The Bluto Defense
Remember the scene in Animal House where John Belushi smashes the guitar of the guy pretentiously singing some nonsense to coeds on the stairs of the frat house? After obliterating the instrument, Belushi pauses, shrugs, then says "Sorry."
I thought of that scene when I was reading this article about the hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC, which lost about $6 billion of its investors' money in the past couple of weeks. The story says that the head of Amaranth had a 15-minute conference call with investors, apparently adhering to the theory that when your fund is down 65 percent on the year, you don't want to spend a lot of time in meetings. Here's the best part:
I thought of that scene when I was reading this article about the hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC, which lost about $6 billion of its investors' money in the past couple of weeks. The story says that the head of Amaranth had a 15-minute conference call with investors, apparently adhering to the theory that when your fund is down 65 percent on the year, you don't want to spend a lot of time in meetings. Here's the best part:
"They were apologetic," said Brian White, chief executive officer of the San Diego County Employees Retirement Association, who listened in on the call. "They said they want to make money for their investors, and this was not the outcome they were looking for."I'm sure that everyone on the call -- like the guy on the stairs -- felt better after hearing that.
posted by FCB at 3:37 PM
1 Comments:
And they should have said instead: sorry that you were so stupid to put too much of your money into an incredibly risky investment that you knew almost nothing about on the promise that we are so much smarter or luckier than you? That would have been the truth. Would that make folks feel better?
-- A friend in Philly
Post a Comment
<< Home