Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup

[Grail]

Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup

By Andreas Hippin

November 21 (Bloomberg) -- The Somali pirates, renegade Somalis
known for hijacking ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden, are
negotiating a purchase of Citigroup.

The pirates would buy Citigroup with new debt and their existing
cash stockpiles, earned most recently from hijacking numerous ships,
including most recently a $200 million Saudi Arabian oil tanker. The
Somali pirates are offering up to $0.10 per share for Citigroup, pirate
spokesman Sugule Ali said earlier today. The negotiations have entered
the final stage, Ali said. ``You may not like our price, but we are not
in the business of paying for things. Be happy we are in the mood to
offer the shareholders anything," said Ali.

The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate
Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS's are backed by the cash flows from
future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody's and
S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the
PRBS's.

Head pirate, Ubu Kalid Shandu, said "we need a bank so that we
have a place to keep all of our ransom money. Thankfully, the
dislocations in the capital markets has allowed us to purchase Citigroup
at an attractive valuation and to take advantage of TARP capital to grow
the business even faster."

Shandu added, "We don't call ourselves pirates. We are coastguards and
this will just allow us to guard our coasts better."

[grizam303]

Re: Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup

The pirates will finance part of the purchase by selling new Pirate
Ransom Backed Securities. The PRBS's are backed by the cash flows from
future ransom payments from hijackings in the Gulf of Aden. Moody's and
S&P have already issued their top investment grade ratings for the
PRBS's.

Makes more sense than subprime mortgage-backed securities, though the investment grade rating makes me wary.

[don]

Re: Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup

More outsourcing! What's wrong with our pirates? Is it their lavish health care benefits? Eye patches and wooden legs ain't cheap, me-laddies....

[GRG55]

Re: Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup

More outsourcing! What's wrong with our pirates? Is it their lavish health care benefits? Eye patches and wooden legs ain't cheap, me-laddies....

With the pirates owning and running Citigroup will any of the clients notice any change?

[jk]

Re: Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup

wonderful lol - literally.

[Guest]

Re: Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup

More outsourcing! What's wrong with our pirates? Is it their lavish health care benefits? Eye patches and wooden legs ain't cheap, me-laddies....

Almost as funny as (albeit a little dated now maybe):

Another take on structured investments

---

Investment Dealers are excited to announce the newest structured finance product - Constant Obligation Leveraged Originated Structured Oscillating Money Bridged Asset Guarantees, or COLOSTOMY BAGS. Designed to accommodate the most sophisticated investment strategies, Colostomy Bags contain the equity tranches of Structured High Interest Taxable Derivatives, or SH?T, and are leveraged an infinite amount of times through the innovative use of derivatives.

"Its an actively managed, unlimited liability, open ended investment with no maturity date, which pays LIBOR plus 5,000 and has no correlation to traditional investments" said a spokesman for the Investment Dealer who engineered the product. "It's based on a CDO structure, but it's designed to default BEFORE the first coupon payment, which you'll agree has no correlation with stodgy traditional investments and is a perfect fit for portable alpha scams, er, strategies." Following the default, each month more leverage is added to the structure to pay for the coupon and the Dealer's fees which are set at 80%. "We feel the fees are reasonable, given the adrenaline rush you'll get each month attempting to mark these."

The Colostomy Bags carry a AAAA rating, based on the rating agencies opinion that they are even safer than Treasuries. "You can't use traditional credit analysis to value these babies, no sir-ree" said a spokesman for a rating agency. "Just like Icelandic Banks, we give them the highest rating because you just know that the Fed will bail out all the hedgies who buy these things..remember like Long Term Capital? And the best part is, the beauty of this structure is that the loss given default is NEGATIVE, so by extension we feel that the CDS will trade through Treasuries."

Inhaling deeply on a fatty, he continued "We've been tinkering with our model, which served us well for Enron and the Telecoms in '02, and our stress testing shows that the probability of loss in the senior tranche is close to zero." The model, constructed of a wishing well, Joseph Jett's trading blotter, and drawings of Unicorns then collapsed in a heap. "Well, back to the drawing board!" he cackled.

A real money investor, huddled on the windowsill outside his office, said he remained optimistic about holding the Colostomy Bags but was a bit concerned with the 95% decline in value on the first day they traded. "We've taken a bit of a haircut on these but I'm waiting to see the first servicer report, which should arrive in a few months. At first I was annoyed that the dealer who sold them to me refused to make a market in them, but that makes my job easier since I'm not tempted to sell."

We located a hedge fund manager at a due diligence meeting in the VIP room at Score's. He said he was skeptical of the structure at first but was dared into buying it by a fixed income salesman. "He said to me, 'what's wrong with you, its quadruple A rated, just buy it, what are you a wuss?' He also said it was going into 'an index', although he didn't say which one, but I felt that I had to buy it. And that was good enough for me, bro'."

[FRED]

Re: Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup

With the pirates owning and running Citigroup will any of the clients notice any change?

Note the name of the picture we made for Grail's submission: http://www.itulip.com/images/piratesVSpirates.jpg

[FRED]

Re: Somali Pirates in Discussions to Acquire Citigroup

This site tracks piracies for corporations. We are amazed by how many there are. But was are just as amazed by the one big one they missed.