It’s more than that. He was also the Controller. If he is like most Controllers, the poor bastard ran the “wire room”. He not only knew where the bodies were buried, but he also had their names and a map. It’s not that he was about to find anything, he was in a position to already have known. He was there for 16 years. Some people might speculate that his negotiations with the Board and his Government handlers didn’t go very well. They’d further postulate that he may have asked for some guarantees. The mere notion that you’d be willing to discuss “outing” anybody in lieu of security when the stakes are that high and at that level would seal your fate, if true.
This should send a powerful msg to CFO’s and Controllers in the banking system. I’d expect the markets to fall significantly today.
Meanwhile I’ll bet that this poor bastard shot himself with a famed “saturday night special”. Where would a major senior officer of any major institution of any kind even get one of those things? Who knows? Right?
How un-suicide like if it’s true.
Everytime the Government is to be exposed in a major corruption scandal, some poor CFO/Controller buys the farm with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Remember CFO Baxter of Enron? Didn’t he shoot himself in the back of his own head while sitting in his car? I think I read that. There was another big gas company CFO/Controller type that ate a bullet at that time too. How strange, right?
If I were a controller at any “soon-to-be-government-owned” investment bank on Wall Street, I’d leave the country and document EVERYTHING that they know and hand it off not to just one attorney, but to ten. Assume a new ID.
Unfortunately, they’d probably still find them and then OOPS!, another CFO bites a bullet by his own hand.
May sound kooky, but I’ll bet more than one CFO or Controller soiled himself this morning when he heard the news.
Last month Freddie Mac controversially paid 92 staff $100,000 or more in return for staying with the lender while it dug its way out of financial trouble. Mr Kellermann received $850,000 as part of the scheme.
The payments incensed politicians, who were already furious over a $165 million bonus handout at AIG, the insurer that owes US taxpayers $80 billion.
Congressmen pointed to the $108 billion loss made by Freddie Mac and its partner company, Fannie Mae, last year.