Up until 2009, Glen Stewart was the CEO of The International Banking Corp. The bank failed that year and while other chief executives might’ve spent a lot of timing moping around the house, wondering if they’d ever get a job in this industry again, Stewart probably remained in high-spirits, knowing that he had a fallback career in the movie-making biz, having produced ‘Lesbian Vampire Killers’ just a few months prior. Unfortunately, if there are plans to release the entire trilogy, they’ll have to be put on hold, as Stewart now must deal with the lawsuit filed against him last week by Ahmed Hamad Algosaibi & Bros, who claim the banker/auteur a) fraudulently obtained loans and b) was running a fake bank.

The lawsuit was filed by Ahmed Hamad Algosaibi & Bros, a firm run by a wealthy and influential Saudi family. It contends that Stewart ran what was essentially a ‘sham bank’ that collected more than $10billion in loans from financial institutions. ‘Mr Stewart knew that it had no real customers, having played a central role in fabricating and documenting a portfolio of dummy borrowers to make it appear TIBC had real banking business,’ and also falsely claimed that the prominent Algosaibi firm controlled the bank, according to the lawsuit. The company accuses Stewart of fraud, conspiracy, aiding and abetting fraud, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, and unjust enrichment. It seeks $9.2billion in damages.

TIBC actually was controlled by al-Sanea, but ‘the illusion of Algobaisi family backing was crucial to TIBC’s ability to borrow in the international financial markets,’ the suit contends.
The money was siphoned off to al-Sanea and his Saad group of companies while Stewart collected about $100million through various phony payments and commissions, the suit claims.

Stewart apparently is not sweating this thing, and told reporters that the Algobaisi family is “lying through its teeth.”

Saudi Firm Sues American Over Alleged $10 Billion Fraud [BusinessWeek]
Former Banker Sued For Fraud [DM]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Earlier this week, actress and icon Liz Taylor died of congestive heart failure. She had been sick for since 2006 and few on the outside probably could have predicted when she would go. Which is why some of you cynical assholes will surely feel the need to suggest that the auspicious timing of noted art collector Steve Cohen agreeing to put his painting of the actress, Liz#5 by Andy Warhol, on the auction block just two weeks before her passing would have to point to his having been tipped off. That’s because you’re all heartless individuals who just don’t get it.

What the timing more likely points to is Steve being one with Liz Taylor. A lifelong fan for years now, he probably just sensed that she was about to leave us. Knowing he couldn’t bear to have a constant reminder of his spirit animal in the house where he would have to see her every day, he knew it was time to let her go. He lit a few candles, called up his people and said “It’s time. I’m ready now.”

Liz Taylor Portrait To Go On The Block For $20 Million [WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

• Oscar-winning Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor dies of heart failure at 79 at Cedars-Sinai [KABC]
• L.A. is riddled with erotic massage parlors (15 across two miles on Eagle Rock Blvd!) where ladies will love you long time for the right price [LAT]
• Stop traffic: Corey Feldman’s studded leather jacket from Dream a Little Dream was stolen backstage at the House of Blues, please alert the authorities if you have any information [TMZ]
• This should be fun considering her track record over the last six months: Christina Aguilera has joined Twitter so follow her if you want to sit back and enjoy some exquisite disasters [PE]
• Get ready for another big storm or two heading this way this afternoon [KTLA]

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If there’s one thing Jim Cramer taught Lenny Dysktra, it’s the value of a good endorsement for a good pal. Several years back Cramer spoke highly of Nails’ investing skills, telling HBO that the former ballplayer didn’t just have a knack for money managing but that he was “one of the greats” in this business. In the ensuing years, Dykstra got thrown out of his house, caught defecating on the floor, had his private planes repossessed, lived in a car and was accused of bouncing a check to a stripper but now he’s doing great, possibly thanks to Jim. In an effort to pay it forward, Dykstra is doing the same for his best bud, Charlie Sheen. Nails told reporters over the weekend that Sheen is “perfect,” among other things.

