AIG

Joe Cassano, In His Own Words

Zachary Roth | March 31, 2009, 2:41PM

How did Joe Cassano -- the man who brought down AIG, and with it, perhaps the entire global financial system, with those disastrous credit default swaps -- talk about what his unit, AIG Financial Products, was up to?

We've been looking through a presentation that Cassano gave to a group of entrepreneurs and analysts in May 2007 -- just as the extent of the collapse of the sub-prime market was becoming clear. In his speech (accessed by Nexis), Cassano detailed AIGFP's various business lines, and, of course, painted a rosy picture of the unit's future earning potential.

The entire performance has an almost poignant quality, looked at in light of the tumult that would soon befall AIGFP. (Less than nine months later, it would announce Cassano's resignation after an $11.1 billion writedown of credit-default swaps.) But we've pulled out a few of Cassano's comments that day that are particularly noteworthy...

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AIG

AIG's Stiffed Business Partners Begin to Speak Out

Brian Beutler | March 30, 2009, 2:04PM

Last week we reported that the House Financial Services committee's ranking member, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) is asking chairman Barney Frank and the Treasury department to look into the cases of smaller U.S. banks that are allegedly being stiffed on their loans to an AIG subsidiary while its major CDS counterparties are paid off in full.

In a story that may shed some light on his complaint, the Wall Street Journal reports today on the cases of two businesses who partnered with AIG on real estate development projects and are now fighting to get AIG to contribute its share of cash to pay project expenses:

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Bailout

Bush Bailout Architect Lands On His Feet -- Helping Private Clients Adjust To Brave New World Of Finance

Zachary Roth | March 30, 2009, 1:29PM

We should have seen this one coming -- government officials who helped respond to the financial crisis, now cashing in by helping private sector clients "navigate the new world of finance."

That's what David Nason, a former assistant treasury secretary under Hank Paulson will be doing for clients of Promontary Financial Group, which he's joining as a managing director, reports the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.). Nason, who had a major hand in drawing up Treasury's bailout plan last fall, "is expected to advise big financial institutions on everything from how to participate in the government's rescue programs to meeting regulatory requirements."

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John Sununu

Have Oversight Panelists Complained About Sununu's Conflict? Sounds Like It...

Zachary Roth | March 27, 2009, 5:21PM

Remember that little conflict of interest problem for John Sununu that we revealed last month?

The former New Hampshire GOP senator, who sits on the Congressional Oversight Panel that monitors the TARP funds, was recently named to the board of a firm that's a subsidiary of Bank of New York Mellon -- which not only got TARP money itself, but also administers the program for the Treasury Department.

Sununu insisted to the Associated Press, which picked up on our report, that this really wasn't a conflict. But it looks like at least some of Sununu's fellow panel members disagree.

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AIG

Taibbi To AIG-er DeSantis: "Be A Man And Deal With It"

Zachary Roth | March 27, 2009, 4:41PM

Some Friday afternoon catharsis ...

In one of those perfect matches of writer and subject, Matt Taibbi responds to that op-ed writing AIG-er Jake DeSantis -- and says all the things you'd probably forget to say if you ever ran into deSantis, but then would think of in the shower when it was too late.

AIG

Did Cassano Shut Out AIG Risk Officers?

Zachary Roth | March 27, 2009, 1:38PM

Did AIG's entire risk management team fall down on the job? Or, like the firm's auditors, were they prevented from doing it?

Yesterday we told you about Bob Lewis, AIG's chief risk officer, who still has his job despite a rather obvious failure to ensure that the firm wasn't taking on an unmanageable level of risk.

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Bailout

Lawmakers Call On Bailout IG To Probe AIG Counter-Party Payments

Zachary Roth | March 27, 2009, 11:45AM

The effort to get to the bottom of those payments by AIG to its counter-parties is heating up.

Earlier this week, we noted that several different efforts to investigate that question. Now, reports the New York Times, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) has sent a letter, signed by 26 other House Democrats, to Neal Barofsky, the inspector general for the TARP funds, calling on him to probe the matter.

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Bailout

Lawsuits: Lewis, B of A, Misled Shareholders On Merrill Deal

Zachary Roth | March 25, 2009, 5:26PM

This is just the headache that beleaguered Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis needs...

