A Blunt Assessment
In a New York Observer profile of Eliot Spitzer, his friend Lloyd Constantine gave a candid assessment of the New York attorney general and gubernatorial hopeful.
"He's very smart, but he's very simple," Mr. Constantine, who is best known in financial services circles as the lead attorney for the merchants in the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. class action that MasterCard International and Visa U.S.A. Inc. settled in 2003, said in the weekly newspaper's Feb. 6 issue. "There's a kind of tedium and boredom about him."
According to the profile, Mr. Spitzer lacks the polish and charisma of rival politicians and embraces his privileged upbringing rather than presenting himself as a man of the people.
According to Mr. Constantine, a major influence on the attorney general's persona - or lack thereof - is his father, Bernard Spitzer, a self-made multimillionaire real estate developer, whom Mr. Constantine called "an old-fashioned New York intellectual gentleman."
The would-be governor has said he would probably be in real estate if he had not entered politics.
A spokesman at Mr. Constantine's office confirmed his comments. Mr. Spitzer's office did not return a call seeking comment.
I'm Here Till Thursday
Mike Mayo insists that he can take a joke.
But the Prudential Equity Group LLC analyst wants to set the record straight over a "rounding" error that he says Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s CEO, made at his expense in some off-the-cuff remarks to investors last week.
Mr. Mayo wrote in a research note issued late Wednesday that Mr. Dimon may have misled investors by oversimplifying the analyst's research record on companies that Mr. Dimon has led over the years.
Speaking at a Citigroup Inc. investor conference Jan. 31 in New York, Mr. Dimon seemed enthused by Mr. Mayo's upgrade of JPMorgan Chase's stock that morning to "overweight," from "market weight."
"Someone gave me an analyst report by Mike Mayo, who I believe has had both Chase and Morgan and Banc One on his sell list for probably 10 or 15 years, and this morning he put us on his buy list," Mr. Dimon said.
"So I called him up. I said, 'You know what, first of all, I would like to prove you right, but you have been wrong for so long, I hope it is a good omen that you have us on your buy list.' " the CEO added, to laughter.
Mr. Mayo did not mention any phone call with Mr. Dimon in his note. However, he did write, "As speakers often do, the CEO opened his remarks with a joke … at my expense. Sell-side analysts who can't take a joke don't survive very long."
While most good jokes need "rounding of the facts to make a point," some people "unfamiliar with his humor" might not have recognized that that was what Mr. Dimon was doing, the analyst wrote.
For the record, Mr. Mayo, who was known for his fearless use of "sell" ratings when bearishness on financial stocks was relatively uncommon on Wall Street, had a "sell" rating on Bank One Corp.'s stock from May 1999 to January 2004. (Mr. Dimon became Bank One's CEO in 2000.)
The analyst put a "buy" rating on the shares when JPMorgan Chase announced its deal to buy Bank One in January 2004. That rating lasted until May 2004. The deal closed in July of that year.
Mr. Mayo also had "sell" ratings or the equivalent on JPMorgan Chase at various times, both before and after the Bank One deal, but in his note he pointed out that he also had "buy" ratings or the equivalent on the stock.
A JPMorgan Chase spokesman said Thursday, "Jamie Dimon has a great deal of respect for Mike Mayo and welcomes his opinion."
Torch Bearer
Richard Carrion, the chairman of Popular Inc., has long been a champion for the Olympics, and last week got to carry the torch for this month's Winter Games in Turin, Italy.
Mr. Carrion led Puerto Rico's bid to host the 2004 Summer Games, which were held instead in Athens. He is now an executive member of the International Olympic Committee's board and the chairman of its finance commission.
To honor his involvement with the Olympics, he was chosen to carry the torch for 500 meters (about 550 yards) on Feb. 4 between the Italian towns of Pinerolo and Perosa Argentina. The torch is making its way from Athens to Turin for the opening ceremony today.
Others who have carried the torch this year include Giorgio Armani, the Italian singer Claudio Baglioni, the Formula One drivers Jean Alesi and Jarno Trulli, and many locals nominated for their embodiment of Olympic values.
