E-mail exchanges cited by the Securities and Exchange Commission in its fraud suit against Goldman Sachs and one of its vice presidents, Fabrice Tourre, include messages between Tourre and his girlfriend. The Washington Post obtained copies of some of the e-mails Friday.
In one Jan. 27, 2007, e-mail, Tourre suggests he knew he was creating risky securities that were likely to not succeed. "Not feeling too guilty about this, the real purpose of my job is to make capital markets more efficient . . . amazing how good I am in convincing myself!!!"
In March 7, 2007, e-mail, Tourre refers to Dan Sparks, head of Goldman's mortgage business: The "US subprime business situation is that it is not too brilliant. . . . According to Sparks, that business is totally dead, and the poor little subprime borrowers will not last so long!"
Just over a month later, Tourre sold an investment to clients who wanted to bet the housing market would continue to rise.
In a subsequent e-mail, Tourre wrote that he sold the investment "to widows and orphans that I ran into at the airport."
Read on.
More on Washington Post, here is Goldman Sachs' strategy:
An internal Goldman document, prepared for senior executives and obtained by The Washington Post, addresses the criticism that the bank invested its own money betting against the housing market while simultaneously urging its clients to invest in securities that would increase in value only if the housing market did.
Those concerns over possible double-dealing spiked a week ago as the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a fraud suit against Goldman, alleging that it misled its clients by selling them mortgage-related securities secretly designed to fail.
Goldman prepared the 11-page document to serve as the basis for testimony that chief executive Lloyd Blankfein is scheduled to deliver Tuesday before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
No comments:
Post a Comment