It looks like B of A is facing legal woes as a result of its hastily arranged deal to buy Merrill Lynch last fall, and its subsequent statements about Merrill's finances.

The Wall Street Journal reports (sub. req.):

Five public pension funds are seeking lead status in a class-action suit against Bank of America Corp., alleging that the nation's largest bank by assets made "untrue statements" in the run-up to its purchase of Merrill Lynch & Co. and did not disclose material information to shareholders.

The funds claim to have lost $274 million on their Bank of America investments between July 21, 2008 and Jan. 20, 2009.

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AIG

Is Probe Of AIG Bailout, Payments To Counter-Parties, In The Offing?

Zachary Roth | March 25, 2009, 2:48PM

Is the momentum building for an investigation into the real beneficiaries of AIG's latest bailout?

Earlier this month, the Treasury Department announced it was rescuing the fallen insurance giant yet again, bringing the total amount of taxpayer assistance given to the firm since last September to $170 billion. It soon became clear that much of that money -- over $49 billion, to be exact -- was going right through AIG to the counter-parties on its credit default swaps, both American banks like Goldman Sachs, and foreign ones like DeutscheBank.

Defenders of the move have argued that not giving the counter-parties this indirect bailout would have risked a wider financial collapse.

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AIG

Longtime AIG Chief Greenberg To Testify On Firm's Collapse

Zachary Roth | March 24, 2009, 3:42PM

Former AIG CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg will appear next week before a congressional committee probing the firm's central role in causing the financial crisis, according to a committee staffer.

Greenberg -- who had run AIG since 1968 before stepping down in 2005 -- will be questioned by members of the House Oversight committee about the credit default swaps that led to his former firm's collapse last year. "No one knows AIG better than Greenberg," said the staffer. "He ran every minute detail of that company -- nothing took place without his knowledge."

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Goldman Sachs

Government Sachs: TARP Funds Just The Tip Of The Iceberg For Goldman

Zachary Roth | March 24, 2009, 12:39PM

Goldman Sachs is planning to give back the TARP money it got last fall, "ideally in the next month," reports the New York Times.

The firm is saying it just can't handle the level of government oversight that comes along with the funds, especially amid the outrage over AIG bonuses. "It's just impossible to run our business in this environment," one exec told the Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin.

Sounds great.

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AIG

The Rise And Fall Of AIG's Financial Products Unit

Zachary Roth and Ben Buchwalter | March 20, 2009, 9:36AM

As we delve into the back-story behind the collapse of AIG, we thought it might be useful to lay out some key factual information about the firm's Financial Products unit, known as AIGFP, whose disastrous credit default swaps brought the company to its knees. How and when did AIG Financial Products get started? Who ran it, and from where? How did it get into credit default swaps, and what exactly are they, anyway? And how did this group of derivatives traders eventually wind up bringing down one of the most admired financial firms in the world?

So here's a rundown of some of the key developments in AIGFP's tumultuous history -- many gleaned from a superb three-part December 2008 Washington Post series on the unit (parts 1, 2, and 3):

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Bailout

Bailout IG: "Who Knew What, When, And Why" On AIG Bonuses?

Zachary Roth | March 19, 2009, 1:06PM

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the bailout, told Congress this morning that he'll probe the AIG bonuses -- including what role the Treasury Department played.

In words that may send a chill up Tim Geithner's spine with their invocation of Watergate, Barofsky, asked specifically by Republicans about the Treasury Secretary's role, said his probe would seek to find out "who knew what, when and why," in regard to the bonuses.

He continued:

Preliminary information we have seen indicates that the TARP contract between AIG and Treasury that was entered into back in November specifically contemplated the payment of bonuses and retention payments to AIG employees, including AIG's senior partners.

Barfosky added that he'd work with Justice Department, as well as the office of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is probing the bonuses, to look at ways that the money can be returned to taxpayers.

Bailout

Report: Citi To Spend Around $10 Million On New Office For Pandit, Others

Zachary Roth | March 19, 2009, 12:19PM

This should go down well.

Citigroup, which has gotten $45 billion in bailout money, plans to drop around $10 million on constructing new offices for CEO Vikram Pandit and other execs, Bloomberg reports, after examining documents filed with the New York City Department of Buildings.

