Suits: Meltdown Didn?t Hurt His Golf Game

The near-meltdown of a hedge fund managed by Bear Stearns does not appear to have interrupted the golfing habits of its chief executive, James E. Cayne.

This week: The state of the stock market, the Kremlins plans for Norilsk Nickel, cash as an investment and I.P.O. envy.

In the summer, Mr. Cayne routinely hops a helicopter from Manhattan to the Hollywood Golf Club in Ocean Township, N.J., where his pilot has permission to land on the grounds. According to scores posted on an online golf database, he continued to do so through the weeks in June when his firm was struggling to keep one of its mortgage securities funds afloat.

On June 14, the day when Bear Stearns reported a 10 percent drop in its operating earnings for the second quarter, Mr. Cayne played a round and shot a 96, his scores on the online database, GHIN.com, indicate. The next day, a Friday, he played again.

On Thursday, June 21, as several big banks pressured Bear Stearns to increase the collateral on loans they had made to its sinking fund, Mr. Cayne was back on the course. That day, he shot a 98.

The next day, in the biggest rescue of a hedge fund in almost a decade, Bear Stearns pledged to put up $3.2 billion to bail out its fund. (It later said that $1.6 billion would suffice.) Then the remarkably consistent Mr. Cayne played golf, shooting a 97.

Elizabeth Ventura, a spokeswoman for the firm, explained that Mr. Cayne flies down after work on Thursdays and plays an evening round of golf. On Fridays, he plays a round and works from his New Jersey home, where he is in constant touch with the office, she said. PATRICK McGEEHAN

FAMILY TIES (AND CONTRACTS) A chief executive whose father is chairman and who also has an uncle and a cousin on the board might seem to have plenty of job security. But William P. Lauder also has an employment contract with the Estée Lauder Companies, and its a sweet one.

Under a new agreement signed in late June, Mr. Lauder, 46, will receive a salary of $1.5 million and a target bonus of $3 million, as well as stock options and the use of a car worth up to $75,000, for each of the next three years. After that, if the other directors of Estée Lauder decide not to keep Mr. Lauder on, he will collect his salary and benefits for two more years.

PATRICK McGEEHAN

THOSE YEARS ADD UP A federal judge last week sentenced four former senior executives of Enterasys Networks Inc., the corporate computer network maker, for their roles in a fraudulent scheme to inflate the companys revenue.

Federal District Judge Paul J. Barbadoro, in Concord, N.H., handed the longest sentence to a former chief financial officer, Robert J. Gagalis, who received 11 1/2 years in prison for his role in beefing up the companys 2001 revenue figures.

The company, which was bought last year by two private equity firms, lost $1 billion in value after federal investigators began looking into its financial records. The four executives were accused of backdating and falsifying documents to evade auditor scrutiny.

Also sentenced were a former finance executive, Bruce D. Kay, to 9 1/2 years; a former business development executive, Robert G. Barber, to eight years; and Hor Chong Boey, known as David, who was a finance executive at the companys Asia-Pacific division, to three years. ELIZABETH OLSON

HANGING ON AT COLGATE Reuben Mark stepped down as chief executive of Colgate-Palmolive on July 1 after 44 years at the company. But he has not gone off the payroll just yet.

Mr. Mark, 68, has a strong incentive to stay on as the chairman of Colgates board for 18 more months. He has not been collecting the annual fees paid to other directors, which average more than $200,000 a year. But at the end of 2008, he stands to collect a grant of restricted shares worth more than $10 million as long as he is still chairman.

That bonus would come on top of the $100 million in options he has not yet exercised and retirement pay of more than $40 million.

PATRICK McGEEHAN

Tag Cloud

External Information

Additional Information

Where Am I?