A 'villain' of the financial crisis is trying to make a comeback, and Wall Street can hardly believe it
REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/FilesNext week, Dick Fuld will make his first public comments since the financial crisis at a conference in New York, and if you ask the average Wall Streeter, the fact that he's out and about is almost beyond belief.
"He's a villain," said one hedge fund professional. "For real, what a joke."
You'll recall that Fuld was the CEO of the now defunct financial firm, Lehman Brothers, when it went bankrupt in 2008.
Now his name is virtually synonymous with the hubris that preceded financial crisis and the chaotic years that followed.
That said, people have made comebacks on Wall Street before. Michael Milken, the storied founder of junk bond firm Drexel Burnham Lambert, ran afoul of the law 25 years ago and is now a philanthropist and thought-leader on The Street.
So the comebacks can happen. Business Insider spoke to a bunch of industry professionals to gather their sentiment on Fuld to see if he might pass muster, and maybe even find work on Wall Street again.
Here's what they said:
- "He's been on the street since the 1960s," said one longtime industry analyst, who added, "He can start some small hedge fund, managing friends' and family money… In terms of [working for] a major firm, those days are over."
- Another Wall Street source who worked with Fuld during the crisis said, in Fuld's opinion, he was the victim of faulty information from his lieutenants: "He feels he was mis-led, by a number of people."
- One longtime Wall Street analyst dismissed this out of hand, however: "It's his job to be able to assess the information coming in. Any suggestion that Lehman's failure' is on his lieutenants still leaves him open to the criticism he doesn't know how to manage."
- "John Thain is working again…" chuckled one Federal Reserve employee, who asked to not be identified. Thain, of course, is the ex-CEO of Merrill Lynch, who found work at CIT Group after Merrill's shotgun-merger with Bank of America during the financial crisis.
- "I didn't know that was possible after Lehman. It's almost as dumb as our friend Hank Greenberg making a come back," said another senior employee at a bulge bracket bank.
- "I think he should just sit down," said another hedge funder. "The market makes new high and the crooks start creeping up. Classic."
So that sounds like a resounding no.