VIP Football Pool
Jets? Steelers?
Either way, James E. Rohr, chairman and chief executive of Pittsburgh's PNC Financial Services Group Inc., will get a good dinner out of his wager on Sunday's playoff game.
"I just made my bet with Fink and Kapito yesterday," Rohr told analysts Thursday during a break from the more business-minded portions of the company's fourth-quarter conference call. ("Fink" and "Kapito," of course, are Larry Fink and Rob Kapito, respectively the chief executive and president at BlackRock Inc., the fund manager in which PNC holds a 20% stake.)
"Those guys are tough negotiators," Rohr said. "If the Jets win, I have to fly to New York and buy both of those guys dinner. If the Steelers win, I still have to fly to New York because they won't eat dinner in Pittsburgh."
So win or lose, Rohr gets to dine in the Big Apple. As for BlackRock, well, we don't know if there are any pension plans for chefs in southwestern Pennsylvania, but if there are, they probably won't be giving business to BlackRock anytime soon.
Collateral Damage
Given the nasty headlines that mortgage servicers' failings have racked up for months, it was to be expected that the Mortgage Bankers Association's "Mortgage Servicing for the 21st Century" conference would be disrupted by protesters.
The surprise, however, is they weren't protesting servicing. After rushing the doors of the JW Marriott Washington D.C. conference center, scores of men and women wearing union insignia and hard hats began chanting "Where are the jobs?"
The protest, it turns out, was directed at PulteGroup Inc., a major builder that took government stimulus money and then allegedly failed to spend it on new construction. (The reason the protesters targeted the MBA was because Pulte Mortgage LLC CEO Debra Still is the head of the MBA's council tasked with rethinking servicing policies.)
After 10 minutes of milling around and leading bullhorn chants, the protesters filed out, at which point MBA President and CEO John Courson apologized for the disruption.
"We know there's a lot of pain," he said. "It's unfortunate that it's expressed in an incorrect way."
Or, at the very least, in an incorrect place: The same day as the MBA's conference, the National Association of Home Builders was holding its own conference — in Orlando.
D.C. A-Listers
The state dinner honoring Chinese President Hu Jintao this week wasn't lacking in star power. Along with the standard Beltway luminaries, such as former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, its guest list featured Jackie Chan, Barbra Streisand and Vera Wang. But how about bankers? Attendance was limited, but a few made it in. JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon attended, as did Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein and John Thornton, chairman of HSBC North America Holdings Inc.
Deloitte Moves
Bob Contri has been made leader of the banking and securities sector practice at Deloitte LLP, succeeding Jim Reichbach, who will continue to lead the overall financial services industry group and take on an expanded role with select clients.
Contri, who has spent more than 20 years at Deloitte, most recently was in charge of coordinating the global financial services consulting practice across 30 countries. Previously he led the banking and securities practice in the Northeast region of the United States, responsible for the client portfolio in New York and nearby markets.
Deloitte Vice Chairman Bill Freda called Contri "a driving force behind many of our most important banking relationships." Contri will set strategy for his group and is spearheading his firm's effort to help clients respond to the various implications of the Dodd-Frank Act.
Deloitte also made several other hires for its banking and securities practice, across various subsidiaries of the firm. Sabeth Siddique, who previously led the credit risk department for the Federal Reserve Board, was named a director of Deloitte & Touche LLP to help lead Deloitte's credit risk management group; Frank Strong, a former partner at Shearman & Sterling LLP, will co-lead Deloitte's financial instruments group as a principal of Deloitte Tax LLP; and Omer Sohail, formerly with Accenture, will lead Deloitte's banking analytics and information management team as a director with Deloitte Consulting LLP.
