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To: BDR who wrote (194912)	10/2/2002 9:31:17 PM
From: GuitarMan	Respond to of 436258

By Randall Smith Of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Prominent executives at 21 of America's best-known corporations received hot IPO shares from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), which pocketed lucrative investment-banking fees from those companies during the stock-market's extraordinary rise in the late 1990s, according to congressional investigators. Two executives of major Goldman clients - eBay Inc. (EBAY) Chief Executive Margaret Whitman and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) co-founder Jerry Yang-each received more than 100 initial public offerings of stock managed by Goldman since 1996, and quickly resold many of the shares at a profit. The IPO activity by Whitman is all the more significant since she is a Goldman director; eBay has paid Goldman investment-banking fees. Goldman also allocated hot IPOs to the personal brokerage accounts of three other eBay officials: director Robert C. Kagle, who received more than 25 IPOs including Kana Communications, where he made more than 10 times his money; co-founder Jeffrey S. Skoll, who got more than 75 IPOs; and founder Pierre M. Omidyar, who received more than 40 IPOs and sold some on the same day, according to data provided by the House Financial Services Committee. *WSJ: Goldman Calls Data 'Egregious Distortion Of Facts' The panel's focus on Goldman widens the scope of regulatory and congressional scrutiny of "spinning" - the allocation of IPOs to the personal accounts of top executives as an inducement to win investment banking business-beyond the initial focus on the Salomon Smith Barney unit of Citigroup Inc. (C) and the Credit Suisse First Boston unit of Credit Suisse Group (CSR). A Goldman spokesman called the data "an egregious distortion of the facts. The suggestion that Goldman Sachs was involved in spinning or other inappropriate practices around IPO allocations is simply wrong. Goldman Sachs is not a retail firm, all our individual investors are wealthy. We can find no unfairness or bias in favor of corporate officers or directors over other clients." Whitman's allocations weren't required to be disclosed in Goldman's proxy materials, he said. Goldman determined allocations by considering factors including "the size of the account and the kind of transactions going through the account," the spokesman added. He noted that clients had to put in orders to get IPOs, unlike programs at some other firms in which some investment-banking clients were automatically allocated IPO shares. Of the 22 Goldman-led IPOs doled out to executives, eight gained at least 173% on the first day of trading, the committee said. Some of the executives quickly "flipped," or sold the shares, on that first day. It isn't clear how much profit the executives made from their IPO activity. Executives who received IPO allocations and whose companies paid banking fees to Goldman included Edward Lenk, former CEO of eToys, who received more than 25 IPOs and whose company paid $5 million; Martin Peretz, former director of TheStreet.com Inc. (TSCM), who received more than 25 IPOs including 25,000 shares of Hanover Compressor Co. (HC) and whose company paid Goldman $2 million in fees; and iVillage Inc. (IVIL) co-founder Nancy Evans, who got more than 50 IPO allocations and whose company paid the firm $2 million.

To: BDR who wrote (194912)	10/2/2002 10:06:59 PM
From: patron_anejo_por_favor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 436258

Gee, wasn't SENATOR Jon Corzine (Demorat, New Joisey) CEO of Goldman Sucks at the time? Might be time for a special prosecutor....while there at it, maybe Meg and Martha can share a cell! (NOTE: A tasteless remark about strap-on dildoes is probably in order here, but I'm above all that!<VBG>) Two executives of major Goldman clients -- eBay Inc. Chief Executive Margaret Whitman and Yahoo Inc. co-founder Jerry Yang -- each received shares in more than 100 initial public offerings of stock managed by Goldman since 1996, and quickly resold many of the shares at a profit.