The Wine Store Appreciates Your Business                Every two weeks we make the run to our local wine and spirits shop.  We load up on vodka, gin, vermouth, reds and whites.  When the lockdown began, we were relieved to hear that the wine store was considered an essential service.  It’s a mental health thing, we were told.  Anyway, we call in the order, give our credit card number and schedule a pick u...

            Like many New Yorkers, I’ve been in self-quarantine with part of my extended family (wife, son, pregnant daughter-in-law, two grandchildren and adult daughter) for almost five weeks.  We are at our house on Long Island where we work in our makeshift offices, cook, clean and babysit.  No outsiders are allowed in the residence; we make trips to the farm stand, grocery and wine store twice a week, swathed in facemasks and ...

        * Sources:  New York Times and  https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov/views/NYS-COVID19-Tracker/NYSDOHCOVID-19Tracker-Map?%3Aembed=yes&%3Atoolbar=no&%3Atabs=n ...

Felix Rohatyn died yesterday at age 91.  “Felix the Fixer,” head of the Municipal Assistance Corporation (financial savior of New York City), first among equals at the legendary Lazard Freres, trusted consigliere to corporate and political titans, deal maker extraordinaire, pre-eminent investment banker of his generation.  Felix, as he was known on the Street, is little known or remembered by the current crop of bankers.  But in his day, he was the man.  His passing is a book...

We mourn the passing of our former partner Ray Minella, a great banker and a true friend.  Merrill Lynch & Co., envious of the profits Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. was extracting from the 1980s junk-bond boom, assigned Ray Minella to grab a bigger slice of that action. He did, but then lost his role at Merrill when junk-bond prices plunged in 1990. Led by Michael Milken, Drexel built up a vast market for high-yield, high-risk bonds starting in the late 1970s. They fueled a frenzy i...