The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 9 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
DLJ had zero ethical lapses while Credit Suisse failed despite massive compliance
“Credit Suisse had all kinds of ethical lapses. DLJ had none, but they had immense controllers and process and whatnot. DLJ was skeletal.”
Tony James: High ethical norms protect firms better than heavy compliance layers
“Putting more controls in doesn't necessarily protect you. That a lot of it, if you have good people, and you trust them, and you hold them to very high ethical standards, and that becomes the behavioral norm, That's much better than having lots of watchers and…”
Tony James: DLJ merchant banking wasted away under Credit Suisse
“Once it got put into a Swiss bank, they had all of the institutional issues and the lack of commitment to the principal business that all the other big firms had, so it kind of started to waste away”
DLJ extracted $400M in equity the day after the Household buyout
“I think it was the third biggest LBO ever called we bought the retailing subsidiaries from Household International. We ended up with Vons and Ben Franklin and TGI and Coast to Coast Hardware Stores, and we sliced and diced and sold them all, and we closed, and…”
Tony James: DLJ had $29B AUM when sold to Credit Suisse
“And that, and we built that business when we sold DOJ to Credit Suisse, it was about a twenty-nine billion dollar AUM business. Blackstone at the time was high teens”
DLJ risked 40% of firm equity per bridge loan in 2000
“Our success in, in, in high yield and private equity meant we'd running out of balance sheet. Our bridge fund was one billion dollars, and all of a sudden you were doing one billion dollar bridge loans, so you can do one deal at a time, and if one mistake and …”