Reporter hears hedge fund manager confess to priest

April 12, 2010 | By Jim Kim

Here's another interesting story from the PR front (PR news). You never know how an enterprising reporter is going to come up with a scoop. For a Reuters reporter, a big one landed in his lap while he was waiting for a pizza.

He writes, "I happened to overhear a Boston hedge fund (hedge fund news) manager and a female companion conferring with a priest. Tucked into a corner booth at Not Your Average Joe's restaurant, the manager spoke loudly and passionately about his predicament. The manager told the priest he had received information about some hot stocks from 'Danielle' and traded on it. But he got caught because federal authorities were taping the phone calls." The reporter goes on to speculate that Danielle was none other than Danielle Chiesi (Danielle Chiesi news).

He also notes, "One of five known cooperating witnesses in the Galleon case (Galleon Group news), Steven Fortuna, a co-founder of S2 Capital who pleaded guilty last fall to securities fraud charges, lives near Boston in Westwood, one town over from Needham," where the restaurant was. Now, if the man wasn't Fortuna, it will be interesting to read the retraction. I hope anyone who engaged in wrong-doing is justly punished, but there's a PR lesson here for executives: Keep it quiet if you have to discuss sensitive issues in public.

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