"We need a merger partner or we’re not going to make it," Mr. Mack told Mr. Pandit...
Too bad Bush and Company were not able to 'privatize' Social Security a few years back. Wall Street could have ravaged the life savings of the nation for at least a few more years before the music stopped.
NY Times
As Fears Grow, Wall St. Titans See Shares Fall
By BEN WHITE and ERIC DASH
September 18, 2008
Even Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, the two last titans left standing on Wall Street, are no longer immune.
To the surprise of executives within those firms, and their rivals, the stocks of these powerful companies were drawn into the crisis of investor confidence on Wednesday. Morgan Stanley, whose stock fell almost 25 percent, was considering a merger with Wachovia or another bank to help shore up its finances. Goldman Sachs’s stock fell almost 14 percent, and it had to rebuff rumors that it was seeking a capital infusion.
The assault on these two companies underscored how quickly a sense of fear is spreading through Wall Street. Both firms just reported respectable profits on Tuesday, and were considered in a separate class from weaker banks like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers that saw the value of their businesses evaporate....
A tie-up with a bank would restore Morgan Stanley to its structure during the Depression, when the firm split from the Morgan banking empire. It would also leave Goldman Sachs as the last major American investment bank after a global financial crisis that has gripped markets for more than a year snowballed last week, forcing the most risk-taking industry in the world to get back to basics.
Only a day ago, Morgan Stanley defended itself from growing doubts about its future, issuing a fairly positive earnings report to ward off concerns about its health. But the fear that gripped markets after Lehman Brothers failed also enveloped the firm.
Seeking to avoid the kind fate that led Lehman and Bear Stearns to collapse, John J. Mack, Morgan Stanley’s chief executive, made an unsuccessful effort on Tuesday evening to persuade Citigroup’s chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, to enter into a combination, according to people briefed on the talks.
“We need a merger partner or we’re not going to make it,” Mr. Mack told Mr. Pandit, according to two people briefed on the talks. Mr. Pandit, a former senior investment banker at Morgan Stanley, said Citigroup was not interested. It is thinking of deals it can strike with consumer banks, like buying the struggling Washington Mutual out of bankruptcy if its reported efforts to auction itself should fail, that would provide it with cheaper deposit funding. A Citigroup spokeswoman declined to comment.
Having failed at that, Mr. Mack entered into discussions on Wednesday with Wachovia and several other banks, people briefed on those discussions said. The talks with Wachovia are preliminary and a deal may not emerge. The banks declined to comment.
Goldman Sachs may be under less pressure given its recent history of outperforming its peers. The bank made $11.6 billion last year and has not posted a loss during the credit crisis. Morgan Stanley has also performed well, but has suffered more write-downs and had a loss of $3.6 billion in the fourth quarter of last year.
Still, many specialists say they believe that the monumental events of the last four days herald a new period of painful change for the American financial industry — one that speculators are rushing to pounce on. While Wall Street has gone through tough times before, only to emerge bigger and stronger, some financial specialists question whether the industry can rebound quickly after using high levels of leverage, or borrowed money, to binge on risky investments. Those investments have proved to be disastrous. Worldwide, financial companies have reported more than $500 billion in charges and losses stemming from the credit crisis — a figure some specialists say could eventually exceed $1 trillion.
Merrill Lynch rushed into the arms of Bank of America this week in a deal that in some ways harked back to the past. During the Depression, Congress separated commercial banks, which take deposits and make loans, from investment banks, which underwrite and trade securities. The investment banks were allowed to do business with less oversight, while commercial banks operated with tighter supervision.
But after Congress repealed those Depression-era laws in 1999, commercial banks began muscling in on Wall Street’s turf. As the new competition whittled down profit margins, investment banks used more of their capital to trade securities and also began developing financial derivatives to fuel profits.
Now, executives like John A. Thain, the chief executive of Merrill and a former Goldman executive, say investment banks will need large bases of deposits to shore up their capital....
