Finance Matters

Archive for December 22nd, 2009

How many times can it be said — 2009 was a bad econonmic one for lawyers.

But that is not why Cravath named zero partners this year.

“We want to make partners even in bad economic times. But this year, no one met our standards,” said an unnamed senior partner to the Am Law Daily.

Though he did not say it as directly, Cravath’s deputy presiding partner, Allen Parker, said more or less the same thing.

“For our firm, whether to make someone a partner is a thirty-year decision,” he said. “We never let the decision be influenced by short-term economic considerations.”

The unnamed partner provided a little more info — less than a handful of the 80 associates that started with the now partnership-eligible Class of 2002 are still at the firm. No associates left expected to be seriously considered for parnter Am Law said.

Making parnter at Cravath has always been a long shot; in the past two years only six total were elevated.

The economy could of course be partly be to blame, but the fact is that given the option to say they were just being conservative in a down year or telling the world they did not have any partnership-elible associates that could make the cut, Cravath chose the former.

The environment at Cravath is notoriously tough — only the strong survive.  That was certainly proven today.

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See Also:

• Cravath Partner Speaks "Texan"
• Susman Godfrey: 7 Up For Partner, 7 New Partners
• Hey, Ladies! Four Of Five New Sullivan & Cromwell Partners Are Women

Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful “deal” so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen.

China’s strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world’s poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was “the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility”, said Christian Aid. “Rich countries have bullied developing nations,” fumed Friends of the Earth International.

All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday’s Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying “no”, over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as “a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries”.

Read the whole story at The Guardian — >

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See Also:

• Copenhagen Was A Total Failure And It’s Barack Obama’s Fault
• Carbon Offset Futures Tank After Copenhagen Fiasco
• Copenhagen Ends With A Deal That Won’t Do Jack

Nicholas Carlson, Senior Editor, The Business Insider

The Story Behind Google And Yelp:

• What happened in the Google-Yelp negotiations?
• “Google is determined not to have deals negotiated through the press”
• The deal for Yelp: $550 million plus earnout
• Did Yelp just shoot itself in the foot?
• The deal is not officially dead

Produced By: Kamelia Angelova & William Wei

More Video: TBI Calendar Click HERE >

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• Sorry Yelp, "Google Is Determined Not To Have Deals Negotiated Through The Press"
• Yelp’s Hardball Negotiations Hurt Google’s Feelings
• Investors Push Yelp To IPO

Japanese video game developer Capcom has reduced its profits forecast for FY 2009 by ¥6.5 billion ($70 million), the company reported today.

The revision is based on the company’s decision to move back the release of several of its most promising upcoming titles until after April 1st, when Japanese fiscal year 2010 begins.

The company says the games are being delayed to avoid competition with an unusually strong field in the next three months. Big ticket games coming out in the coming quarter include Take-Two’s BioShock 2, Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy XII, and Electronic Arts’s Dante’s Inferno.

The delay of major releases such as Lost Planet 2 and Super Street Fighter IV wipes out $300 million of projected revenue for the year. The company expects to lose another $50 million restructuring its struggling pachinko business.

Analysts have widely projected a huge start for video game sales in 2010. While Capcom’s move will take away from total industry sales for the quarter, it is a tangible sign of just how strong the lineup of new games is expected to be.

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See Also:

• ‘Call Of Duty’ Is Still Killing It
• Video Games Set To Bounce Back In 2010
• The Wii Has Already Won This Generation’s Console War

(This guest post originally appeared on Gawker.com.)

Workers at Goldman Sachs‘ buildings across New York and New Jersey are grumbling about a conspiracy. A conspiracy by the company to squeeze profit even from its own staff.

According to a mole, Goldman apparently stocks the cheapest, worst generic coffee imaginable in its staff kitchens – despite protests from the caffeine-deficient. “It’s beyond horrible,” explained our source. “You work a lot of hours so you have to go down to the cafeteria and spend money on Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts.” There is talk within the ranks that this is a ploy to boost cafeteria takings, as any imprecations to improve the standard of free coffee fall on deaf ears.

This could, of course, be a complete accident. Or Lloyd Blankfein himself might be overseeing a monetizing of employee caffeine addiction. In either case — if even your own employees are accusing you of being a petty, money-sucking greedmachine, it might be time to change something.

UPDATE (9.30am): From h_bee in the comments: “This is the same firm that (at least at one point) refused to buy colored file folders, only plain manila. “We don’t do color.”

If you have any tales of petty cheapness by Goldman Sachs send them here, or to me below.

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• Wall Street’s Christmas Displays: Graded From F To A
• RBS Budgeted Their Christmas Party To $16 Per Person
• Hey Smith Barney, Here’s How Your Shanghai Colleagues Like To Party