Thank you all for coming in a little early this morning. I know yesterday was pretty bad and I wish I could say that today is gonna be less so, but that isn’t gonna be the case. Now I’m supposed to read this statement to you all here, but why don’t you just read it on your own time and I’ll just tell you what the fuck is going on here. I’ve been here all night… meeting with the Executive Committee. And the decision has been made to unwind a considerable position of the firm’s holdings in several key asset classes. The crux of it is… in the firms thinking, the party’s over as of this morning. There’s gonna be considerable turmoil in the Markets for the foreseeable future. And they believe it is better that this turmoil begin with us. As a result, the firm has decided to liquidate its majority position of fixed income MBS… today. These are your packets, you will see what accounts you’re responsible for, today. I’m sure it hasn’t taken you long to understand the implications of this sale, on your relationships with your counter parties and as a result… on your careers. I have expressed this reality to the Executive Committee, and they understand. As a result, if you achieve a 93% sale of your assets, you will receive a 1.4 million dollar one-off bonus. If the floor as a whole achieves a 93% sale, you will get an additional 1.3 million dollars apiece. For those of you who’ve never been through this before, this is what the beginning of a fire sale looks like. I cannot begin to tell you how important the first hour and half is gonna be. I want you to hit every bite you can find: dealers, brokers, clients, your mother if she’s buying. And… no swaps, it’s outgoing only, today. Obviously this is not going down the way that any of us would have hoped, but… the ground is shifting below our feet, and apparently, there’s no other way out.
That’s true. And if I had, at least there’d be some holes in the ground to show for it.
Well, they won’t exactly call it that. It’ll be a mercy killing, really. You don’t have to stand out here for me.
