The Devil's Casino_ Friendship, Betrayal - Vicky Ward [17]
"
She recalls that during one LCPI Christmas dinner in the late 1980s, "Chris was
recapping the year's growth and success, and he looked around the room and said, 'Now
look at this! Every single person here is with their original spouse. That is why we are
successful: because our word is our honor. We succeed in business because people can
trust us.'"
He was seen as messianic, says Kim Sullivan, a secretary on the sales side. "I can
remember when I first started working on the trading floor, and he brought me out one
day--it was like my second day--and said, ' You' re going to see a lot of things go on here.
You 're going to see a lot of people make lots and lots of money. Just remember one
thing. One day you' ll be there, too. But remember how you started in your career. And
don't ever lose sight of who you are and where you came from. Because that is easy to do
when we all make lots of money.' "
Sullivan recalls the day she found a trader in hysterical tears. "His daughter had been
brought to the emergency room in Long Island, and the hospital used the wrong aspirator
for her, and the poor thing went into a convulsion, and went into a coma. He had just
been notified that he had used up all his health insurance. He was new to Wall Street; he
had not made any money yet."
"I told him, ' You've got to go talk to Chris.' And he said, 'I don't know Chris.' I said,
'Well, you' re going to know him in about five minutes.'"
Sullivan quickly briefed Pettit on the situation and recalls that he said, "Sure, I know
him." "Chris knew everybody's name on the trading floor. He was amazing! And he
brought this guy into his office. They talked for about a half an hour, and when the guy
came out, he was all smiles. Chris had given him a bridge loan so he could get a house in
New Jersey, so the child could be moved to a better hospital facility. The house was like
a block away from the hospital, and Pettit made sure that Lehman took care of
everything. There was no limit on our health coverage, because we were a self-insured
company.
"The guy said to me, 'Wow, this is really an incredible place! They actually care about
you!' "
Pettit's ethos so infused and inspired LCPI that a corporate video about the firm's history
referred to the period before his arrival as a chaotic, unenlightened time: "B.C.--Before
Chris."
Chapter 4
The "Take-Under"
The biggest and most fundamental change on Wall Street in
my career has been the migration of private and public ownership
to a place where private partnerships and publicly owned
firms determine their own capital, and where, to quote Vikram
Pandit, "the traders play with the house's money."
--Joseph R. Perella, chairman and CEO, Perella Weinberg Partners
Peregrine "Perry" Moncreiffe, the younger son of Sir Rupert Iain Kay Moncreiffe of that
Ilk, 11th Baronet, joined Lehman's fixed income division in 1982. A tall, Scottish
aristocrat (and Oxford rower), Moncreiffe was an affable, affluent anomaly on the New
York trading floor. But he was also smart, extremely low -key, and charming.
He had been attracted to Lehman because of Lew Glucksman's lack of pretension, which
he considered a blast of fresh air in the stuffy confines of Wall Street. "I thought, ' This is
the first guy I like because he's a no-nonsense trader,'" says Moncreiffe. "There were no
airs and graces with Lew, but he was so intelligent--like an old Russian general. He was
always there working in his shirtsleeves, his tie loosened and collar open. When I first
had lunch with him, we talked about Marx, and I thought, ' This gentleman I can work
for.'"
When Moncreiffe met with Pettit and Fuld for his interview, he told them, "Lew is
fantastic!" and, imitating Glucksman's slovenly manner, took a piece of Brie from the
welcoming spread and put it on his tie. "I really like him, because he's not smooth," he
said. "But he's able to lead a large trading organization, so he has got to be good at what
he does."
Like Pettit, Moncreiffe rose swiftly--though