Lenny Dykstra, who has weathered the storms of scandal himself over the years, but is quick to heap praise on his friend, insisted in an exclusive interview with RadarOnline.com that “Charlie is a rock star, he’s perfect, and he’s a f**king genius.”

Dykstra was a guest at Sheen’s major league baseball gathering at his million dollar mansion in Los Angeles last Friday. The Two And A Half Men star had an impressive guest list that included SF Giants pitcher Brian “The Beard” Wilson, Kenny Lofton, Todd Zeile, and Eddie Murray. The athletes all joined Sheen for a private screening of his classic baseball flick Major League.

“I went to his house for the party and it was great!” Dykstra told RadarOnline.com, going on to share that “Charlie is sober and is doing really good.”

In related news, Dykstra also told Radar that he and Chuck are hanging out again this week, when they go house hunting in Beverly Hills for Nails’ new pad.

Charlie Sheen Is A Rock Star [Radar via Deadspin

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Senator Chuck Schumer just appeared on CNBC to discuss the Deutsche Boerse and NYSE Euronext deal. His thoughts? He likes it, assuming the New York name comes first, otherwise he’s going to handcuff himself to Maria Bartiromo’s desk until it happens.

Please know that this isn’t just vanity on Chuck’s part- he has reasons, three of them in fact, for why he’s right on this. They are:

1. NYSE first will reflect New York’s place as the financial capital center of the world

2. It will be better for the company

3. We need to lay down the law with these Germans right now. They need to know when you come into our house, you play by our rules!

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Remember the financial crisis? U.K. bank regulators do and what’s most memorable to them is just how badly their firms fucked that shit up. RBS, seriously? SERIOUSLY? And the rest of you weren’t much better. It’s something that keeps the FSA up at night and to be honest, confidence in your abilities to respond to another serious “situation” has not been restored. In fact, if we’re being completely open, RBS, Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Banks, all you guys right now are like a stoner who nearly burnt down the house because you absentmindedly left the stove on when you tried to make pot brownies and then wandered out of the room to look out cloud formations. If that wasn’t bad enough, you didn’t smell the smoke or see the flames and it was your neighbor who had to call the fire department and carry you outside. There’s no way anyone’s comfortable leaving you home alone again for the foreseeable future and you have them so freaked out they’ve been forced to treat you like imbeciles and make you go through a bunch of mock scenarios to see if you’d know how to react.

U.K. bank regulators are launching a new type of “stress test” that forces banks to consider unlikely but potentially disastrous scenarios…The latest exercise, which the U.K.’s Financial Services Authority instructed banks to start conducting in mid-December, is dubbed a “reverse stress test.” It requires banks to identify potentially fatal events and then to work backward to find ways to revamp their businesses so they would be better prepared to withstand such shocks.

So far those scenarios include what to do in the event of: a Latin American coup that knocks out a bank’s local operations; a disrupted food supply sparks social chaos; a major trade war erupts between the US and China; volcanic ash cloud grounds UK air traffic for months; and a flu pandemic wipes out a bank’s workforce.

Not surprisingly, British banks have not appreciated being forced to do this shit, as they think it’s “overkill” and a “massive waste of time” and as though there’s a perception they’re stupid. One CEO described it as “risk planning gone mad.” But guess what? The government doesn’t give a damn! Because bailing out your asses means you play by the government’s rules (and if you weren’t a bank that was bailed out…sorry about all this). And if you thought the volcano and flu stuff was all you had to tackle, think again. They want even more scenarios dreamed up, from the “relatively mundane” financial fraud to the borderline absurd. Once it’s been demonstrated you know where the fire extinguisher is, you can be left alone.

So, let’s see some fast thinking- what do you do in the event:

* You discover your balance sheet is completely made up and that your CFO has been selecting random bar code numbers in place of the true horror story that will soon engulf this cesspool and consign it to the scrap heap of corporate history

* The Queen is coming and you’ve run out of tea

* The entire female population is knocked out and you have to figure out how to repopulate the earth

* You need to bake and deliver batches of cookies to every first year at Goldman Sachs but you don’t have any flour

For UK Banks, A Calamity Is Born [WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

This much they promise you.

