'Autodesk is going to pay $28 a share for Global Crossing.' Sammy Glick aka Leo Hindery, told me. Totally fucking amazing since Global Crossing was selling for $8 a share.
Sammy, aka Leo, was the CEO of Global Crossing at the time and was trying to jack up the price of the stock. Making the company successful was secondary to Sammy's stock options.
The company did go into the fucking tank. Never got back to $10.
Inside information considerations were of no moment to Sammy, aka Leo. He was calling all his 'friends' and 'enemies' alike and giving us this juicy piece of inside mis-information except we all knew by then that Leo was doing a con and was totally and absolutely full of shit. Too fucking good to be true.Sammy Glick was the subject of a 1941 best seller, 'What Makes Sammy Run' by Bud Schulberg. Sammy rose to the top of the ladder by confiscating the writings and ideas of others and then 'selling' them as his own. Sammy was a master at pure bullshit as well and getting people to believe him was his huge talent. Sammy was a great con artist.
Geraldine Fabrikant, wrote a terrific piece for the New York Times in June of 1998, featuring Sammy aka Leo. Among other things, Ms. Fabrikant, pointed out that Leo's description of his life growing up, was quite a bit different from his real life as described by his mother and brother. Leo has always strived mightily to give almost mythical qualities to his life, however phony.
But my all time favorite Leo Hindery, jr story, and I have a bunch of them, begins at a dinner that I hosted at Cipriani's in NYC. Leo, at the time was President of Telecommunications Inc, a major cable network. It was public knowledge that ATT was negotiating to buy TCI.
At the dinner in addition to Leo and me, was Jessica Reiff-Cohen, a highly regarded media analyst with Merrill Lynch, her husband Bob, Ed Spiegel, a Goldman Sachs partner and Deanne, Ed's wife.
It is important to note that the dinner was on a Wednesday night. Jessica went to the ladies' and in the course of the conversation Sammy, aka Leo, told us that on Friday ATT was going to announce the acquisition of TCI and the price, which was significantly higher than Wednesday's closing price. Even I was at a loss for words. Leo was at his people pleasing best even if illegal.
When Jessica came back from the ladies' I said, 'You'll never believe what Leo just told us about the ATT/TCI deal.' Jessica, to her credit, said 'Don't tell me. I don't want to know.' Leo, as with Sammy, was a real people pleaser and as with Sammy, Leo had few boundaries.
Leo is 'totally powerless over his own bullshit'. Total bullshit becomes an absolute truth the minute it comes out if his mouth. His real ambition is to have a high position in a public office but I can't believe that his 'background' could survive the intense due diligence required.
Leo is well learned in that old West Texas adage, 'If you can't dazzle 'em with your footwork then blind 'em with your bullshit.'
2 comments:
I love it - I would have loved to be at that Lunch!
Angelo
I met him once 1998, at SRI in Menlo Park when Paul Cook had started DIVA, the first video-on-demand company. Leo was a real piece of work & as you say trying to squirm in on a "deal" :)
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