Goldman Sachs’s ‘Fabulous Fab’ Loses Bet He’s Sole ‘Survivor’ -background on Fabrice Pierre Tourre

[Mira]

LINK:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latest-news/goldman-sachss-fabulous-fab-loses-bet-hes-sole-survivor


April 16th, 2010 5:13 PM
Goldman Sachs’s ‘Fabulous Fab’ Loses Bet He’s Sole ‘Survivor’
By Yalman Onaran and Gavin Finch

April 16 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s “Fabulous Fab” saw himself as the “only potential survivor” when the housing market began to collapse in 2007. Instead he became the only person named today when regulators charged the firm with fraud.

Fabrice Pierre Tourre, the 31-year-old French trader accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of misleading investors in selling securities linked to mortgages, saw the wreckage coming early on.

“The whole building is about to collapse anytime now,” Tourre, an executive director at Goldman Sachs in London, wrote to a friend in a January 2007 e-mail, according to the SEC’s complaint. “Only potential survivor, the fabulous Fab... standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created without necessarily understanding all of the implications of those monstrosities!!!”

Tourre was a vice president on the structured product correlation trading desk in New York at Goldman Sachs’s headquarters when the SEC claims he packaged mortgage bonds he knew were toxic into securities he sold to unwitting clients.

Tourre, who joined Goldman Sachs in July 2001, according to his LinkedIn profile, was “principally responsible” for creating and marketing a collateralized debt obligation known as Abacus 2007-AC1, the SEC said.

According to the complaint, he knew hedge fund Paulson & Co. had played a “significant role” in selecting many of the securities used to create the CDOs and was betting against them. Tourre and Goldman didn’t tell Abacus investors about Paulson’s role, the SEC said. New York-based Paulson wasn’t accused of wrongdoing.

Tourre received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics at Ecole Centrale Paris, one of France’s top engineering schools, in 2000, according to his LinkedIn profile. He graduated the next year from Stanford University in California with a master’s degree in operations research.

Before college, Tourre studied three years at Lycee Marie Curie, a French high school, according to JournalduNet, a professional networking Web site. Tourre spent two years at Lycee Henri IV and Lycee Louis Le Grand, two prep schools known for getting students into France’s top universities.

Tourre’s registration with the U.K.’s Financial Services Authority began in November 2008.



--With assistance from Christine Harper in New York and Anne- Sylvaine Chassany in Paris. Editors: Steve Dickson, Linda Shen

[FarCenter]

1. The title of VP is pretty low at most big financial institutions

In another story, it was said that the only people getting window offices in the new Goldman Sachs headquaters were the 300 Partners. The Managing Directors in the next rank down get inside offices. There are probably EVPs and/or SVPs below MDs before you get to VPs.

31-year old "Fab" is way down the food chain.

[Doremus]

2. Precisely why he was chosen as scapegoat. That and because he's a ferriner. nt

[Mira]

3. I hope he has a chance to sing like a bird. n/t

[closeupready]

4. If they can successfully nail a scapegoat, they can help avoid re-regulation.

By saying, 'it wasn't lack of regulation; there was a boogeyman - see? We got the boogeyman, everything's fine now.'

Then they all go back to CDO's and CDS' and all the rest, just like before, making bundles of money.

[northernlights]

6. unless the SEC went after the baby rat with his wholelife ahead of him

with hopes that he saved incriminating documents that will help them get the fat rats who gave him is marching orders

probably just wishful thinking on my part...but one never knows...

[northernlights]

5. French, to boot

that'll play well with the freedom fries crowd.