It sounds like the new offices will be pretty sweet:

Plans and instructions for the bank's contractors, on file with the city, specify the installation of at least one Sub-Zero Inc. refrigerator and icemaker in the renovated space, along with "premium grade" millwork and Madico Inc. "Safety Shield 800" blast-proof window film. The project encompasses 17 private offices, each with space for administrative assistants, as well as two conference rooms and open areas with "soft seating," according to the plans.

Former Merrill CEO John Thain has been widely slammed for spending $1.2 million on a 2007 redecoration of his office suite - the same year his company suffered massive losses and needed to be rescued by Bank of America*.

As for Pandit, in January he canceled an order for a corporate jet after it drew outrage, and later told Congress:

I get the new reality and I'll make sure Citi gets it as well.

* This sentence has been corrected from an earlier version.

Maxine Waters

Letters Bolster Waters' Claim On Bank Conflict

Zachary Roth | March 13, 2009, 5:08PM

Rep. Maxine Waters is stepping up her campaign to show she took no inappropriate action on behalf of OneUnited bank.

Waters' office has released to TPM two letters sent by the National Bankers Association (NBA), a trade group for minority-owned banks, to the Treasury Department, in reference to a September 2008 meeting Waters had helped set up between NBA and Treasury. The letters appear to back Waters' contention that the meeting, at which OneUnited's CEO reportedly asked explicitly for bailout money, was not set up exclusively to help OneUnited, but rather on behalf of minority-ownded banks more broadly.

That doesn't contradict anything the New York Times reported, it's worth noting. But it does appear to bolster Waters' claim, made in a statement she put out earlier today, that she wasn't looking out for OneUnited's interests above those of other minority-owned banks. Waters has long been an advocate in Congress for minority-owned banks.

Waters also released a 2007 document showing that she disclosed her ties to OneUnited -- her husband had previously served on the board, and owned stock -- before questioning witnesses at a House hearing on minority-owned banks.

It seems clear that Waters should have disclosed those ties again when she set up the 200 meeting. But it also appears that that meeting, which Waters has said she didn't attend, was arranged on behalf of minority banks broadly, not as a way to benefit OneUnited.

Given the general level of greed and hypocrisy we've seen in regard to the bailout, this looks at this point like a minor misstep.

Maxine Waters

Waters: I Didn't Take Improper Action For Bank

Zachary Roth | March 13, 2009, 2:15PM

Yesterday we noted a report by the New York Times about Rep. Maxine Waters' ties to OneUnited, a bank that got bailout money after Waters set up a meeting between Treasury Department officials and the heads of minority-owned banks, including OneUnited's CEO.

Now Waters is pushing back.

In a statement on her website, Waters asserts that the stories "revealed one thing: I am indeed an advocate for minority banks. Despite my public and consistent advocacy, news reports suggest that somehow I have acted improperly."

The full statement follows after the jump...

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Bank of America

B of A: We Care About Privacy (When It Comes To Bonuses, That Is)

Zachary Roth | March 13, 2009, 11:47AM

The judge who will decide whether information about those Merrill Lynch bonuses should be made public has said he'll make a decision within the week, Bloomberg reports.

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating the bonus awards, which reportedly total $3-4 billion. Bank of America, which now owns Merrill Lynch, has refused to disclose to Cuomo which Merrill employees received the awards, and how much each got.

But we particularly liked this argument from B of A's lawyer, Evan Davis, made to Judge Bernard Fried:

Americans care about their privacy. That matters to us because if we don't try to protect it and succeed in protecting it we'll lose them to foreign banks.

Aah yes, Bank of America: famed protector of privacy. When the subject is executive bonuses, that may be true. When its customers' personal information, maybe not so much.

Maxine Waters

Report: Waters Set Up Treasury Meeting For Bank She Had Ties To

Zachary Roth | March 12, 2009, 5:56PM

This doesn't look good....

The New York Times reports that last September, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) set up a meeting with Treasury Department bank regulators for several minority-owned banks, including OneUnited, one of the nation's largest black-owned banks. At the meeting, OneUnited's CEO, Kevin Cohee, bluntly asked the officials for $50 million in bailout money.

