1. company town
    Goldman, Merrill Open Books, Loosen CollarsFINANCE • The SEC is investigating whether banks and brokerages are hiding subprime lending losses. Goldman and Merrill are the first to be scrutinized. [WSJ] • This is how bad the market is right now: Even music bloggers are worried about it. [DealBreaker] • KPS Capital Partners is ditching its MetLife Building penthouse for a two-story space on 66th and Lex that leaves room for expansion. [Deal Journal/WSJ]
  2. company town
    Bear Stearns Execs Cashed Out Before Stock DroppedFINANCE • James Cayne and three other top Bear Stearns execs cashed out $57 million in stock before the bank took a nose dive, pawning off $16 million in losses on regular investors. [TheStreet.com via DealBreaker] • With Ellyn McColgan’s departure, Fidelity president Rodger Lawson has gone from new guy in town to likely successor. [Boston Globe via DealBook/NYT] • Blackstone raised $21.7 billion for its latest private-equity fund. Apparently drumming up the last $6 billion was pretty tough. Cue the violins! [Deal Journal/WSJ]
  3. company town
    First You Save the Company, Then You Play GolfFINANCE • Bear Stearns CEO Jim Cayne rewarded himself for firing the firm’s second-in-command by playing his first round of golf in almost three weeks. [NYP] • Fidelity CEO Edward Johnson’s uncertain succession plan claimed another victim as Ellyn McColgan, a longtime exec and onetime heir apparent, got fed up and stepped down. [NYT] • Were the threats against Goldman Sachs — “Hundreds will die. We are inside. You cannot stop us.” — just a prank by three teenage kids? [Newsday]
  4. company town
    At Bear Stearns, Watch Out for the New GuyFINANCE • Bear Stearns seems to have great confidence in new president Alan Schwartz, even though Schwartz, an “old-line relationship banker,” has no experience in the firm’s embattled bond business. [NYT] • Bear Stearns’ decision to liquidate their failed hedge funds in the Cayman Islands may help protect them from irate and litigious investors. [Bloomberg] • Banks working on the ABN Amro deal stand to make about $1.3 billion. Good news for Citi, Credit Suisse, and others. [Deal Journal/WSJ]
  5. company town
    You Were Right About the Personal-Injury LawyersLAW • David Sheeger, a Manhattan personal-injury lawyer, pleaded guilty to using a “runner” to ferry him potential cases from inside hospitals. [New York Law Journal] • A missing Connecticut lawyer admits to embezzlement in a letter to his attorney son. [Connecticut Law Tribune] • Manhattan D.A. Robert Morgenthau is 88 and unrelenting. [Law Blog/WSJ]
  7. company town
    The Costly Return of JT LeRoyMEDIA • A court ordered Laura Albert, a.k.a. JT LeRoy, to pay a film production company $350,000 for legal fees connected to her fraud case. [NYT] • The ABC News intern who posed nude for Playboy: Lace Rose Allenius. She works on the weekend edition of Good Morning America. [Mediabistro] • Manhattan Media, the owner of several weekly newspapers, bought New York Press and plans to merge it with Our Town Downtown, which covers lower Manhattan. [NYT]
  8. company town
    Bad Days at ABC, NBCMEDIA • Eric Wishnie, an NBC News producer who was fired in 2006 for substance-abuse problems, fell to his death from his West Village rooftop. [NYDN] • Good Morning America’s Robin Roberts announced that she has breast cancer. [ABC News] • Condé Nast is expanding in India and expected to launch editions of Glamour, GQ, Condé Nast Traveler, Vanity Fair, and Wired. Vogue will launch in September. [FT]
  9. company town
    Former Milberg Weiss Lawyer Was El Mirage’s LandlordLAW • Paul Young, a former partner at Milberg Weiss, owned the building that housed the El Mirage bathhouse and did nothing to curtail its activities. [Legal Pad/Fortune] • General counsels are on the up-and-up: Rosemary Berkery and Kenneth Frazier, the GCs at Merrill and Merck, both just got promotions to top leadership positions at their respective firms. [Law Blog/WSJ] • Some lawyers are salivating at their chance to put “hard-hitting” ads back on the air. [New York Law Journal]
  10. company town
    End Is Nigh for Whole Foods ChiefFINANCE • Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has been asked to resign following the discovery of anonymous postings he authored on investment message boards. [NYP] • Leon Black, the secretive founder of Apollo Management, will be worth more than $3 billion when he sells part of the firm. [NYP] • Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O’Neal promoted one of his top aids, Rosemary Berkery, to the position of vice-chairman and general counsel, making her a likely successor. [MarketBeat/WSJ]
  11. company town
    Facebook Hires YouTube’s MoneymanFINANCE • YouTube’s former finance chief joins Facebook as CFO. Sales drums bang louder. [WSJ] • Mark Lenowitz, a stock picker for Chelsey Capital and Q Capital Investment, admitted to insider trading. [Reuters via DealBook/NYT] • James O’Shaughnessy, a Bear Stearns exec once called “the father of strategy indexing,” will leave the bank to start his own firm. [MarketBeat/WSJ]
  12. in other news
    New Conservative Worry: Save George Washington High!How lovely it must be for conservatives today; how triumphantly they must have achieved all their goals. How else to explain the existence of the recent “Civic Report” we stumbled across on the Manhattan Institute’s Website, in which that bastion of urbane conservatism exposes a horrifying trend: Apparently there’s been a precipitous decline in the naming of public schools in the U.S. after presidents and other notables. Egad!
