Intern Leaves Wall Street to Pursue Opportunities in the Porn Industry

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Jennings/Vain

Former Lazard Asset Intern, Paige A. Jennings/Veronica Vain

Brokerdealer.com update courtesy of the New York Post.

For many young people, internships are a gateway to a career in the industry they intern in. For one intern, the doors opened for opportunities outside of Wall Street with help from social media.

A female intern at a blue-chip financial firm won’t be pumping stocks any more after reportedly quitting her stuffy Wall Street gig to become a porn star.

Paige A. Jennings, who moonlights under the stage name Veronica Vain, dropped her internship at Lazard Asset Management last week after her nude selfies taken in the bathroom of the firm’s Manhattan offices were discovered online, according to Business Insider.

“I just left a job on Wall Street for a porn career because I can’t stop masturbating at work,” Jennings, 23, wrote on Twitter Wednesday.

Jennings had been a part-time intern in the company’s alternative-investments marketing group since last June, Business Insider said.

But after her co-workers discovered the nude bathroom photos posted on her Veronica Vain Twitter account, she soon decided to seek other employment.

“It was a little awkward,” Jennings told the website BroBible.com about meeting with her boss after the pics went public. “However, he obviously couldn’t have me coming back to the office when likely just about everyone had seen me half-naked

online.”

Jennings, a recent college grad, previously worked as a stripper but didn’t see it as “a viable career path.”

She also said she would like to start a venture-capital fund centered around the adult film industry.

Jennings — who did not return requests for comment — added that she would like to appear as a contestant on the new X-rated Internet reality show “The Sex Factor.”

The porn competition, set in Las Vegas, is scheduled to be hosted by Duke University porn star Belle Knox.

Sydney Leathers, who went into porn after being Anthony Weiner’s sexting pal, said Jennings’ career move could be a bad decision.

“I mean, she’s a babe, but realistically, porn is rarely a great choice for anyone,” Leathers told The Post. “I don’t regret it, but some people do.”

For the original article, click here.

 

Regulators Call For More Disclosure When It Comes to BrokerDealers’ Fees

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billshockmi-resize-600x338Brokerdealer.com update courtesy of JD Supra Business Advisor from 9 January.

In September, state securities regulators formed a working group aiming to make brokerdealers’ disclosures about their fees more clear, accessible, and useful to investors in comparing different firms’ charges. The group plans to finish its work by next fall, and will consider, for example, developing

  • a model fee disclosure form;
  • guidelines on accessibility, transparency, and uniform use of terminology; and
  • recommendations on how to notify customers of fee changes.

In addition to representatives of the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), the working group includes representatives of FINRA, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the Financial Services Institute, and several brokerdealer firms. NASAA President Andrea Seidt said “the working group will take into consideration … wirehouse firms, independent brokerdealers, clearing firms, and introducing firms, among others.”

Earlier this year, a NASAA report on its survey of 34 brokerdealer firms recommended the working group’s formation. The survey found a wide disparity of brokerdealer fee disclosure practices. However, that survey, and certain enforcement actions that preceded and partially motivated it, focused particularly on certain problematic fee disclosure practices. For example, some firms allegedly hid the true amount of their compensation for securities transactions by charging unreasonable markups for what they disclosed as “handling,” “postage,” “delivery of securities in certificated form,” or “miscellaneous.” The survey also focused particularly on fees firms charge for closing accounts or transferring account securities to another firm.

Against this background, the working group may focus primarily on disclosure issues regarding a limited number of specific fee types. Alternatively, the working group may seek a more comprehensive approach.

In any case, some of the practices addressed by NASAA’s survey and the working group may involve legal violations. Brokerdealers would be well advised to review their own practices with that in mind.

 

BrokerDealer Bonus Season a Bust?

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wall_street_bonus-gif-scaled-500Brokerdealer.com blog update courtesy of Kevin Dugan’s article from 9 January in the New York Post.

With record fines this year, brokerdealers are preparing to receive lower than average bonuses from their bosses.

Wall Street might have to settle for the second-best caviar this year.

After a year of record fines, sluggish trading and low interest rates, bankers hoping for richer payouts should prepare to be disappointed when bonus season gets underway next week.

By most estimates, the pool of money set aside for Wall Street workers is expected to be flat with the previous year, when the industry took home $16.7 billion, or an average of $164,530 per person.

