What’s a company to do when one of its top employees is accused of wild partying, excessive drug use and having sex with a client’s girlfriend? If you’re Jefferies, the investment bank, you fire back with a bold memo from the CEO. It was a good memo but a bad strategy.
As 2011 disappears in the rear-view mirror, here’s my list of noteworthy risk-takers over the past year. These are the people and institutions that took risks intelligently and won. The list of risk-bumblers – those who mishandled critical situations – is certainly longer (UBS, Olympus, Yahoo, MF Global, I could go on) but their woes […]
Embattled investment bank Jefferies reported stronger-than-expected earnings and a slimmed-down balance sheet, confounding critics and sending the firm’s shares on a surge. The news marks a victory for the firm’s management and vindicates its strategy of aggressive communication during a crisis, as the firm sought to dispel rumors about its trading exposure and liquidity. Of […]
Sure, the positive comments today from Meredith Whitney helped, but give Jefferies (NYSE: JEF) credit for handling its communications well in a very challenging environment. At one point the stock was down 20 percent as rumors swirled about the firm’s exposure to European sovereign debt and a downgrade by Egan-Jones. By day’s end, however, the […]