But what Waters didn't disclose was that her husband, Stanley Williams, had served on the bank's board of directors until early 2008, and has owned at least $250,000 in stock in the bank. Treasury learned that fact only later.

One official told the Times:

"It angers me. You got to know you have to be careful when you are dealing with people who you have personal relations with.

In the end, OneUnited didn't get that $50 million, but it did get $12 million in TARP funds, becoming the first minority owned bank to cash in through the program.

This is hardly the first allegation against OneUnited. Adds the Times:

[I]t had been harshly criticized by regulators in 2007 for failing to give a sufficient number of loans to lower income residents in Miami, while favoring wealthier customers there.

And:

[T]he F.D.I.C. sanctioned the institution in October 2008 for "unsafe or unsound banking practices," including excessive compensation for Mr. Cohee. The bank had provided him with a 2008 Porsche SUV and maintained his $6.4 million beachfront compound in Santa Monica. Calif., with views of the Pacific and a spa and pool.

For his part, Cohee suggested to the Times that race is at the heart of the issue. "This is where the race issue comes in," he said.

The Wall Street Journal detailed some of the ties between Waters, who sits on the House Financial Services committee, and OneUnited, in a report (sub. req.) published earlier today.

Bailout

Congress Probing Merrill For Obstructing Bonus Investigation

Zachary Roth | March 12, 2009, 1:44PM

The House Oversight Committee has launched an investigation into whether Merrill Lynch misled it when the firm told the committee, in a letter sent last November, that no decisions had been made on bonuses.

As we noted earlier today, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who is probing the bonuses, included the letter, dated November 24, in court filings made yesterday. Cuomo also included testimony from a Merrill director, saying that the firm decided November 11th to award bonuses that December. Cuomo, who is trying to persuade a judge to compel Bank of America to disclose information on the bonuses, suggested that the testimony implies Merrill's letter was designed to mislead the committee, which was conducting its own invesitgation of the bonuses, and was chaired at the time by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA).

Congress rarely takes kindly to being misled, and this appears to be no exception. The committee's current chair, Rep. Ed Towns (D-NY), today issued a statement asserting that the Cuomo filings "raise the disturbing possibility that Merrill Lynch executives may have obstructed this Committee's investigation," and adding that Towns had directed committee lawyers to begin a "detailed investigation of this allegation."

Lying to a Congressional investigation, even in a letter, could potentially lead to perjury charges. There's an important difference between misleading and lying, however, and neither Cuomo nor Towns have accused Merrill of the latter.

Still, things are getting interesting...

The full statement from Towns follows after the jump ...

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Andrew Cuomo

Cuomo: Merrill Misled Congress On Bonuses

Zachary Roth | March 12, 2009, 11:18AM

It looks like Andrew Cuomo has escalated things in the Merrill Lynch bonus probe.

Cuomo is now accusing the firm of misleading Congress on the matter. In a court filing made yesterday, according to the Wall Street Journal, Cuomo included a November 24th letter, sent by Merrill to a House oversight committee, assuring lawmakers that no decisions on yearly bonuses had yet been made. Cuomo also filed testimony from a Merrill director, saying that on November 11th, the firm's compensation committee had decided that Merrill would pay bonuses in December, rather than January, when bonuses were usually paid (and when the firm would be under the control of Bank of America.)

Cuomo is trying to convince a judge to force Bank of America to disclose information about who got the bonuses -- which the company has so far been refusing to do.

The House Oversight committee, chaired at the time by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), had asked Merrill for information on the bonuses, as part of an effort to ensure that the firm wasn't using bailout money for compensation.

There's another interesting nugget in the Journal's report:

Mr. Cuomo also disclosed that John Thain, Merrill's chairman and chief executive, was told that he would lose any chance of succeeding Kenneth Lewis as CEO of Bank of America if Mr. Thain kept pressing Merrill directors last fall for a 2008 bonus of as much as $40 million.

"He was told very strongly that you should not do that; that you would damage yourself with the Bank of America board if you do that, and if you ever wanted a chance to be in the running for my job, then that would eliminate it," Mr. Lewis said in his testimony last month, according to the filing.

Thain soon lost his chance to succeed Lewis anyway, as he was ousted in mid January amid anger over the bonuses and Merrill's massive fourth quarter losses.