  13. company town
    Steve Jobs Has Nothing on ArmaniFASHION • Over the iPhone? Get the Armani phone this October. [Fashionista] • Need something to wear with that wrap dress? DVF is launching a shoe collection this fall. [British Vogue] • Thom Browne has put together a 25-piece womenswear collection available this fall at Barneys, Bergdorf, Jeffrey, and Colette. [WWD]
  14. company town
    Does That Polo Pocket Look Like Levi’s?FASHION • Levi Strauss & Co. is suing Polo Ralph Lauren for supposedly copying the brand’s trademark pocket stitching. [WWD via British Vogue] • Sass & Bide has canceled their New York Fashion Week show after one of the designers required further chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer. [Fashion Week Daily] • Women ages 40 to 55 get their own Izod line. [NYP]
  15. photo op
    An Underground Railroad Did you know there’s a 150-year-old, defunct subway tunnel under Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn? It runs from Boerum Place to Hicks Street, was built in seven months around the time of the Civil War, and was lost until 1981, when a dude named Bob Diamond found it. He gives tours of the thing, and the blogger behind McBrooklyn went spelunking with him yesterday. There are some more pics at McBrooklyn, plus a (frankly sort of boring) video. Neat, huh? Brooklyn Spelunking: Atlantic Avenue Tunnel Tours Return [McBrooklyn]
  16. company town
    So Who Will Run Viacom?MEDIA • Sumner Redstone is feuding with his daughter, leaving the future of Viacom in doubt. [WSJ] • Forbes is putting its historic Greenwich Village building on the block. [NYP] • Countdown With Keith Olbermann referred to a Louisiana senator’s wife as a ho. Imus again? [FishbowlNY/Mediabistro]
  17. company town
    Mariane Pearl Sues Al QaedaMEDIA • Mariane Pearl filed a lawsuit in federal court against Al Qaeda and a major Pakistan bank to uncover more information about her husband’s murder. [NYS] • The NFL passed a rule ordering press photographers to wear red vests with Canon and Reebok logos on them. [NPPA News via Mediabistro] • If Portfolio’s second issue flops, editor-in-chief Joanne Lipman may be out of a job. [NYP]
  18. company town
    Dow Jones, Mediabistro Play ‘Let’s Make a Deal’MEDIA • The Dow Jones board approved Murdoch’s bid, but two of the four Bancrofts on the board refused to take part. The family is expected to meet Monday to begin deliberations. [NYT] • Jupitermedia bought Mediabistro.com for $23 million, causing critics to smell a tech bubble. [NYT] • The new issue of Portfolio will be out soon, and rumor has it that editor Joanne Lipman is ignoring Condé protocol by poaching other books’ staff. [WWD]
  19. company town
    Who Will Catch the ‘Redbook’ Traitor?MEDIA • Will the $10,000 that Jezebel paid for an unretouched Redbook cover be enough to feed the sure-to-be-fired leaker? [WWD] • Houghton Mifflin will acquire Harcourt from rival Reed Elsevier for $4 billion. [NYT] • Rolling Stone publisher Tim Castelli has left the magazine to be New York sales director for Google. [Ad Age]
  20. company town
    CEO Accused of Golf ManipulationFINANCE • Hollywood Country Club is looking into allegations of score altering in a July 4 golf tournament by Bear Stearns CEO Jim Cayne. [CNBC] • The SEC began an investigation into Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s anonymous online postings. [DealBook/NYT] • Morgan Stanley’s John Mack is hosting a fund-raiser for Hillary Clinton today. He supported George W. Bush in 2004. [Financial Times]
  21. company town
    Couric Will Stay at CBSMEDIA • CBS News president Sean McManus denied that Katie Couric will leave CBS Evening News before the end of her five-year contract. [AP via Fox News] • CNBC and the Financial Times plan to join forces and share content in case Rupert Murdoch’s Dow Jones bid goes through. [WSJ] • TV Guide is moving into The New Yorker’s old offices on West 43rd Street. [NYP]
  22. company town
