Goldman Sachs  said Thursday that its fourth-quarter earnings will take a roughly $1.5 billion hit as it has reached a nearly $5.1 billion settlement agreement in principle related to its “securitization, underwriting and sale of residential mortgage-backed securities (MBS) from 2005 to 2007.”

The bank said in a Thursday release that its agreement in principle will resolve actual and potential claims from the Department of Justice, the New York and Illinois Attorneys General, the National Credit Union Administration and the Federal Home Loan Banks of Chicago and Seattle.

The terms of the agreement say that Goldman will pay a $2.385 billion penalty, make $875 million in cash payments and provide $1.8 billion in consumer relief. The bank said that the relief will be partly composed of principal forgiveness for underwater homeowners and distressed borrowers.

Goldman will also contribute to construction financing, affordable housing, and debt restructuring support.

Shares of the Squid traded slightly negative in after-hours action.

The agreement in principle is still subject to final negotiation of the documentation, the bank said.

To read more, please visit MarketsMuse.com

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(r) Mischler Fixed Income Trader Glen Capelo (c) Duke University Coach K” Krzyzewski (r) Mischler CEO Dean Chamberlain

Oct 5 2015–Stamford, CT and Newport Beach CA–Mischler Financial Group, Inc., the financial industry’s oldest and largest institutional brokerage and investment bank owned and operated by Service-Disabled Veterans is pleased to have served as a Silver Sponsor for the 2015 Army Ranger Lead The Way Fund Gala. Silver Sponsors contributed a minimum of $25,000; proceeds to Lead The Way are dedicated to support service-disabled US Army Rangers and the families of Rangers who have died, have been injured or currently serving in harm’s way around the world.

This year’s annual gala took place September 30 at New York’s Chelsea Piers and NBC News Anchor Tom Brokaw served as Master of Ceremonies. The 2015 Lead The Way event paid tribute to 5-time NCAA champion and college basketball legend Mike “Coach K” Krzyzewski, a US Military Academy at West Point Graduate (USMA ’69) and a former classmate of Mischler’s Founder and Chairman Walt Mischler. Coach K served two tours of duty prior to his career as a world famous university basketball coach.

Mischler Financial’s VP of Capital Markets Robert MacLean (USMA ’02), who served seven years as a US Army Ranger and is a two-time recipient of the Bronze Star, served as a member of this year’s Lead The Way Fund Host Committee. MacLean shared that honor with a short list of military veterans who have since forged a path on Wall Street at firms that include among others, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, UBS, Credit Suisse, Barclays, and Fortress Investment Group.

After Coach K retired as a Captain in the US Army, he then served five years as Head Coach for the USMA before accepting the role of Head Basketball Coach for Duke University’s Blue Devils in 1980. During the past 35 years, Coach K has not only led his team to five NCAA champions, he has dedicated the past nearly four decades to contributing his thought leadership to an assortment of national and local philanthropic initiatives.

Stated Mischler Financial Group CEO Dean Chamberlain, also an alumnus of the USMA (’85) who served two tours of duty prior to injuries sustained in the line of duty, “In addition to personal contributions on the part of our firm’s leaders, Mischler provides year-round support to a select group of military veteran and SDV-focused philanthropies and we are particularly honored and proud to continue our ongoing support of Lead The Way, one of the most impactful organizations dedicated to providing assistance to military veterans and their families.”

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Wall Street bankers and broker-dealers are notorious for climbing over walls to win over whales in advance of the ultimate monetization event. In the case of Uber, the biggest Unicorn of them all, with a private market valuation of more than $50billion, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and other major investment banks have launched a pre-IPO lobbying campaign by banning the ubiquitous line-up of black car services esconsed outside  their palatial Wall Street homes, and instead, they are offering their brokers special compensation to embrace the use of Uber so as to win over the senior executives who will decide on this decade’s potentially biggest initial public offering mandate for investment bankers.

In a July 10  NYT story by Nathaniel Popper, which has been re-purposed by tens of dozens of media outlets, we give credit where credit is due and share the following excerpt from Popper’s column:

“..The latest reminder came this week when JPMorgan Chase announced that it would reimburse all of its employees for rides taken with Uber — offering access to “Uber’s expanding presence and seamless experience,” the company said in a news release.

JPMorgan made its decision long after other parts of corporate America were already hailing cars through the California start-up. But banks have recently shown a fondness for the service — with Goldman making the company part of its official travel policy in late May and Morgan Stanley putting out its own news release about its Uber use late last year.

Bank experts were quick to note that these moves come as the banks are jockeying to win a coveted spot managing Uber’s initial public offering — one that is not yet scheduled but that is assumed to be coming in the not-too-distant future. The I.P.O. for Uber, whose fund-raising so far has pegged its valuation at $50 billion, will most likely be the blockbuster I.P.O. in whatever year it takes place.

BrokerDealer.com provides a comprehensive global database of broker-dealers located in more than 30 countries across the free world.

