A “curtain raiser” is a story reporters write before an expected event. Oftentimes, such previews feel manufactured and stale. Many journalists mail them in.
Max Abelson is an exception. A reporter on Bloomberg’s finance team, today he’s out with the group’s annual story about bonuses on Wall Street.
One thing Max does exceptionally well is get memorable quotes from big name people talking about things that matter.
In the article, he quoted J. Christopher Flowers saying SPAC deals had “a large element of baloney.”
Flowers is a former Goldman Sachs banker famous for forming one of the biggest private equity firms that buy financial institutions.
SPACs were arguably the biggest capital raising innovation in recent years.
Max has been at this for over a decade.
So long in fact that Gawker did an article on his 2012 year-end bonus story with the headline: The Five Best Quotes in Bloomberg’s Outrageous Banker Bonuses Story.
You can stroll down memory lane reading it here:
https://www.gawker.com/5889249/the-five-best-quotes-in-bloombergs-outrageous-banker-bonuses-story
The article is a reminder that some things on Wall Street don’t change.
Max includes a line in this year’s article that itself is very quotable.
On Wall Street, he reminds us: “It’s not what you have, it’s how much more you have than everyone else.”
Ted Merz 