Back in the 1800s on some obscure cricket field, when a bowler achieved the rare feat of taking three wickets with three consecutive deliveries, he was traditionally awarded a new hat from his club, or allowed to pass around his hat to collect money from spectators. Then in hockey (among other sports), the term became a big celebratory moment… literal hats rain down onto the ice from the crowd when a player scores three goals…
In 2011, while I was trying to launch a hedge fund that would have bought defaulted mortgages from the FHA at levels attractive for them and, we thought, very attractive for us. We had an enlightened plan to fix a lot of the broken mortgages that were the detritus of the subprime collapse. It seemed both noble and profitable and our story was compelling enough to attract $1.5 billion in capital from one of the…
Yesterday we arrived in London, direct from San Diego (I am still in awe of that direct connection) to a cold, but uncommonly sunny city. We chose to bypass the tube and splurge on a London Taxi ride since it was midday, mid-week and traffic was light and the weather pleasant. It was so easy at Heathrow that I wondered why JFK could not make the same accommodation for weary travelers? All I could think…
My friends who read these stories will all be waking up this morning of Thanksgiving and probably turning on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade spectacle with all the attendant celebrity hosts and various musical numbers from all the latest Broadway hits, performed in the cold and wet of the day on the street in front of Macy’s flagship store on Herald Square. They will be spending their morning preparing for whatever Thanksgiving dinner plans they…
We recently went to dinner with our good friends Terry & Paula, who are in the process of buying a house in San Clemente since they plan to relocate out this way, I think more or less permanently. They are a few years older than we are, but are very young-spirited and in apparently fine shape. We are very pleased that they are heading this way since we very much enjoy their company and they…
In 1985 I was running the largest merchant banking unit in my bank, something called the New York City Division. It was what all my peers aspired to do, but I found it sort of boring to be doing things like helping ITT do its next acquisition or helping Ron Perlman at Revlon reshape his juggernaut. I was asked to go up to talk to our Vice Chairman, who said the Management Committee wanted to…
We all have our quirks. One of my quirks has always been that when I order something, I rarely, if ever, return it. If it doesn’t fit, I stuff it in a lower drawer or just put it in the give-away bin. This is completely contrary to Kim’s way of life with regard to online shopping. The number of packages she gets is only slightly greater than the number of packages she returns. Our Amex…
My dear friend Frank is the guy who mentored me in the handling of private equity investment. He was a venture capitalist long before it was even known how cool it was to be a venture capitalist. Frank is a Marshall Scholar who attended the London School of Economics just when America was entering the 1960s. He did a stint in the Army like any good red-blooded American male did in those days, but luckily…
This morning I spoke to my friend Steve, who lives in Phoenix. He mentioned that he and his wife Maggie have bitten the bullet and rented an apartment to move to starting in two weeks. He talked about the move less about not wanting the rigors of a large sprawling house and garage, and more about this being an opportunity to finally get a grip on downsizing and cleansing. Steve is of Scandinavian heritage (and…
I am more focused on personal healthcare than I can remember ever being. One obvious reason is watching my brother-in-law struggle with his various maladies and the healthcare system’s back-and-forth about how best to handle it. I’ve seen the importance or specialist expertise in immediately fixing problems. I’ve seen specialists contradicting one another as to the state of their patient, perhaps overly focused on their specialty without adequate consideration of the bigger patient issue. I’ve…