A spokeswoman for JPMorgan said that the Uber news release this week had nothing to do with an I.P.O. and was instead part of the bank’s broader business relationship with the company. It does, though, fit squarely within a hallowed tradition of banks going to sometimes amusing lengths to secure a prized initial offering and the significant fees and reputational lift that it can provide.

“On the margin, sometimes the little incremental thing will make the difference,” said Lise Buyer, who advises start-ups looking at initial offerings. “Anything that a bank can do on the margin to improve their odds will probably be useful.”

The softer side of the sales pitch has taken on many forms over the years. When Amazon.com was going public, Ms. Buyer said that banks presented their pitch books to the company in the form of bound books, to celebrate Amazon’s book-selling roots. Other bankers have made humorous videos about the company they were proposing to bring to the stock market.

One of the most storied practitioners of the hard and soft sell of potential clients was the JPMorgan banker Jimmy Lee, who died unexpectedly last month.

Mr. Lee placed a G.M. car in the lobby of JPMorgan’s headquarters on Park Avenue when General Motors executives came in to consider whether to use the bank for the carmaker’s return to the public markets after the financial crisis. (JPMorgan participated.)

A few years later, Mr. Lee was in a custom-made Facebook hoodie — a sharp departure from his normal pinstripe suit — when Mark Zuckerberg visited JPMorgan before his company’s initial offering. (The bank took part in that one, too.)

These sorts of efforts have a well-grounded logic for the companies shopping for a bank. A banker taking a company public has to sell the shares of the company to investors — and thus needs to show an understanding of what the company does.

For the full story at the NY Times, click here

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1. Goldman Sachs wants private wealth management and fund management professionals

2. Sachs wants technology professionals in Warsaw

3. Sachs wants derivatives clearing professionals in London and Warsaw

4. J.P. Morgan wants ‘client rationalization’ professionals in London

5. Morgan wants associates for its London investment banking team in London

Looking for a brokerdealer to submit your resume to?

Access the world’s largest database of broker-dealers Click Here.

6. J.P. Morgan wants someone to join a new team working on ‘VaR methodology’ in London

7.  Morgan Stanley wants a cyber intelligence analyst in Glasgow

8. Stanley wants over the counter collateral analysts in Glasgow

9. Morgan Stanley wants top university graduates for glorified data monitoring and presentation roles

If you’re interested in getting into contact with one of these broker dealers, click here. BrokerDealer.com provides a global database of broker-dealers registered in the US as well as those performing brokerdealer services in upwards of 30 major countries throughout the world. -

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Soon, Goldman will offer loans online to both consumers and to small businesses as it looks to tap into a marketplace worth nearly $850 billion. The new unit will offer the loans through a website or an app — functioning like a virtual bank in one of the oldest companies on Wall Street. Without the costs of bank branches and tellers, Goldman can lend the money at lower interest rates while still making a profit. The company hopes to be ready to make its first loans next year.

It’s a big change for Goldman’s business model — before, the only people who could obtain a loan from the bank were its high-net-worth clients.

Goldman can establish a consumer lending business now because it converted from being an investment bank into a bank holding company during the financial crisis.  It also allowed Goldman the opportunity to interact more directly with consumers.

Goldman Sachs did not comment when asked about their business plan explored by this New York Times’ story. 

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BrokerDealer.com blog update is courtesy of coverage from MarketsMuse.com Tech Talk and profiles the latest from Symphony, the brokerdealer-backed financial communications program that is looking to make the Bloomberg terminals (or at least their most-used messaging application) mute.

This David v. Goliath type battle pitting well-backed upstarts against the ubiquitous Bloomberg LP could become a trend among other aspiring fintech, trading system and specialty financial data providers and terminals  when considering last week’s snafu that, for a few hours, rendered the Bloomberg LP terminal farm “tradus interruptus” across the globe (albeit, the fix was made prior to the opening bell of US markets.)

As spotted first by of all places, the NY Post, “Tom Glocer, former CEO of Thomson Reuters and a managing partner of Angelic Ventures, is joining Symphony’s board of directors, according to a person directly familiar with the company’s plans (according to the NY Post).”

Symphony, which received a $66 million investment last year from 15 financial companies has been seen as a viable alternative to the $24,000-a-year Bloomberg terminal.

The company’s backers include a who’s who of Wall Street financial companies: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNY Mellon, BlackRock, Citadel, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Jefferies, JPMorgan, Maverick, Morgan Stanley, Nomura and Wells Fargo.

Last fall, these companies contributed $66M to finance Symphony, and using that money, purchased Perzo, a company that was building a secure communications platform. After the purchase, they named Perzo founder David Gurle as Symphony CEO.

In addition to providing encrypted chat services, Symphony doesn’t store any communications as a third party, and allows a bank’s compliance officers to stop chats from leaving the company — an increasingly important factor for banks who are seeing chat records in court papers.

