Friday, May 25, 2012

UPDATED--Henry Blodget, Morgan Stanley and Facebook (FB)

Update below.
Original post:
I owe someone a hat tip on this, I'll figure out where we got it and come back with the link.
From Business Insider:

Morgan Stanley Is Holding A Firm-Wide Conference Call To Blame The Facebook IPO Scandal On... Me (!?)
A source close to Morgan Stanley tells me the firm is holding a firm-wide conference call at 4PM New York time today to discuss the firm's role in the burgeoning Facebook IPO scandal.
Another source close to the firm reports that Morgan Stanley has already held at least one such call... and that, during that call, my name came up repeatedly.
I don't yet have detailed information about what was said on the prior call, but the gist of it, apparently, was this:
  • Morgan Stanley followed all the applicable rules and regulations in the Facebook IPO
  • Henry Blodget is a disgraced former-analyst-sleazebag-turned-bloviator who is just trying to whip up a scandal out of nothing.
...MORE
UPDATE:

New Details On How Morgan Stanley Is Blaming The Facebook IPO Scandal On Me!
...Anyway...

The word I got yesterday was that Morgan Stanley was blaming the Facebook scandal on me because I have recently written articles about how outrageous it was that institutions were told about Facebook's lousy quarter and individuals weren't. In other words, because I had hyped up the scandal and gotten Morgan Stanley's clients all hot under the collar about it.

I tried to discuss this with Morgan Stanley yesterday, but their approach to dealing with me right now is to ignore my emails and calls. So I didn't get very far.

Instead, last night, I talked to someone familiar with Morgan Stanley's view of the situation.
And I discovered that the firm really is blaming the whole Facebook IPO disclosure scandal on me...and not just because of the recent articles I've been writing!

Explaining this story will require a lot of background, so grab a cup of coffee and settle in. Otherwise, the short version is this:

Morgan Stanley is saying that the regulations put in place after the research-banking scandal of the 1990s—in which I was Exhibit A—caused this new disclosure scandal....MORE