    Did You Hear the One About the iPhone Nano?FINANCE • A JP Morgan analyst got canned for writing a report about a fictional Apple product, the iPhone Nano. [Apple 2.0 via DealBreaker] • Using the screen name Rahodeb, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey posted on Yahoo Finance bulletin boards to bash competitor Wild Oats. [Deal Journal/WSJ] • The SEC tries to reclaim authority over hedge funds by writing rules allowing the agency to sue for misleading investors. [Bloomberg]
  23. company town
    Paris Cheered by Blackstone BidFINANCE • Did Steve Schwarzman’s bid for Hilton Hotels help bring Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan back together again? [Gossip Girls via DealBreaker] • She might not be so hot at spotting WMD, but former CIA big shot Jami Miscik is good enough to be the “global head of sovereign risk” at Lehman. [Fortune] • Threatening letters against Goldman Sachs continue to turn up at newspapers; Feds now investigating disgruntled former employees. [NYP]
  24. company town
    No Vindication for Jane PrattMEDIA • Jane Pratt doesn’t feel vindicated that Jane was killed but does feel bad for its employees. [Radar] • Kevin Reilly, the former chief programmer for NBC, was picked up by Fox after losing his job to Ben Silverman. [NYT] • The Nation asks its readers to chip in for “The Great Postal Crisis of 2007.” [FishbowlNY/Mediabistro]
  25. company town
    ‘Jane,’ So OverMEDIA • Jane mag is dead. [Radar] • The Dow Jones board will meet with Ron Burkle today, but an alternative deal to Murdoch’s appears unlikely. [NYT] • MTV Networks negotiated its upfront ad sales partly based on commercial ratings. [WSJ]
  26. company town
    Goldman Shrugs Off ThreatFINANCE • “Goldman Sachs. Hundreds will die. We are inside. You cannot stop us,” say nine letters mailed from Queens to newspapers across the country. The letters were signed “A.Q.U.S.A.,” but law enforcement isn’t too concerned. [CNN/Money] • UBS CEO Peter Wuffli takes the fall for Dillon Read Capital Management by leaving the bank. Marcel Rohner is the new chief. [NYT] • Lehman wants to hire as many summer analysts as possible in order to avoid those dreadful college-recruiting visits. [Bankers Ball via DealBreaker]
  27. company town
    A New Bid for BarneysFASHION • Jones Apparel is entertaining an unsolicited $900 million bid for Barneys New York. The department store was promised to the government of Dubai last month for $825 million. [Reuters via NYT] • Cathy Horyn’s next grand feature will be on LVMH’s Sidney Toledano. [Fashion Week Daily] • Claudia Schiffer is Karl Lagerfeld’s muse in the new Dom Pérignon ads. [British Vogue]
  28. company town
    Scarborough Takes Imus’s SlotMEDIA • Joe Scarborough picks up Don Imus’s coveted MSNBC morning slot. [Radar] • The Dow Jones editorial-independence agreement with News Corp. stipulates that disputes will be aired on the Journal’s editorial page. [WSJ] • News Corp. bought two Bronx weeklies, expanding its weekly neighborhood newspaper holdings. But how well will Murdoch papers go over in Greenpoint and Williamsburg? [NYT]
  29. company town
    The Return of Imus?MEDIA • CBS Radio employees are hinting that Don Imus may be back in the fall. [NYP] • Former Intermix head Brad Greenspan, who once owned MySpace, has made his own bid for Dow Jones. [NYT] • Universal Music has canceled its contract with iTunes and will now sell music through Apple at will. [NYT]
  30. company town
    Capitalists Against Michael MooreFINANCE • Maria Bartiromo tried to interview Michael Moore on the floor of the NYSE, but the exchange barred the director from entering. [NYDN] • A scathing farewell e-mail from a young JP Morgan banker is probably a hoax. The supposed author says he didn’t write it and still has his job. [DealBreaker] • Bear Stearns’ CEO James Cayne is suffering from poor self-esteem following the near collapse of two hedge funds. [NYT]
  31. company town
    Liz Claiborne, 78FASHION • Sportswear pioneer Liz Claiborne died yesterday of abdominal cancer at age 78. [WWD] • VH1 plans a new reality series called America the Ugly in which normal people get berated by the Wilhelmina executive from The Agency. [Flypaper] • The new face of Versace is a 16-year-old boy. [French Vogue via Fashionista]
  32. company town
