Saturday, October 2, 2010

Citi Shutsdown Conference Call with Ireland's Finance Minister as Chaos Erupts

The respect for official BS has dropped to a new low. The UK's Telegraph explains:

The call with Brian Lenihan and hundreds of investors rapidly descended into farce, forcing Citigroup, which staged the event, to pull the plug.


The treatment of the minister, which comes as Ireland faces a standoff with a group of hedge funds over its rescue plan for Anglo Irish Bank, will increase tensions between the country and the debt markets.
Mr Lenihan had been speaking for less than two minutes on Friday before a mistake by Citigroup meant that the bank's clients were all able to be heard on the line.


Between 200 and 500 investors are understood to have been on the call, and as they realised their lines were not muted many began to heckle Mr Lenihan.

Some traders began making what one banker on the call described as "chimp sounds", while another cried out "dive, dive". A third man said "short Ireland" before adding "why not short Citi too?"

As the call descended into chaos, with one participant heard to say "this is the worst conference call ever", Citigroup officials shut down the line.

1 comment:

  1. Now that's F'in' funny. Maybe the audio will get leaked to P-Bay or Cryptome.

    ReplyDelete