Carl Icahn Buyer Behind Jefferies?

let’s just shift gears a little bit now this tuesday morning. jefferies is out with earnings. what is the read through at this stage? cnbc’s capital markets editor kaminsky joins us on the news line for more. simon, good morning. i don’t know necessarily we’ll have a read through to the other banks. it’s a fascinating story because there’s a lot of lessons for viewers to think about in relation to this. i want to go back to november 3rd and november 4th to start. if you remember, i’m sure melissa remembers as well, this was sort of the pinnacle of the panic associated by some of the research that was put out by an analyst related to some of the issues there. really what did the company do that night? in fact, melissa probably recalls i broke into fast money that night. we talked about the fact that the company had decided to go with full transparency. they decided to collapse the hedge portfolio. in fact, they went so far as to actually put out numbers on some of the sovereign debt that was being raised in questions. that was really at the time something unique. i was — i vividly recall. i was in the pierre hotel. i went down the hall. phoned into the show. we talked about the fact if you go back to those date, simon, it was in fact legal insider buying sending a signal to those that wanted to see was the company backing up their own credibility. and the answer was absolutely yes. gary, hang on. is that really what saved it here? i appreciate that they moved very fast on what egan jones was saying. wasn’t it more about the ecb and beginning to flood liquidity there? they got rid of their positions. they raised capital, gayry. absolutely not. it had nothing to do with the ecb. what the company decided to do in that november 3rd, november 4th period was deal with the allegations directly at hand. they collapsed their hedged portfolio. they decided to address the issues head on. let me finish what i was saying, simon. which was if you went back that night, you saw that the company bought back 5 million shares during that period. lucatia, a 10% holder came out and bought 1 million shares at 11.84. two of the directors each bought stock at the same time. that is what we call legal insider buying. that’s why you pay attention to those that know what they know as opposed to those that are speculating. the ecb had nothing to do with whether or not jefferies committed to their shareholder base that this is, in fact, what the facts were. i’m sorry. i accept, gary, everything you say is correct. but if i look at the chart we have with the two green dots on it as to when those events were, if i look at the recovery in the stock price, it is not immediately after that. it has much more shorting to do with that huge rally that you had in risk assets. simon, you have to understand the — simon, you have to understand the specific securities. yes, in fact, the overall market is up in the same period. at that time there was a disconnect between short selling rumors and reality. i want to talk about the company. it was a very significant quarter here. they had some very big investment banking wins. i want to point out three major deals that they led. they were involved with the kkr acquisition of sampson oil and gas. very significant energy deal. they were involved in the purchase united health care of xl which was a very significant health care deal. in addition, lionsgate and summit. the company’s banking franchise continued to perform extremely well given, again, all this outside noise. it is importan remember there is a difference between opportunity [ith rumors and rumors many times that do become fact. in this case, you have to look back. you had an opportunity. you could applaud what this company did. it was a significant milestone. i do also want to point out, not confirm, not confirm, but a rumor in the marketplace that melissa’s buddy was, in fact, a major buyer of the securities, both the equity and the fixed income at this time in jeffries. that being carl ikahn. i will ask carl myself, gary. at drinks tonight. next week, actually. just kidding. gary, always good to hear from you. gary kaminsky, capital markets editor.