    Murdoch Waits on BancroftsMEDIA • Rupert Murdoch reaches a deal with Dow Jones and gives the Bancrofts three weeks to take it or leave it. [Reuters] • Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker’s Washington correspondent, defected for a top role at The Atlantic. [WWD] • Secret passageway from Sardi’s to the Times building no longer a secret, or useful. [NYO]
  33. company town
    Bedbugs Infest Cadwalader, Wickersham & TaftLAW • Bedbugs infest Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft’s New York office, but the person who “brought the insects into the firm … is no longer associated with the firm.” [Above the Law] • Wannabe law students are looking to blogs and independent rankings for information about prospective schools. [WSJ] • Two partners at Chadbourne & Parke are drafting a lawsuit to force the New York State Legislature to raise judicial pay. [New York Law Journal]
  34. company town
    Only Larry King Will Have ParisMEDIA • Larry King will get the Paris Hilton interview. No money changed hands, but neither will any significant questions. [TMZ via Mediabistro.com] • News Corp. and Dow Jones are close to terms for maintaining the Journal’s newsroom independence in the event of a takeover. [NYT] • Jason Binn will merge Niche Media (Gotham) with Greenspun Media Group (Vegas). New company has sixteen titles and expected revenues of over $300 million. [NYT]
  35. company town
    Hedge Funds Open to Petty CommonersFINANCE • Steve Schwarzman’s company may be public, but the Blackstone head retreated and declined to ring the opening bell at the NYSE this morning. [NYP] • The Supreme Court made it harder for investors to sue companies and executives for suspected fraud. [NYT] • The Wharton School hired a marketing guy as its next dean. Rich alums, hold on to your wallets. [DealBook/NYT]
  36. company town
    ‘Wall Street II: Business Boogaloo’FINANCE • Wall Street II screenwriter Stephen Schiff is doing field research among London bankers. [Alphaville/FT] • Investment bankers are on drugs, mental-health experts reveal. News flash, that. [Reuters via DealBreaker] • Lehman analyst Kelly Chin won the women’s race at the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge. The 799 other Lehman’s entrants were canned for underperforming. [JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge]
  37. company town
    Surprise! Big Money Causes Big ProblemsFINANCE • Hedge-fund divorces are drawn-out, acrimonious, multi-million-dollar affairs. Turns out money causes problems! [Financial Times via LAT via DealBreaker] • CNBC commentator Ron Insana has at least thirteen managers seeding his new fund-of-funds. [Deal Journal/WSJ] • Insider trading: It’s not just for greedy Americans anymore. [NYT]
  38. company town
    GE Wants In on the Dow Jones ActionMEDIA • GE and Pearson, the parents of NBC and the Financial Times, are considering a rival bid for Dow Jones. [NYT] • Quadrangle Group bought Dennis Publishing for $240 million and is courting editorial talent. [WWD] • Demand for ad space pushes Page Six up to three pages. [NYT]
  39. company town
    Charney’s Lawyers Toss Around Casual Nazi ReferencesLAW • One of Aaron Charney’s lawyers accuses Sullivan & Cromwell of having “adopted Dr. Mengele’s techniques to torture the facts and law of this case.” [Above the Law] • More than twenty lawyers filed an objection against the $125-apiece BAR/BRI settlement. [National Law Journal] • Summer associates at Pillsbury Winthrop practiced researching things in books this week. Next week: writing briefs by hand. [Law Blog/WSJ]
  40. photo op
    Brooklyn: Now With More Endangerment! In a waterfront ceremony in Dumbo today, Brooklyn’s industrial waterfront was named one of America’s eleven most endangered historic places by the National Trust for Historic Places. The designation doesn’t actually do anything to protect the endangered places, other than give them some press. Indeed: Construction continues all along the waterfront, endangering history by building Ikeas and knocking down sugar factories and all that. After the ceremony, the dignitaries went for a boat ride.
