July 16, 2012

Just wonderful - Goldman Sachs

Cheery little story about a couple who got screwed out of their life's work. From the New York Times:
Goldman Sachs and the $580 Million Black Hole
The business deal from hell began to crumble even before the Champagne corks were popped.

The deal, the $580 million sale of a highflying technology company, Dragon Systems, had just been approved by its board and congratulations were being exchanged. But even then, at that moment of celebration, there was a sense that something was amiss.

The chief executive of Dragon had received a congratulatory bottle from the investment bankers representing the acquiring company, a Belgian competitor called Lernout & Hauspie. But he hadn’t heard from Dragon’s own bankers at Goldman Sachs.

“I still have not received anything from Goldman,” the executive wrote in an e-mail to the other bank. “Do they know something I should know?”

More than a decade later, that question is still reverberating in a brutal legal battle between Goldman and the founders of Dragon Systems — along with a host of other questions that go to the heart of how financial giants like Goldman operate and what exactly they owe their clients.
Read the story for a pure "Red Curtain of Blood" moment. Posted by DaveH at July 16, 2012 9:48 PM