Citing scheduling conflicts, Ms. Whitney has declined an invitation to appear before the panel of the House Oversight and Government Reform. But the subcommittee’s chairman, Representative Patrick T. McHenry, Republican of North Carolina, said that would not dissuade him from investigating her record.

“This isn’t a gotcha thing, but she’s going to be part of the hearing, whether or not she participates,” he said. “If she doesn’t want to come forward in a venue like this, that makes a statement.”

Meredith Whitney Prediction Draws Scrutiny [NYT]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

You know what’s so fucking hot right now? Tea. You know how we know that? Because the Post has deemed it so. And you know how they know that? Because people like legendary hedge fund manager Spencer Greenberg drink it. Greenberg, you may recall, is the 27 year-old co-founder of Rebellion Research, a firm that uses “artificial intelligence” to invest and manages under $7 million. His passion for leaves is cited today as evidence that this stuff that’s been around for thousands of years is finally now a ‘thing.’ Greenberg, pictured here with his stash and described as resembling Jake Gyllenhaal, we’re told, “is not your average tea enthusiast.”

An “average” tea enthusiast, one guesses, would be someone who just drank it when they were in the mood, maybe keeping a couple bags around the house. That’s child’s play for someone like Spencer. He keeps 40 kinds of tea on hand in his apartment in Union Square and serves tea “virtually every time” he has friends over, who order off a “detailed tea menu” that he created. Among Greenberg’s favorites? Jasmine green and rose black. “Sometimes you’ll smell a flower and you’ll wish you could have something taste like the flower smells,” he says.

Who will join Spence on this teabagging wagon?

Excitement Is Brewing Over An Ancient Drink, As Young Professionals Find A Brand New Bag [NYP]

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CNBC reports that Lenny Dykstra’s Sherwood mansion, which he bought from Wayne Gretzky in 2007 and was thrown out of 2008, has been sold to an unnamed buyer for an undisclosed amount (it was sold by Index Investors, the second lienholder, which bought the place out of foreclosure last fall). At this time we’d like to take a walk down memory lane, stopping to remember the high points of Lenny’s history with the manse, which will hopefully be preserved when whoever bought the place does the right thing and turns it into a Dykstra museum.

August 29, 2007: Dykstra buys the house from Wayne Gretzky. It includes 8 bedrooms, a guest house, a carriage house, views of the Sherwood Country Club and Lake Sherwood itself, a pool and a tennis court. Nails had always wanted that house; Gretzky, knowing this, told him “‘I’ll sell it to you for 23 mill.” Nails said “Have another drink, man. I’ll pay 17, no money down.” He ended up paying $18.5.

June 10, 2008: Having fallen on money troubles so serious that he was no longer able to fly private, LD tried selling the place. Figuring he could see a 33% return on a house he’d owned for ten months, which he was putting on the market in California at a time when things weren’t going too hot for real estate, Lenny asked for $24,950,000.

March 2009: With no one ponying up the cheddar for the place (despite Dykstra’s genius idea to throw in some extras to clinch the deal, the coup de grace of the package being LD’s “Discarded Dips Of Distinction,” a collection of chewing tobacco from the great moments in his illustrious career, tastefully encased in a white gold-flecked display case), private equity firm Index Investors, which granted Dykstra a $850,000 bridge loan the prior November, secured by the 8-bedroom manse, files foreclosure papers on Dykstra’s pad last month, as does Washington Mutual, on account of Nails defaulting on his $12 million mortgage.

July 9, 2009: Dykstra officially files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and his manse goes to the auction block. Despite the loss of his baby and financial issues, Nails remains in good spirits, telling reporters that Donald Trump has filed for bankruptcy 6 times and urging creditors to “bring it on, bros.”

