Points of Interest

UBS AG’s New York-based Kenneth Moelis, President of Investment Banking, is said to be at loggerheads with the folks in Zurich and Basel, angling for more authority by threatening to leave what has become one of the fastest-growing and most successful institutions on Wall Street in the past five years. I can just imagine how much Human Resources (based in Chicago for Global Asset Management and Investment Banking – Americas operations) will be scrambling to recruit replacements for the whole team of upper-level managers and directors who will undoubtedly walk with Moelis. I had a good experience working at UBS, but I am completely glad not to be there anymore.

On another, but similar note, the Human Rights Campaign has ranked “Finance and Banking” and “Defense Contracting and Aerospace” as the two most gay-friendly industries in the United States. Halliburton, Boeing? Seriously? I can see something like Lehman Brothers, yes. Even The Gap, of course. Revlon, absolutely. But defense contracting is shocking to me.

There is a British recording artist called Mika who has been likened to Scissor Sisters, Freddy Mercury, and Rufus Wainwright (everyone is compared to Rufus, but I contend he is without compare). At any rate, I listened to his myspace music samples and I think I like. Upbeat is good.

The Chicago Board of Trade and The Chicago Mercantile Exchange tussled and fussed but at the end of the day, the merger deal is still on. And no one on the planet really cares.

Update on the admin adjacent to me mentioned a couple of days ago: he is still here and in a much better mood. In fact he was engaged in some lively banter this morning, and in passing I overheard him say something about, “people steal dogs from the North Side, smuggle them into the South Side and use them to make tires. No, yeah, that’s just what I heard from this guy who works at the record store, but I don’t think he’s actually been to the South Side so he’s probably just trying to find common ground with me or whatever.”