In the spirit of Toby Young's How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, Peter Kraus has just created a storm in New York after buying an apartment on Park Avenue for $37 million.
Not bad for a 5 bedroom apartment, including maid's quarters and gym, in the heart of New York.
So who is this Kraus person?
Just an investment banker who happened to spend three months at Merrill Lynch this year, and then resigned.
Oh yes, the three months work garnered $25 million as a payout.
That's 0.1% of Bank of America’s $25 billion capital injection from the TARP fund, after BoA bailed out Merrill.
Good going, and I guess that makes for a good chunk of the downpayment on 720 Park Avenue, although being a mate of Merrill's CEO John Thain from the Goldman days probably means that Peter didn't need the cash anyway.
The storm by the way is the protests of the general populous that can be seen in detail at the Daily Kos, where there are 612 comments on the story.
Here's just a few examples:
"Stealing from the government for personal gain is a crime and should be prosecuted as such."
"I am simply out of outrage."
"Does that place look very pre-French Revolution?"
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...