The Green-Eyed Monster
One of my high-school classmates is, quite likely, a billionaire. Or perhaps a multi-millionaire. Once your air becomes rarefied, I’m pretty certain the matter becomes a distinction without much of a difference. Suffice it to say, he has got more zeros in his net worth (on the most worthwhile side of the significant digit at least) than I do. You see, Gerald Beeson is the chief financial officer of a $12 billion hedge-fund responsible for a good daily percentage of trading traffic on the NYSE and Tokyo stock exchanges.
I came across this information in a rather roundabout way, when I was monitoring a stock I hold, E-Trade, which is a company I invested in as a rebound / bottom-feeder investment. Personal disclosure: I have come to realize my shortcomings as a stockpicker. Cum Laude Finance B.A. in hand — with an analyst stint under my belt at a bulge-bracket investment bank natch! — my capacity to pick ‘em should only be matched with the phrase “for just how far they can fall,” but I digress. Any semblance to a good investment idea, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.
Now in E-Trade’s most recent double-digit slide (huzzah!) I saw a mention of an outside hedge-fund, Citadel Investment Group making a $1.2 billion capital infusion into the company. This infusion came about as a result of the present MBO sub-prime meltdown; financial institutions must maintain a certain amount of retained capital for liquidity’s sake. The name Citadel sounded familiar to me, when I realized I saw that company’s name in the Marist High School alumni book. A little google-stalking and bingo — $$$-aire alumni.
I haven’t kept up much with my friends from Marist, a situation complicated by geography, the general inertia of adult life, and partially owing to the fact that I am dead to the school. And I don’t mean that in a figurative “Screw him, he’s dead to me!” way — the Marist rolls literally list me among the deceased student body. (I have no idea why this is the case but I hope I went out in an over the top John Woo Hollywood-esque extravaganza with pyrotechnics, extreme GunFu and the cliched, gratuitous slo-mo dove flyby.) This of course means that a school’s worth of bored, eyes glazed over high schoolers has been praying for my immortal purgatory-toasted soul for about a decade; a vision which fills me with a Tom Sawyer like glee. That being the case I should also add that mere death is not enough to keep Marist from sending capital campaign requests to my door. The Lord does indeed work in the most mysterious of ways.
I do remember Gerry pretty well from high school. He was, and I’m sure still is, a really great guy: a quick smile, very easy going; someone you’d want to be around. I drove him to school a few times in my baby-poop green car back while I lived with my grandmother, we talked about my cousin who went to St. Gall grade school with Gerry, chatted in the hallway about general high school stuff.
I also remember the last (and sadly, only) time I met up with some of the Marist guys (Erik Kantz, Chris Fusco, Kevin Patula, Jon Harmoning, Maury McNulty and Gerry) which was at a very real memorial for our friend Mark Mucha. We were all sitting in a golf course clubhouse drinking a pint of beer, where we raised a pint to Mark’s memory and to a lesser extent my surprise resurrection. Great guys all.
But I’m still not a $$$-aire.