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Our columnist Patrick L Young, as always, manages to find stories that somehow or other the mainstream media seem to have missed.
Who would have thought you could have a sentence with "glamour, femme fatale, scandal, movies and stock exchange CEO" all rolled into one?
Ladies and Gentlemen, for those of you who deem exchanges dull and unalluring engines of process, let this month’s column disprove your lack of romance and indeed wild sexual passion. There is a frisson to financial markets plumbing!
For the Warsaw Stock Exchange (yes, seriously) has found itself unwittingly at the centre of a scandal which will be but a momentary low latency blot on that market’s magnificent reputation before its splendid new CEO goes on to take the bourse to ever greater achievements.
Nevertheless, in the meantime, how could your devoted columnist not bring you a story of hubris, politics, glamour, a femme fatale, the movies and the stock exchange all rolled into one? After all, when did you last read a story which can bring movies, glamour, sex and stock exchange into a single sentence? (Alas sadly exchange CEOs have not been above the occasional scandal...but not in this form).
Unfortunately Ludwik Sobolewski the otherwise successful CEO of Warsaw SE has been eased out of office by the government whose 40% shareholding equates to a voting majority in the bourse.
The problem revolves around Miss Anna Szarek who herself once worked for the Warsaw Exchange. She had become involved with Mr Sobolewski in what was presumably not a low latency affair while working at the bourse and continuing her quest to transition from modelling to acting. True, the intermediation of a stock exchange job is not one I recall either on previous model-actress transitions. Perhaps discussing straight through processing imbues a higher sense of drama on the aspiring thespian as they reorient themselves from the rigours of the catwalk.
Nevertheless, in the quest for her next starring role, in a film provisionally entitled “The Curse of the Pharaoh,” it seems that some WSE staff emails had been used to send promotional materials to listed companies asking them to consider investing in this new feature. Said emails apparently emanated from a close associate of the CEO.
The government had what might be called a total sense of humour failure and promptly investigated Mr Sobolewski’s conduct before requesting an EGM which lead to Ludwik’s suspension as CEO by the board just before Christmas. Even the financial fraud police has been invited to investigate...
This led to the curious fact that Polish gossip magazines majored on discussions of the stock market and its management for much of the Festive Season which is in my experience an entirely unique event in exchange history, even the ones which date back to before the heyday of the Pharaohs themselves.
There are those who might regard being in the exchange industry as dull and lacking lustre. However, as you can see this mini-scandal has more or less everything required, a man of high rank, possible abuse of office, the femme fatale, glamourous Hollywood stardust (well, okay, the Polish movie industry but hey if you haven't tried some, I can recommend many excellent cinematic oeuvres) et al. Okay so there’s no Eliott Spitzer style rank hypocrisy in the plot but there was enough meat (and multiple pictures of Ms Szarek in different pouts, poses, posh frocks and hair colours) to keep Warsaw gossip columnists occupied well into the New Year.
So it was that in the week before Christmas when we seemed to be framed merely by the machinations of brilliant entrepreneurial managers like Jeff Sprecher, here was rich proof that in a manner of speaking, the exchange industry can be draped in stardust and perceived to be wildly glamorous too!
Interestingly the film has since been re-titled “Last Minute” a more low latency expression replacing the previous moniker, a pun based on the Polish equivalent phrase for what Mexican travellers have long termed “Montezuma’s Revenge.”
Frankly, it's a good thing the Mayan apocalypse didn't take place otherwise we might have missed this fascinating story...
Finally, for those of you disappointed that this column didn’t major in on the fact that Jeff Sprecher has now achieved more than any other entrepreneurial shareholder value driven exchange manager in history, fear not, we will return to his great achievement in due course. For now we offer our heartiest congratulations to Sprecher and the magnificent ICE team in demonstrating how to create a world-beating business that has risen to the top during the ongoing “Capital Market Revolution!”
Patrick L Young
patrick@derivativesvision.com is already preparing for @YMarkets2.0, the unique event discussing the future of finance: http://youngmarkets.com in the historic mercantile city of Torun, Poland this June. All those interested in financial innovation as well as transitioning models to actresses are welcome...