  41. company town
    The Hatfields and McCoys of East HamptonFINANCE • Squabbling neighbors Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates and Marc Spilker of Goldman Sachs are providing this summer’s drama in East Hampton. [Portfolio] • HBO is planning a new series about hedge-fund managers. Sounds more Entourage than Sopranos. [DealBreaker] • Australia leads in the world in paid time off, while the United States bests only Vietnam. [CNNMoney]
  42. company town
    When $160,000 Isn’t EnoughLAW • With the rest of the country matching the $160,000 mark, do New York’s first-years deserve another raise? [National Law Journal] • Some lucky law students win the lottery to take the New York Bar on a laptop. But most are stuck writing longhand. [Above the Law] • Disgusted Yale Law students have sued the director of AutoAdmit.com for unflattering message-board postings about them. [Law Blog/WSJ]
  43. company town
    You Know, For KidsMEDIA • Seventeen will introduce an online game for teen girls called “Editor’s Assistant.” Well-heeled parents not required for play. [WWD] • Daniel Menaker, the editor who signed Ben Kunkel and Gary Shteyngart, will step down as executive editor-in-chief at Random House. [NYT] • First they came for the book reviewers. Now it’s the classical music critics. [NYT]
  44. company town
    Shamed Analyst Sues Fox Over ‘Borat’FINANCE • A former JPMorgan analyst is suing Twentieth Century Fox for Borat-related “public ridicule, degradation, and humiliation.” [DealBreaker] • Wachtell, Lipton sent around a memo to clients explaining a tax loophole that makes CFO salaries over $1 million tax deductible. Thus was the first rule of the tax-loophole club broken. [DealBook/NYT] • In a study of hours worked in developed nations, the U.S. only ranks sixth. Somehow, we got beat by Australia and New Zealand. [CNNMoney]
  45. company town
    Another Buyer Interested in Dow JonesMEDIA • Brian Tierney, the ad executive who bought the Philadelphia Inquirer, is interested in bidding on Dow Jones. [DealBook/NYT] • Women’s Wear Daily is the latest paper to sell ads on its front page; the crass commercialism doesn’t seem to bother anyone these days. [NYT] • The Newspaper Guild of New York (representing Time, Fortune, Fortune Small Business, Money, People, and Sports Illustrated) accuses Time Inc. of bargaining in bad faith. [Romenesko]
  46. company town
    H&M: The GameFASHION • When shopping at H&M isn’t stimulating enough, play The Sims 2: H&M Fashion Runway. [Pro-G] • The Olsens do menswear. [Fashionista] • Ralph Lauren claims American fashion is just starting. [British Vogue]
  47. company town
    Wall Street Suffering Butler ShortageFINANCE • The Dutch-based International Butler Academy may open a New York training center to supply hedge-fund managers with personal valets. [NYP] • A Cerberus managing director admits the firm has a horrible name but says it’s too late to change it. [NYT] • Activist fund managers are known on the Street to be bullies. But who’s the meanest of them all? Vote now. [DealBreaker]
  48. company town
    If You’ve Been Injured by a Man With Tuberculosis …LAW • So the guy with the dangerous strain of tuberculosis (now quarantined in Colorado) is, naturally, a personal-injury lawyer. [Law Blog/WSJ] • An in-house lawyer at G.E. sued the company for gender discrimination but worries she won’t find many plaintiffs to join her in a class action. [NYT] • Though William Lerach was never indicted as part of the Millberg Weiss kickback case, he is considering leaving his own securities firm. [NYT]
  49. company town
    There’s Nothing Uglier Than New MoneyFINANCE • Which New York hedge fund makes its employees’ spouses sign “postnup” agreements to protect assets? [FT via MSNBC] • Losses at Goldman’s Global Alpha Fund mean smaller checks for employees. Will they leave the firm for a healthier, wealthier fund? [NYP] • Summer interns at Credit Suisse have an important role to play: standing in line at Shake Shack. [DealBreaker]
  50. company town
    At Reed Smith, the Summers Make More Than the StaffLAW • Reed Smith’s summer associates are currently making more than the firm’s first-years. The indecency of it all! [Above the Law] • Ann T. Pfau was named chief administrative judge of New York’s court system, the first woman to hold the post. [New York Law Journal] • In addition to pay raises, Big Law has to offer associates some new perks like 401(k) plans, bonuses, and concierge services to retain them. [National Law Journal]
  51. company town
    Private-Equity End-Time Is Near!FINANCE • The big private-equity guns are sounding warning shots of a bubble. Henry Kravis and David Rubenstein believe the good days are waning. [WSJ] • Despite the bullish market, Goldman Sachs initiated a “pause” in hiring. Is an industry-wide freeze likely to follow? [Breaking Views via DealBreaker] • Wall Street firms are having trouble keeping analysts because the work is boring and the pay better elsewhere. [NYS]
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