Widower of Wall Street activist demands apology – Business News
Evelyn Y. Davis’ widower is demanding an apology from Lloyd Blankfein after the previous Goldman Sachs CEO slammed the shareholder activist’s e-newsletter as “expensive and worthless” in his new memoir.
James Patterson, the fourth and ultimate husband of the late Wall Street gadfly, ripped Blankfein for allegedly disrespecting Davis, who spent a long time confronting company energy — together with Blankfein himself.
“Blankfein made a disrespectful comment about my late wife,” Patterson wrote in an e mail to The Post.
Evelyn Y. Davis, the longtime shareholder activist identified for confronting CEOs at annual conferences. Corbis by way of Getty Images
Patterson famous that Blankfein’s e-book “Streetwise: Getting to and Through Goldman Sachs,” launched March 3 by Penguin Press, described Davis as a “relentless and ambitious” businesswoman.
“As her fourth husband, I agree with that assessment,” Patterson wrote, including that her persistence was exactly why many executives disliked her.
But he drew the road at Blankfein’s dismissal of her long-running e-newsletter, “Highlights and Lowlights,” which chronicled her encounters in company boardrooms and shareholder conferences.
“The gadflies I later had to deal with as CEO included rejected job applicants, socialist nuns, and Evelyn Davis, who was relentless, especially if you failed to subscribe to her expensive and worthless newsletter,” Blankfein wrote within the passage at situation.
Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein authored the memoir on the middle of the dispute. Bloomberg by way of Getty Images
Blankfein declined to remark when reached by The Post.
Davis, a Dutch Holocaust survivor and longtime shareholder activist, was a recurring presence at company annual conferences, together with Goldman’s, for many years. She died in 2018 on the age of 89.
At a 2011 Goldman Sachs annual assembly, she publicly known as on Blankfein to step down, accusing the firm of deceptive buyers during the subprime mortgage meltdown. Goldman paid $550 million to settle associated SEC costs the yr earlier than.
At one assembly, Davis mockingly dubbed Blankfein “Lord Goldmine” as she pressed him to resign.
Lloyd Blankfein’s memoir “Streetwise: Getting to and Through Goldman Sachs.” Penguin Press
Despite the barbs, the exchanges typically veered into unusual familiarity, with Davis mixing criticism with personal asides during the Q&A classes that grew to become must-watch moments for reporters overlaying Wall Street.
Patterson famous that in 2006, then-Goldman CEO Hank Paulson appeared on the duvet of the publication — proof, he argued, that the firm took Davis severely regardless of any public eye-rolling.
“Goldman Sachs subscribed to it for many years,” Patterson mentioned of the e-newsletter.
Davis is pictured proper with then-Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson on the duvet of her “Highlights and Lowlights” e-newsletter in 2006. Courtesy of James Patterson
Patterson mentioned Davis believed Blankfein didn’t take heed to shareholder issues following the financial disaster — a frustration she aired publicly when given the microphone.
Still, he pointed to a remark Blankfein himself made upon her retirement from attending conferences in 2012.
“When she retired in 2012, Blankfein said: ‘Without Evelyn, it [the annual meeting] just wasn’t the same,’” Patterson wrote.
Shareholder activist Evelyn Y. Davis spent a long time difficult Wall Street executives in public boards. Bloomberg by way of Getty Images
Now, Patterson is asking on the previous CEO to go additional.
“Blankfein owes Mrs. Davis an apology. I am waiting for it,” he wrote. “Her work was important.”
Davis used small stakes in main corporations to gain entry to annual conferences, the place she would submit shareholder proposals and confront executives straight.
Her activism stretched back to the Nineteen Fifties and targeted partially on pushing for larger inclusion of minority and feminine shareholders.
