Marc Cohodes On The Goldman Sachs “Heist” Of 2008

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Marc Cohodes on being “swindled” by Goldman Sachs during the 2008 crisis from the transcript of the Real Vision interview. Also see our recent interview with Cohodes here

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So I get a call from Goldman Friday afternoon saying they're changing our haircut, our margin requirements. And I'm thinking, what? Or why?
They said, well, you're vowel and since they've changed the rules, you're going from a 30% haircut to like a 60% haircut. And I said, huh? Why? They gave some cockamamie reason. And I said, OK. I said, well, let's do the math.

They said, well, you owe, you need to come up with $700 million by Monday. All right. I said, you know, we're a $2 billion fund. I said, ain't going to happen. So come Monday they said,
well, have you come up with the money? I said, no. Can't come with a money boat. We'll start covering names if you guys want to do this.
And the market's starting to go down. So we'll start covering names and I'll come up with your $600, $700 million in a week. Four days, five days, whatever. We're covering stuff. They said, you don't seem to understand. We need it now.
I said, well, we've been doing business with you guys for 25 years. Never once in all environments have we seen this. What's going on? Something's going on.
And this cocksucker, motherfXXker Ravi Singh, who I've never heard of before, all my guys were-- I couldn't talk to anyone who I knew there.
So they put this Ravi Singh on the phone and I said, you know, you're going to-- if you do this, you're going to put me out of business. And that would be unfortunate and unfair because I have this right, we're having a great year, my names were right. What's going on here?
And he gives me some double talk and said, you don't understand, right? You're under house rules now and you haven't come up with the money. We're now taking over the portfolio. And
I just said, like, you can't do this. And they said, well, we're not only doing it, we're going to take you to like 70%. And I said, well, you're going to put me out of business if you do this.
So the market is tanking. It's absolutely now in freefall. And they're sitting there buying our shorts up like buying a million shares of American Capitol strategies at the market. So the market is imploding and our shorts are--

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This Home Capital story didn't make it into the final cut of the Marc Cohodes interview on Real Vision, so you'll sure as hell want to see what did. Listen to Marc Cohodes on Real Vision and become a better investor: http://rvtv.io/2oiHI2f Real Vision's new flagship interview series premieres, as famed short seller Marc Cohodes joins Grant Williams for a candid and emotionally raw interview. In the first in a series of extended discussions with successful investors, Grant asks Marc about his short selection process, the difficulty of managing emotions when embroiled in a fight and his current battles with a series of companies he believes to be fraudulent. Marc offers a vicious takedown of biotech company MiMedx, and shares a gut-wrenching story of losing money during 2008, despite being perfectly positioned.

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