Hector Ruiz is under investigation
HECTOR RUIZ, the not-so-beloved former supremo ultimo, variously described as CEO, Chairman of the Board, and Executive Chairman at AMD and now the current head honcho at Chimpzilla's spinoff Global Foundries, is in hot water according to the Wall Street Journal.
According to the WSJ, the US Attorney's office has come into testimony that Hector Ruiz might have tipped off Wall Street investment managers to the company's plans to spin off its fabs to create Global Foundries.
Hector is alleged to have talked with a fund manager at New Castle Partners, Danielle Chiesi, who then allegedly was said to have proceeded to share the information with Raj Rajaratnam of Galleon Group, the alleged mastermind who was allegedly behind an alleged insider trading operation. Allegedly.
It further alleges that, based upon Hector's tip, Galleon Group and New Castle Partners went on a share-buying spree, loading up on cheap AMD shares and later profiting handsomely when AMD's share price rose in anticipation of the spinoff.
According to the WSJ, the SEC isn't claiming that Hector collected any money for passing along the tip. That could present a small problem for prosecutors, as it wouldn't seem to allow them to nail Ruiz with charges of having profited directly from insider trading. But others certainly profited from the information, at the expense of unsuspecting AMD shareholders who sold their shares while unaware of the impending spinoff of Global Foundries, so prosecutors can argue that harm was done.
The Galleon Group's strategic investment raised a few eyebrows at the SEC and has been the target of investigation from federal authorities for a while now. The company's demise last week, as clients jumped ship, was just the last nail in the coffin.
Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group fund manager who the US Attorney's office is claiming masterminded several insider trading activities, has already been arrested and awarded a jail cell courtesy of the federal government.
Others recently arrested and cooling their heels in jail include Bob Moffat, a senior VP and general manager at IBM, Danielle Chiesi and Mark Kurland of New Castle Partners, Rajiv Goel of Intel Capital and Anil Kumar of McKinsey and Company. They are all expected to be arraigned soon.
Hector is just the latest, and possibly an inadvertent celebrity guest star, in this string of fish hooked by the US Attorney's office during the course of its investigation. However by the looks of it, the SEC won't stop here.
Update
AMD has contacted The INQUIRER and maintains its official position:
"We are investigating the situation, but we don't have any more detail to discuss publicly. No current or former AMD employee has been charged with a crime and we're not aware of any allegation of criminal misconduct. It would be inappropriate to comment further on an ongoing Department of Justice investigation." µ
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Hector Ruiz is a big bastard, who stole millions of dollars from stock holders. When everyone at AMD are taking pay cuts and layoffs, this bastard ordered a Ferrari delivered directly at AMD office. He is money minded freak.
He is the only x AMD employee who made money when everyone else suffered.
I hope he really screwed up.
On a couple of occasions Hector outright lied about future earnings. Once during the dot comm crash he claimed AMD would earn $1.50 a share when they ended up losing money. Then he did it again a couple of years ago. He should get put in the slammer for that alone.
I dislike white collar crime as much as any one else but this one is going to be very tough for the SEC. The obvious lack of a paper trail directly to Hector leaves the SEC with only hearsay evidence. That can only be used to rebut Hectors testimony. So what admissible evidence does the SEC possibly have against Hector to present to the jury without Hector testifying? If they had had any admissible evidence Hector would have already have been indicted with the rest of the tipsters in the Galleon case. Think about the Ted Stevens case where the prosecutors are being sanctioned for misconduct. This seems to have less evidence than Stevens' case did. Senator Stevens did sign a contract. Bad judgment in how he conducted his pay package is not criminal. If it were think of how many Wall Street Exec's would be facing charges out of the financial melt down.
There were too many rumors about the spin off including stories posted here that make identifying the source too difficult without using one of the Galleon execs as a witness. No sane prosecutor is going to think about that and expect the US Attorney General to approve the deal. Arthur Anderson & Co. didn't get that kind of a sweetheart deal in the Enron case and Hector is no where nearly as big of a target as Lay and Skilling. I spent 10 years doing work for the Federal Public Defenders Office and I would loved to have a case this easy to defend.
As to the earnings statements, I think you misremember for what time periods they were. Each case they were more than 12 months out and are considered speculative. When Intel pays off in the antitrust case the restated earnings may well have been correct. Intel goes to trial with guilty judgments in Japan, Korea, and the EU admissible as evidence. Figure $2-3 billion which includes prejudgment interest then triple that, $6-9 billion is Intel's probable exposure.
Ed H,
With the SEC being made to look like rank amateurs by the shenanigans of the markets and theft/transfer of gazillions in the recent meltdown/shakedown, maybe there is a vigilante rough justice element being exercised/invited by such investigations and airing of views, in a similar manner to the following tale, which includes the paragraph .... "However, one of the boys said they had first been arrested by state police and it was the officers themselves who turned them to the vigilantes. The Nayarit police chief denies the charge, saying officers did not question the boys until after they had been tortured." ...... http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/mexico/091027/vigilantes-justice-crime
Fat cat justice will normally quite naturally and logically follow its own golden rules .... and break all the rules with its own swift retribution right out of the blue with no evidence of connection. And whether right or wrong, it doesn't really matter, does it, whenever you have been wronged for the Love of Money ..... the Root of All Evil so they say.
It could even become a very popular trend if the System is left unmended, given the high esteem in which fat cats are publicly held whilst screwing the masses.
...How early did the trading (and alleged tip) occur to have beaten the press on this?
Or did a "quiet period" apply and he'd be in hot water if he'd said anything, period?
Just so you think the SEC is doing it's job, they round up a few guys who scammed a few million while looking the other way as Goldman Sachs Group et al steal trillions.
Some of the better stories report that Bob Moffat seems to be the original source. AMD had to negotiate some changes in licenses with IBM and Moffat passed that info along to Galleon(explains why he was indicted). Apparently Galleon passed that info along to New Century whose Ms Chesei apparently initiated contact with Ruiz concerning "rumors" and pumped him for information. If these facts as reported by DOJ (not the SEC) are correct then the burden of proof gets a lot tougher. Reminds me of the Tom Lehrer(Harvard math prof not PBS) song about Lobachevsky. http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Lobachevsky-lyrics-Tom-Lehrer/D97B21BF6516390448256A7D0024B8B9
I can't help but think this whole thing could have been cooked up by the Intel spin team in an effort to take increasing media, regulatory and political pressure off their ANTITRUST CASE ???
Meh ...
instead of trading shares, they had published the facts about AMD in a magazine and sold advertising they would be in the clear...
funny old world