It's like winning the lottery – if the jackpot was a crippling margin call, a spiteful divorce and an inexplicable flesh-eating virus. Being spotted by this column out on the tiles in a foreign country is cruel and unusual punishment. But were such misfortune to befall anyone, the most deserving surely would be a travelling circus from Goldmans Sachs Australia!
Australian chief Simon Rothery was burning the midnight oil at Robert De Niro's Greenwich Hotel in TriBeCa one night last week during the Wall Street giant's annual partners' global conference. Goldies' HQ is just seven blocks south on the Hudson River and right alongside the renewed World Trade Centre precinct (including Frank Lowy's latest and greatest Westfield). No sign of Rothery's other partners, Christian Johnston and Nick Sims. Must've been an equities thing.
Because Rothery held court in the drawing room with his top securities traders, one of whom was carrying on like a real-life version of The Morgana Show's satirical banker ("Tanya's at home with the kids, where she should be") forcing his mortified countrymen in the room to abruptly adopt Kiwi accents. Hey, we can all get overexcited in the big city…
