Why the Goldman/Facebook Deal Sucks
Good friend Nomi Prins wrote at length about why the Goldman/Facebook deal is a total loser for anyone even considering getting in. The whole piece is here but the bullet points are as follows. One, although the Facebook deal has often been called a rehashing of the ’90s dot-com mania (even I made that comparison), Nomi says it’s more like the CDO-subprime deals, where the game was “get the business, rake in the fees—and pawn off the overpriced goods on the clients.” She notes that investors are down 10% in fees and services before kickoff on this one, and that anyone who gets in is locked in until 2013, while Goldman can get out at any time, “without notice to the fund or investors in the fund.”
For Goldman to get into such a transparently skanky deal after all it’s been through PR-wise in recent years says a lot about the level of self-knowledge, or lack thereof, of the people who run the company. Anyway, Nomi’s piece is a very good read for people who want to understand the Facebook scam better.