regulatory doctrine towards the development of blockchain identical to the edict the government made regarding the growth of the Internet more than 20 years ago.
Accomplishing a “do no harm” mandate would require the various regulatory agencies, including the FDIC, CFPB, and FinCEN, among others, to work together to form a simple guiding framework that the banks could follow without worry over whether or not they are jumping through the all the different hoops these agencies would otherwise set up on their own. Fortunereported in December that J.P. Morgan Chase and other banks were testing blockchain technology.
Nonetheless, it’s not clear blockchain is a financial crisis silver bullet. In fact some derided Giancarlo’s comments as crazy.
https://twitter.com/felixsalmon/status/714941526674173952
“When you get into crisis situations, markets freeze up and trading doesn’t happen. Once rumors arose about Lehman’s solvency, counterparties became unwilling to execute transactions,” said Bert Ely, head of financial institutions and monetary policy consulting firm Ely & Company. “Blockchain won’t solve that.”
Ely even thinks it’s pie in the sky to think regulators will work together to get blockchain off the ground. Cross-organizational teamwork is not a particularly strong suit amongst regulatory agencies, he says. “These agencies are bureaucratic fiefdoms,” Ely said. “They get jealous of each other. They have turf wars. They don’t play together well. And even if they did try to work together, they have genuinely different points of view and different philosophies.”...
For full story: http://fortune.com/2016/03/30/blockchain-lehman-brothers/
Client Attorney Privileged/Attorney Work Product/At Request of Counsel
Erin Callan Memoir
Blockchain Technology
Add recipients
Suggested