Word: worldcom
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...Rudy Giuliani, hero of Sept. 11 and a former Mob-busting federal prosecutor, really taking his sterling reputation to--gulp!--WorldCom? The place is a disaster: home to at least $9 billion in accounting fraud, $120 billion in vaporized shareholder wealth and the largest bankruptcy in history. Giuliani is not being asked to run WorldCom (that falls to Michael Capellas, former No. 2 at Hewlett-Packard, who accepted the ceo job last week). But Giuliani has aligned with a group headed by bond investor David Matlin that is trying to seize control of WorldCom in bankruptcy court. Some bondholders want...
Giuliani, who has called WorldCom a big "challenge," apparently has not made up his mind about how involved he would be. But WorldCom is not the only troubled company he has his eye on. Sources tell TIME that Giuliani Partners, the ex-mayor's consulting firm, is mapping out a broader role as a consultant to scandal-tarred companies like Adelphia and Tyco. No clients have yet been signed, but a major one will be announced within weeks, a source says. Giuliani Partners is also helping global real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield vet for security problems. And it hopes...
...what benefit could "America's Mayor" get from helping rescue WorldCom? For a man with possible presidential aspirations, the move has advantages. It would allow him to stay in the spotlight and, if he helps turn the company around, be a hero again. Yet Giuliani may learn that messing with the debt of bankrupt companies is not necessarily a career-enhancing move. The distressed-debt market is a playground for vulture investors, a place to parlay others' misfortunes into personal wealth. How would that resonate with voters? --By Daniel Kadlec
Just a couple of years ago, Grubman's word was gold. His "buy" rating on a telecom stock would send investors rushing to own it. But when favorite Grubman stocks like Global Crossing, WorldCom and Winstar began to slide in 2000, so did Grubman's clout. He has come to embody everything that went wrong on Wall Street in the late '90s, as it blended investment advice with investment banking. That mix was long taboo, yet Grubman brazenly played both roles and once boasted that "what used to be a conflict is now a synergy...
...would often cock his arm and make ready to land a punch on your jaw, says a former classmate, Jacob Zamansky. Grubman's first job was in strategic planning at AT&T. He later became an analyst at PaineWebber but made his name at Salomon pounding the table for WorldCom in the mid-'90s, with the stock trading in the teens. As it rose to its high near $62 in 1999, so did Grubman's reputation, and his relationship with Ebbers got downright cozy--Grubman even attended Ebbers' wedding that year. "Grubman was solicitous, fawning, like a groupie," says...