AIG

Warren: Is AIG Bailout Money Going To Pay Off "Speculators"?

Zachary Roth | March 11, 2009, 12:31PM

Looks like you can add Elizabeth Warren to the growing list of people who want the federal government to tell us more about that latest AIG bailout.

Warren, who chairs the panel that's monitoring bailout spending on behalf of Congress, went on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show last night, and all but demanded more disclosure from Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

Maddow raised the fact that AIG has reportedly passed bailout money onto its counterparties on those credit default swaps, and that it currently has four PR firms on its payroll. In response, Warren, appearing perhaps more frustrated than in any of her other numerous media appearances over the last few most, responded:

It doesn't seem strange to me, and the fact that it doesn't seem strange to me tells you something really awful about what it's been like to be in Washington for the last few months.

These financial institutions have figured out that they're bleeding red ink, and their best solution is to persuade the Treasury Department to give them lots of money. And when the Treasury Department starts to say, there may be some problems here, the American people don't want to go along with this, then lets see if we can spin the American people on it.

The Treasury Department has not asked for the critical information about where this money has gone, from AIG. We've poured the money into AIG, and it has somehow poured it out the other end. The Treasury Department has not asked, and has not revealed, what it is that's happening with that money.

And so as long as that's the case, maybe some of the money is going to other financial institutions. Maybe some of the money is going to pay off these credit default swaps that are essential for saving other institutions that have counted on it for credit and insurance. And maybe some of where this money is going is just off to speculators, who just played the game of speculation, and would now like to collect a hundred cents on the dollar form their speculations, and collect it indirectly from the American taxpayer.

You can see the video here. (The excerpt quoted above begins around the 9:00 mark.)

The Federal Reserve, which has been at the center of the latest AIG bailout, has declined to reveal much information about the maneuver, including the identity of AIG's counterparties, saying that doing so could affect confidence in the institutions at issue.

Reports by Warren's panel have grown increasingly critical of Treasury's level of transparency and accountability in regard to the bailout.

AIG

AIG Counter-Party List Is Heavy On Foreign Banks

Zachary Roth | March 9, 2009, 11:11AM

Last week, we rounded up some reports from last fall that named some of the banks that AIG did business with on those credit-default swaps -- and therefore offered a first pass at where the fallen insurance behemoth's latest round of bailout money might ultimately be going.

But over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal offered some updated reporting (sub. req.) on that score. It obtained a confidential document listing banks that have been paid a total of roughly $50 billion by AIG, since it was first bailed out last fall.

Here's the Journal's list:

* Goldman Sachs
* Deutsche Bank
* Merrill Lynch
* Société Générale
* Calyon
* Barclays
* Rabobank
* Danske
* HSBC
* Royal Bank of Scotland
* Banco Santander
* Morgan Stanley
* Wachovia
* Bank of America
* Lloyds Banking Group

That includes $6 billion each for Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank.

As you can see, there's some overlap there with what we told you the Journal and the New York Times had previously reported.

But the new list shows how many of AIG's counter-parties were European -- a fact that's likely to add to frustration, among members of Congress and the public, that US taxpayer dollars are ultimately being used to save foreign banks from the consequences of their disastrous decisions to do credit default swaps with AIG. It's also likely to further fuel congressional demands that the federal government identify all of AIG's trading partners.

AIG

Who Are The AIG Counterparties? Here Are Some...

Zachary Roth | March 5, 2009, 4:58PM

Over at TPM, Josh has been doggedly highlighting the refusal of both AIG and the federal government to reveal the identity of AIG's counter-parties in its disastrous credit default swaps. And several lawmakers have in recent days pressed Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke on the issue.

The question matters, of course, because AIG needed to make its most recent multi-billion dollar trip back to the public trough (that's over $160 billion in all for AIG, if you're counting) in order to pay back its creditors on those disastrous swaps -- and thereby, we're told, prevent a wider financial collapse. So identifying who those swaps were made with will tell us, in effect, who this latest portion of our money is ultimately going to.

It's worth noting, then, that, thanks to some great reporting from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, we do in fact have some preliminary information about who AIG's partners were on the swaps.