In a fit of genius before leaving, LD decides to tear through the place with a bat and a pair of pliers, ripping up floors and doing god knows what with toilets, which resulted in the following crime scene report:

The palatial estate was pockmarked with torn up flooring, holes in walls, missing toilets, as inspectors have tried to determine the extent of the problem. (Dykstra is also demanding the insurance company make good on its policy to put him up in a temporary residence because he says the house is now unlivable. “I don’t mean to be crude,” he says, “but where do they expect me to go to the bathroom?”)

August 25, 2009: Dykstra tells CNBC he’s been living in his car.

January 15, 2010: LD vows he will not go down without a fight. Auctions off balls and phone-sex on Craiglist.

March 17, 2010: Dykstra sues JPMorgan for “predatory lending practices.”

March 30, 2010: Dykstra drops suit against JPMorgan.

August 6, 2010: “The attorney for the second lienholder says Dykstra has moved back into the mansion and won’t let brokers show the home. ”

October 6, 2010: Dykstra “plots financial comeback”

December 17, 2010: “I’m about one thing,” Lenny Dykstra tells Howard Eskin in minute one of a glorious interview on 610 AM Sports Talk in Philadelphia. “And that’s walking the talk.” The talking that Dykstra has been doing has centered around two things: 1) taking on what he describes as the “criminals” at JPMorgan, whose “predatory lending” practices caused him to be foreclosed on and 2) his big comeback. Both points are addressed in the chat. With regard to the former, he not only plans to take JPM to court, but he’s made it his mission to protect people like himself from these “crooks.” To that end, LD has started a “mortgage forensic research firm,” known as Predatory Lending Recovery, LLC, which despite not yet having any clients and only one testimonial, Len claims is a billion dollar business.

The takeaway here? The unnamed buyer must be a certain legendary investor now flush with cash, who does not bounce checks to prostitutes.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

For those of you wondering when America broke down, the headline refers to the new “Startup America” campaign launched by the White House to encourage high-growth entrepreneurship in the U.S. Multiple tech companies will contribute to the campaign but some of the biggest announcements come from IBM, Intel and Techstars.

IBM has announced that it will invest 150$ million in 2011 to fund programs that promote entrepreneurs and new business opportunities in the United States. Intel Capital will commit $200M of new investment to U.S. companies. Startup accelerator Techstars will launch national startup accelerator network which aims to create 25,000 new jobs by 2015.

Recent research concluded that new companies like high-tech startups create the greatest number of jobs so it’s not surprising that the White House wants to encourage startups.

IBM launched an extensive global entrepreneur program in 2010 providing startups with mentoring and access to IBM research, software and customers. This included the IBM smartcamp competition, won by the San Francisco-based Streetline. $150 million is what IBM will spend in total on the entrepreneur program in the U.S. this year.

I talked to Mike Riegel, VP of IBM ISV and Developer Relations about the program. He told me about some new additions to IBM’s entrepreneur program such as establishing centres of excellence on college campuses which produce employees with the skills startups need. IBM  is also launching a  Skills Tour that will visit 15 universities and bring together students, professors, venture capital and non-profit leaders to discuss the skills needed for leadership jobs in the 21st century. Three local smartcamp competitions are scheduled in the U.S. in 2011.

Startup accelerator and seed investor TechStars launched the Techstars network to connect independently owned and operated startup accelerator programs from dozens of cities across the United States, from Miami to Seattle and Nashville to New Orleans. The network aims to create 25,000 jobs by 2015 with the involvement of 5,000 experienced business leaders and investors as mentors to 6,000 entrepreneurs. Currently there are 16 TechStars Network member organizations across the United States and around the world.

TechStars previously announced an international expansion of its accelerator program from the  first location outside the US –  Copenhagen – to Madrid, London and Berlin in 2011.

Tags: startup, White House

Companies: IBM, Intel, streetline, techstars

Article courtesy of VentureBeat » deals