Anyone work for Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley or other financial?

[ZKaudio]

one of my best friends up here is worth 9 figs... has absolutely NO knowledge of investment or even smart spending for that matter... when u have that much money, the best people come to YOU.

 

[Lumberg]

Selling a business to be a stockbroker? Personally I would never do that.

you echo my sentiments.

 

[Lumberg]

I work at Lehman Bros in Manhattan

don't blow us away with the answers to his questions bro.

Anyways I worked at Goldman Sachs a while back, they are really into the honesty thing, they like all companies have a Chinese Wall between the borkerage and IB branches and they are sticklers about it.

It's a dog-eat-dog world, if you are genuinely interested in the field do it but once you learn the basics it's not all that interesting. It't all about who you know and positioning yourself, that's not what I'm about. I'm more about substance.

 

[collegiateLifter]

Anyways I worked at Goldman Sachs a while back, they are really into the honesty thing, they like all companies have a Chinese Wall between the borkerage and IB branches and they are sticklers about it.

the motto in investment banking is 'can i get this deal done.'

Goldman Sachs used to not have conflicts of interests with its customers but as mentioned due to reforms in the 80s, it does now. In a dog eat dog world, conflicts of interest mostly lead to dishonesty.

 

[Mandinka2]

Mandinka - would be interested to see how many people we might know in common. I am friendly with some people invovled with re-insurance, though it's not their primary business.

As for private equity investors, many of the people I am affiliated with are invovled with much bigger numbers - does your $20M figure refer to the contribution by the capital source(s)?

I'll PM you in the not too distant future.

Hi Matt , sorry for gettin back so late to you - i have been in reinsurance since late 2002 and the actuarial world is quite a closed environment.
Yes the $20m. figure refers to the contribution by the capital sources - over 20 investors that's a maximum of $400m. which would be more than sufficient for most development capital/restructuring based funds , and probably far in excess of most venture capital fund requirements.
Like hedge funds there are general capacity limits with full draw downs on commitments never taking place.

 

[tia373]

It is a buisiness that takes no prisoners. Exposes every element of yourself ..... Think of the movie the Gladiator.

I am a seasoned day trader....

If you do it. Dont let anyone see your emotions. You will get eaten alive. But if you figure it out.... the rewards are tremendous to every part of your life. .... I am talking specifically of working with other peoples money... not daytrading.- oh and day trading--- is not gambling......

 

[MattTheSkywalker]

I

Matt....if you read this. You have been out of the Army for three years or so. Making $650,000/yr, how can you be worth $20,000,000? Perhaps I misread something.

I'm not in the $20M range, and a lot of what I do have is equity that is hard to value now (private firms). Maybe when it is sold I can reach some of those numbers.

I have some friends who work in the private equity field (if you;re not familiar with it, think of longer term, bigger dollar venture capital) and I was interested in Mandinka2's take on it.

 

[Mandinka2]

I'm not in the $20M range, and a lot of what I do have is equity that is hard to value now (private firms). Maybe when it is sold I can reach some of those numbers.

I have some friends who work in the private equity field (if you;re not familiar with it, think of longer term, bigger dollar venture capital) and I was interested in Mandinka2's take on it.

My honest take on it is this : only get in unless you have a long standing relationship with those who are working the fund. There are spectacular losses to be made there - but because these funds are sunk they are never reported in the statistics behind private equity fund performance - survivorship bias.
Despite this for a high tax bracket individual such as yourself there are very limited reporting regulations and so it often generates decent net returns despite not doing so on a gross basis over a diversified portfolio.
Additionally there are other biases since the underlying securities are not traded - it's all high risk highly volatile stuff with a huge degree of confidence in the fund mamgers required. Additionally I think the marketing managers receive outrageous commission levels for the amount of work involved (.... another nice little earner for OMGWTFBBQ).
the survivorship levels can vary from around 10% on seed capital to 80+% on development capital.

 

[collegiateLifter]

I'm not in the $20M range, and a lot of what I do have is equity that is hard to value now (private firms). Maybe when it is sold I can reach some of those numbers.

I have some friends who work in the private equity field (if you;re not familiar with it, think of longer term, bigger dollar venture capital) and I was interested in Mandinka2's take on it.

come on now matt. What are you doing with equity that you can't value? Gambling?

 

[Mandinka2]

come on now matt. What are you doing with equity that you can't value? Gambling?

That is the definition of private equity - no exit route via the second market. If you are firmly in control of the investment or if you have VERY sound reason to trust the peolpe to whom you delegate that control and believe that they can generate value then these sort of investments can pay off like no other besides flat out gambles (e.g. derivatives or global hedge funds).