Fabrice Tourre, Wall Street's 'Fabulous Fab, heads for trial
As fraud case begins against trader who joked about selling toxic bonds to widows and orphans, friends recall his volunteer work
Fabrice Tourre is best known as "Fabulous Fab", the former Goldman Sachs trader whose e-mails about the mortgage crisis became a symbol of Wall Street hubris and will now highlight the government's case against him.
But an inner circle of friends knows Tourre, 34, from very different dispatches - e-mail updates he sent from Africa during a stint as a volunteer. It was there that "Fabulous Fab", a nickname he earned from a friend in New York, became known as "Breezy".
"Rwandan coffee yields have significant room for improvements," he wrote in a March 2011 message to friends. "Plenty of ideas and projects to focus on, with the ultimate goal to improve coffee farmers' income and living conditions!"
The e-mail provides a glimpse into Tourre's life after Goldman, and after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged him with fraud in connection with a fund which lost investors around US$1 billion.
After his trip to Africa, Tourre enrolled in an economics doctoral programme at the University of Chicago, where professors described him as a "standout" whom they selected as a teaching assistant for junior students.