government and mortgage bond trading markets. This action would have threatened the survival of the firm, then the largest participant in the U.S.
government bond auction rules resulted in a significant scandal during which regulators and some politicians called on the firm to be stripped of its Primary Dealer status. When this was discovered and brought to the attention of Gutfreund, he did not immediately suspend Mr. Paul Mozer, head of the Government Bond desk at Salomon Brothers, was submitting bids in excess of what was allowed by the Treasury rules. In early 1991, when Gutfreund was CEO of Salomon Brothers, a major scandal took place regarding the way Treasury bond trading was done by Salomon. Besides his executive office on the 43rd floor of 1 New York Plaza, Gutfreund frequently occupied a two-person desk at the head of the massive, double-decker 41st floor fixed income trading floor, known as 'the Room', where Gutfreund would regularly give advice to individual traders. In 1978, Billy Salomon named Gutfreund to succeed him as head of the firm, becoming the highest paid Wall Street executive at the time. He rose quickly through the company and became a full partner at the age of thirty four. Career Īfter several months, Gutfreund became a clerk in the municipal bond department, eventually becoming a trader. At Billy Salomon's invitation, the young Gutfreund joined Salomon Brothers as a trainee in the statistical department. His father belonged to the Century Country Club in Purchase, New York (which was at the time a center for the German Jewish establishment) where he often golfed with William (Billy) Salomon, the son of Percy Salomon, one of the three founding brothers of Salomon Brothers. He considered teaching literature but instead joined the Army. In 1951, Gutfreund graduated from Oberlin College in Ohio with a degree in English. His father, Manuel Gutfreund, was the owner of a prosperous trucking company. Gutfreund grew up in a Jewish family in Scarsdale, a suburb of New York City. In 1985, Business Week gave him the nickname "King of Wall Street". Gutfreund turned Salomon Brothers from a private partnership into a publicly traded corporation, which started a trend in Wall Street for investment companies to go public. He was the CEO of Salomon Brothers Inc, an investment bank that gained prominence in the 1980s. John Halle Gutfreund (14 September 1929 – 9 March 2016) was an American banker, businessman, and investor. Investment banker, businessman and investor
0 kommentar(er)
