Charles Peabody on "too interconnected, too big to be indicted"

"History shows, if you go back to boom-bust cycles, like the commercial real estate-cycle of the early 90's and Salomon Brothers was threatened with an indictment mostly because of their bond trading, there was no final indictment. Bankers Trust in the mid-90's was threatened with indictment because of their selling of unsuitable securities, no final indictment. And then Credit Suisse after the Tech Bubble, the same sort of thing. Individuals might be indicted, like Grubman[sp?] but it's very, very rare that a broker-dealer will, of this magnitude. So we may have here, a new phrase-- 'too interconnected, too big to be indicted.'"

~ Charles Peabody, Portales Partners, Bloomberg News, April 16th, 2010

Charles Peabody on valuing Goldman Sachs in spite of SEC allegations

Our rating currently is a 'Buy' rating for Goldman Sachs. [...] Let's say Goldman produces $5 of earnings on Tuesday when they report. That's maybe a mid-, hi-teen ROE, book value will be around 120, 1.5x book, which is what a mid-to-hi-teens ROE supports, would imply $180, $190 stock.

~ Charles Peabody, Portales Partners, Bloomberg News, April 16, 2010