This Journal story from October 2008 names the following nine American and foreign banks as having bought swaps from AIG: Goldman Sachs; Merrill Lynch; UBS of Switzerland; Credit Agricole SA of France; Deutsche Bank of Germany; Barclays, and Royal Bank of Scotland Group, of Britain; and CIBC, and Bank of Montreal, of Canada.

Merrill is described by the Journal as a "big client" of the AIG unit that did the swaps.

By the end of 2007, with the value of the underlying assets plummeting, many of these banks had asked for collateral on the swaps, according to the Journal.

For instance, the paper reports that Goldman held swaps that insured about $20 billion of securities. In August 2007, Goldman demanded $1.5 billion in collateral from AIG. It ultimately got $450 million, then another $1.5 billion last October. At that point, says the Journal:

Goldman hedged its exposure by making a bearish bet on AIG, buying credit-default swaps on AIG's own debt.

That picture of Goldman's exposure jibes with a New York Times story from September 2008 about the credit default swaps, which reported that Goldman was AIG's "largest trading partner," and likewise gave a figure of $20 billion for Goldman's exposure to AIG.

The Times also implicates another domestic firm: JP Morgan (now JP Morgan Chase). In fact, it recounts that it was derivatives traders from that company that a decade ago, first brought to AIG's London-based financial products unit, run by Joseph Cassano, the ill-fated idea of doing credit default swaps.

It reports:

Ten years ago, a "watershed" moment changed the profile of the derivatives that Mr. Cassano traded, according to a transcript of comments he made at an industry event last year. Derivatives specialists from J. P. Morgan, a leading bank that had many dealings with Mr. Cassano's unit, came calling with a novel idea.

Morgan proposed the following: A.I.G. should try writing insurance on packages of debt known as "collateralized debt obligations." C.D.O.'s. were pools of loans sliced into tranches and sold to investors based on the credit quality of the underlying securities.

It's not 100 percent clear, then, that JP Morgan Chase is a current counter-party of AIG on the swaps -- but it certainly wouldn't be surprising.

That same Times story offers another hint, albeit a vague one, about the identity of the counter-parties.

While clients and counterparties remain closely guarded secrets in the derivatives trade, Mr. Cassano talked publicly about how proud he was of his customer list.

At the 2007 conference he noted that his company worked with a "global swath" of top-notch entities that included "banks and investment banks, pension funds, endowments, foundations, insurance companies, hedge funds, money managers, high-net-worth individuals, municipalities and sovereigns and supranationals."

What to make of all this? Well, here's one thing. As Josh has noted, the usual argument given against disclosing the identities of the counter-parties is that it would reduce public confidence in the banks that were named, with potentially disastrous consequences for their positions. But there's little evidence we're aware of that any of the banks named above suffered such an effect when, for instance, the Journal and the Times published their stories -- whose accuracy have not been questioned.

In fact, Geithner and Bernanke haven't deigned to explain their position in even this much detail -- so it's difficult to know whether there are factors we're not considering. But in the absence of a fuller explanation, we'll keep pressing...

John Sununu

Sununu: New Board Membership Doesn't Conflict With TARP Oversight Work

Zachary Roth | March 3, 2009, 10:51AM

John Sununu has denied the charge that he has a conflict of interest in regard to his work on the Congressional Oversight Panel for the TARP funds.

Over the weekend, we reported that the former New Hampshire GOP senator has joined the board of a firm that's an affiliate of Bank of New York Mellon -- which, in addition to receiving bailout funds itself, has contracted with the Treasury Department to help administer the program.

Yesterday, the Associated Press picked up the story, and got a response out of Sununu.

"ConvergEx Group is an independent company," Sununu said in an e-mail Monday. "It is not eligible to apply for or receive funds through any programs established under TARP." He pointed out that the bank "holds a minority position only" with ConvergEx.

That's a 33.8 percent stake to be exact, the AP reports. Not enough for Bank of New York to control ConvergeEx, but perhaps enough so that ConvergeEx's interests are at least somewhat affected by the TARP program.

Separately, a spokeswoman for the COP told TPMmuckraker that the panel has not yet formally addressed the issue, since it not met since Sununu's appointment to ConvergeEx's board was announced last week. We'll keep you posted if and when it does.