Lehman's bearish on Elain
SHE was the hottest woman on Wall Street, the toast of Lehman Brothers, earned a multi-million dollar salary and was, it now appears, a primadonna. Elain Garzarelli, partner and director of sector analysis, was alas sacked last week. Press reports have indicated Lehman's booted her out because she was too expensive. Insider hears that cost was by no means the only reason.
Biographical details sent out by Lehman's public relations company in advance of Ms Garzarelli's much-feted trip around Asia included the following.
'Over the last 15 years, she has predicted every major turn in the stockmarket. Elaine spends two weeks each month writing a 250-page stockmarket report. The rest of the month she visits clients presenting her forecasts on the economy, the stock market and specific industries and stocks.' Unfortunately, it would appear she started to believe her own PR. She cancelled an interview with Asian Business News in Singapore at the last minute saying she was too busy. The bosses went pink.
She showed up to a client dinner held for her in time for the coffee, read her speech and left. The bosses went red.
She missed a flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong for no apparent reason. The bosses went purple. She demanded Kirk Sweeney, Lehman's managing director, and the whole research desk, meet at her hotel room, instead of going to the office for a meeting. This, Insider hears, was very much par for the course. The bosses exploded and fired her the minute she hit terra firma back in the United States.
