And the partners were tortured by the memory of having returned—despite the Sheik’s strenuous objections—$2.7 billion to investors. Worse, they had forced their investors to take it! That money would have solved their problems, but of course, the investors were no longer enamored of Long-Term, nor were they begging to reinvest. What’s more, many of the banks were themselves under stress. This is a timeless irony: when you need money most, the most likely sources of it (in Long-Term’s case, other operators such as Soros, as well as investment banks and institutions) are likely to be hurting as
...more