The addition of Glocer is only the latest of alum of the news and financial data company to join Symphony.

David Gurle, Symphony’s founder and CEO, was global head of collaborative services at Thomson Reuters, and worked on the company’s chat tool, according to the company’s Web site.

In addition to Gurle, there’s Eran Barak, Symphony’s global head of business operations, and Koray Oztekin and Ann Demirtjis, who do product management, according to the company’s Web site.
At least four other Symphony employees in business development have formerly worked at Thomson Reuters, according to LinkedIn.

Symphony is already in wide use at Goldman Sachs, which led the round of funding last year. The service is expected to be broadly rolled out to Wall Street by July.

The post BrokerDealer-Backed Symphony Is Singing Happy Tune appeared first on BrokerDealer Blog.

Two former top executives with institutional brokerage Direct Access Partners, a firm that shut down in December of 2013 after its clearing firm, Goldman Sachs, stopped clearing its trades, have opted to plead guilty for indiscretions regarding its bond trading business.

DAP’s former chief executive, Benito Chinea, and former managing director, Joseph Demeneses, each pleaded guilty one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA and the Travel Act in connection with a scheme to bribe an official at a Venezuelan development bank, Banco de Desarollo Economico y Social de Venezuela (BANDES), in exchange for the official’s directing BANDES’ trading business to DAP.

Chinea, of Manalapan, New Jersey, and Joseph DeMeneses, of Fairfield, Connecticut, were each sentenced to four years in prison. They were also ordered to pay $3,636,432 and $2,670,612 in forfeiture, respectively, which amounts represent their earnings from the bribery scheme.

“These Wall Street executives orchestrated a massive bribery scheme with a corrupt official in Venezuela to illegally secure tens of millions of dollars in business for their firm,” Assistant Attorney General Caldwell said in a media statement. “The convictions and prison sentences of the CEO and Managing Director of a sophisticated Wall Street broker-dealer demonstrate that the Department of Justice will hold individuals accountable for violations of the FCPA and will pursue executives no matter where they are on the corporate ladder.”

Three other DAP employees and the BANDES official pleaded guilty last year for their participation in the bond trading matter.

DAP itself filed for bankruptcy.

New York-based Direct Access Partners started out in 2002 as a New York Stock Exchange floor brokerage and grew rapidly over the years in both equities and fixed income. Sources tell Traders the firm has 130 employees.

To read the entire article from Traders Magazine, click here.

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How twee.

You occasionally read about banks’ pitches to take hot companies public, and they are often cringe-worthy: Bankers wore band t-shirts to pitch Pandora, and UBS dressed “around 75 of its employees in Lululemon gear and had them descend upon Central Park for a ‘flash mob’ yoga session” to pitch Lululemon for some reason. What do you think Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Allen & Company did to win the Etsy initial public offering? Did they hand-write the pitchbooks in fountain pen? Crochet them? Or just produce them normally in PowerPoint on their computers, but they were wooden computers? Did everyone else know about this?

The company was founded by Rob Kalin, a carpenter making handmade wooden computers with nowhere to sell them.

So obviously the Internet beckoned. Anyway, Etsy filed its preliminary prospectus yesterday, without a lot of capitalization numbers; Bloomberg reports that it’s seeking to sell about $300 million of stock, while DealBook estimates its pre-money valuation at about $322 million, so, that’s kind of weird. Use of proceeds is “general corporate purposes,” as one does, plus putting $300,000 — 10 basis points of the deal? — into the company’s Etsy.org nonprofit. But unlike a bunch of the internetty companies that I make fun of for going public for no particular reason other than cashing out insiders, Etsy is growing, had a $15.2 million net loss last year, and could probably use the money. (It’s also cashing out some insiders obviously.) The filing also emphasizes “authenticity” and includes this graphic explaining why Etsy works:

To continue reading Matt Levine’s article from Bloomberg View, please click here

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Ever since it became apparent that bankers were using chat rooms and instant messaging for things other than business-like communication with clients and conversations about their weekends, banks have been clamping down. J.P. Morgan, Citi and Goldman Sachs were all said to make instant messaging services out of bounds to some of their traders in the wake of the LIBOR and FX fixing scandals. In turn, banks have been seeking to develop new, compliant, heavily-monitored, systems of their own.

Among these is Symphony, a ‘a cloud-based, compliant platform for instant communication and content sharing ‘ developed by a consortium of financial services firms led by Goldman Sachs. Developed from the instant messaging and chat provider Perzo, which Goldman bought into last year, Symphony is an instant messaging platform that provides regulators with, ‘an unaltered, auditable and retrievable record of all information flows with demonstrable, proven controls and surveillance.’ Based upon open-source customizable code, the product is due to become available across the market this year.

For a full directory of global brokerdealers who may be embracing this new platform from Goldman Sachs, please click here.

In the meantime. this is what a Symphony spokeswoman told us about the company and its plans.

To continue reading the full story from eFinancialCareers. please click here

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