Last year, big banks were slammed by billions in fines and penalties — Bank of America paid the largest fine ever for a single company, $16.7 billion — for offenses ranging from toxic mortgage securities to money laundering to tax evasion.

“The fines have come to roost,” said Michael Karp, CEO and co-founder of headhunting firm Options Group. “The bonus pool and compensation are the most vulnerable for banks to make up the shortfall.”

While the overall bonus pool is expected to be flat, there will be gains in some better-performing business areas. Investment bankers, private wealth managers and securitized product traders could see bonuses rise by more than 10 percent, according to a research report from Johnson Associates.

That will be offset by declines for credit and stock traders, the report said.

Layoffs across Wall Street should keep individual bonuses from sliding too much for those who still have a job, even for those working in areas with smaller bonus pools, Karp said.

Wall Street had shed 2,600 jobs through October of last year, according to New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

Morgan Stanley is set to be the first bank to announce bonuses, on Jan. 15, sources said. The bank is expected to have some of the biggest payouts because of its focus on wealth management, which has exploded as wealthier clients give banks more money to manage.

Citigroup and Goldman Sachs are expected to announce bonuses the following day. Citi’s traders will see their bonuses slashed by 5 percent to 10 percent after a weak year, said a person familiar with the company’s plans. That’s worse than earlier estimates that had the bonus pool level with the previous year.

Goldman’s investment bankers could see some of the fattest payouts this year, as the firm pulled in the most business during the busiest M&A year since the financial crisis, according to Bloomberg data.

JPMorgan Chase is expected to announce bonuses during the last week of January, while European-based banks typically tell their employees in February and March.

Morgan Stanley, Citi, and JPMorgan declined to comment. Goldman didn’t return a call seeking comment.

Private Equity Firms Now Face Up To Fee Schemes

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double dipBrokerdealer.com blog update courtesy of Mike Spector and Mark Maremont of the Wall Street Journal.

For years, Private Equity firms have doubled-dipped by receiving management fees from their institutional investors, and at the same time, have pocketed hundreds of millions of separate fees from the companies they have acquired on behalf of those same institutional investors. For the first time, these firms are being pressured by investors, and in some cases, federal regulators to stop the practice of double dipping or face further scrutiny.

The investment firms usually collect the fees from companies they buy for providing services such as consulting, serving as directors and helping them make their own acquisitions. Instead of keeping some of the money, the buyout firms, in new funds they are raising, will now pass the fees on in full to investors in the funds.

The payouts being reimbursed, known in the industry as transaction and monitoring fees, have provided many private-equity firms with a steady income stream augmenting their share of investment gains on deals, which remain the key source of profits from their buyout funds. Private-equity firms buy companies using a combination of cash raised from investors and borrowed money with the aim of improving the companies’ value and selling for a profit a few years down the line.

Buyout firms often receive transaction fees from a company after completing a takeover and for other deal activities, and monitoring fees for consulting and other work while holding the investment.

The turnabout by managers including Blackstone Group LP, KKR & Co. and TPG represents a significant concession in the face of persistent clamor for the private-equity industry to do a better job sharing and disclosing their fees.

The decision by private-equity firms to essentially reimburse investors with payments that can amount to tens of millions of dollars or more, sometimes on just one transaction, shows the increased influence wielded by investors such as public pension funds that historically accepted terms buyout firms proffered.

For Spector and Maremont’s entire Wall Street Journal article, click here.

BrokerDealers Help Mint Billionaires in 2014; Greed Is Good, Funding is Fun

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startup valuationsBrokerdealer.com blog update courtesy of extracts from 29 Dec edition of the Wall Street Journal, with reporting by Evelyn M. Rusli

As brokerdealers, investment bankers, institutional investors and entrepreneurs “close the books” on 2014, all will agree this has been a remarkable year in which “billion dollar valuations” have seemingly been the norm. Most notably, technological start-ups have enjoyed increasing valuations with each subsequent round of financing from private equity and venture capital firms, albeit many financial industry professionals are wondering whether those valuations can carry over when these private companies embark on initial public offerings (IPOs).

While “Wall Street” protagonist Gordon Gekko coined the phrase “Greed is Good!,” the Broker-Dealers mantra for 2014 was “Funding is Fun!”

Below please find highlights of the WSJ article.

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp. is now officially the world’s most valuable tech startup, worth $46 billion—the exclamation point on a year of extraordinary valuations. Continue reading →