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WALL STREET

s.b.f.

Play It Again, Sam

Two recently filed amicus briefs on behalf of S.B.F. may prove to be his best hope yet of reducing his sentence. At the very least, they offer a fascinating revisionist history of this chapter of the FTX saga.
William D. Cohan • September 25, 2024
William D. Cohan • September 22, 2024
Orszag’s Faustian Bargain
Peter Orszag
Young Wall Street associates aren’t operating in a theater of war, so why can’t the industry actually do a little more to prevent their existences from becoming a total living hell—without the pat talking points?
William D. Cohan • September 18, 2024
Wall Street’s M&A Paradox
Jerome Powell
Today, the Fed cut interest rates by 50 basis points. Meanwhile, the economy is thriving, and the stock and bond markets are rallying. So why is deal volume down 30 percent from last year? And why is the I.P.O market so lackluster? A revealing conversation with a top banker in the C-suite.
s.b.f sam bankman-fried
William D. Cohan • September 15, 2024
Inside S.B.F.’s Legal Bunker
Notes on Sam Bankman-Fried’s fiery 102-page appeal, his demand for a new trial, and why he argues that everyone—well, at least Judge Lewis Kaplan, FTX’s attorneys, and the media—was out to convict him from the start.
Carl Icahn
William D. Cohan • September 11, 2024
Pop Icahn
Now 88 years old, Carl Icahn has seen his personal fortune dwindle by some $20 billion in recent years. Has he lost his edge, or is something else afoot inside his holding company? Anyway, we chatted about it.
donald trump
William D. Cohan • September 8, 2024
The Ineptitude of Trumponomics
Yes, Trump’s insane, rambling, nonsensical dissembling at the Economic Club of New York was the latest evidence of his declining acuity. But it was also yet another example of his terrible understanding of simple business concepts.
aig joseph cassano Martin Sullivan robert lewis
William D. Cohan • September 4, 2024
A $500 Million Comp War Morality Tale
A cohort of former AIG Financial Products executives—the same guys who helped precipitate the 2008 financial collapse—have come to collect the hundreds of millions they claim they’re owed. Only on Wall Street…
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has surpassed a $1 trillion dollar market valuation.
William D. Cohan • September 1, 2024
Buffett’s Four-Comma Club
News and notes from the Wall Street hype machine as Berkshire Hathaway hits $1 trillion, Sam Altman’s OpenAI trades at 33x (!) revenue, and Two Sigma continues to flirt with disaster.
Edgar Bronfman Jr. was gearing up to make a rival bid for Paramount.
William D. Cohan • August 28, 2024
The Invisible Bronfman
News and notes on Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s brief, absurd, and embarrassing attempt to acquire Paramount Global. “He got a lot [of investment] quickly, but not the last mile needed for certainty,” one deal participant told me.
Edgar Bronfman jr.
William D. Cohan • August 25, 2024
Bronfman, Ellison & The Battle of the PowerPoints
The latest strategic considerations regarding Edgar Bronfman Jr.’s 13th-hour bid for Paramount, how the special committee is adjudicating the rival offers, and why David Ellison’s Skydance will almost certainly come out on top.
gas station
William D. Cohan • August 21, 2024
The Electric Slide & A Tesla Fallacy
Our third annual check-in with energy guru Dan Yergin about how the U.S. ended up with an oil and gas surplus, an electricity deficit, and what can make up the difference.
david zaslav
William D. Cohan • August 14, 2024
Jekyll & Zaz
Interrogating the bull case—or at least the view that things aren’t as totally awful as they seem—for David Zaslav and Warner Bros. Discovery.
Rufus Gifford
William D. Cohan • August 7, 2024
Katzenberg’s Batman
My candid chat with Rufus Gifford, son of the legendary banker, and now Jeffrey Katzenberg’s partner in shaking the money tree and “creating connectivity” between the donor world and the Harris-Walz campaign.
charles phillips
William D. Cohan • August 4, 2024
Charles in Charge
Charles Phillips, the former Morgan banker and Oracle co-president and Shari whisperer, is one of Kamala Harris’s oldest allies from the finance and tech world. We chatted about her evolution as a candidate, a fundraiser, and more.
larry culp
William D. Cohan • July 31, 2024
There’s Something About Larry
For years, GE provided executives with a juicy dowry in retirement, bestowed at the sole discretion of the C.E.O. Then Larry Culp came along and started tinkering with the formula, spinning off the liabilities as he broke up Jack Welch’s empire. Now Culp is backtracking, but the damage has been done. “You can hear [Jack] screaming,” said one person involved in the litigation. “The company has changed culturally, and not for the better.”
bill ackman
William D. Cohan • July 29, 2024
Ackman of the People
News and notes on the bizarre and bewildering saga of Pershing Square USA’s long journey to the public market.
bill ackman
William D. Cohan • July 24, 2024
The Ackman Cometh
Bill Ackman’s forthcoming publicly traded closed-end fund appears to offer retail investors the chance to ride along with the investment strategies of the guy who believes he is the heir to Warren Buffett. Is this a play for permanent capital or something more ephemeral?
David Zaslav
William D. Cohan • July 21, 2024
Zaz’s Everything-on-the-Table Era
On the heels of the now-infamous BofA note suggesting that WBD needs to buy or sell assets to survive, and Zaz’s own misguided political commentary at the Lodge in Sun Valley, it’s increasingly clear that both the markets and Zaz know that his company needs a shake-up. But what to do in an environment so inhospitable to M&A?