The real outrage, by some accounts, is that the ghost of Dick Grasso is still haunting the New York Stock Exchange.
While Grasso dug in his heels yesterday for a battle with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer over a disputed $139.5 million paycheck sitting in Grasso’s bank account, Wall Street endured yet another day of Grasso-itis.
Some giants of investment banking were privately sympathetic with Grasso’s profiteering, while others grew increasingly annoyed by Grasso’s deceptions to bloat his cash-out package.
NYSE member John Jakobson said the scandalous new revelations are “positive, because we’re finally beginning to understand how deep this goes and how much of an interlocking relationship there was with Grasso calling the shots on his compensation. . . . It seems Grasso managed everything.”
Other big players were more muted. “People are tired of this,” said one person who had discussed the suit with members on the floor. “Everyone is tired of everything Grasso.”
Some lower-paid staffers at the NYSE tended to be on Grasso’s side, including two $30,000-a-year maintenance workers contracted to clean the landmark building and its environs.
A middle-aged maintenance worker, leaning on his broom, believed Grasso should fight for every dollar: “He should keep it. He should keep it all. He’s got it, it’s his.”
His young co-worker nodded agreement. “Yeah, keep it. This place is for making money, you know. You keep it.”
Higher up the employee pecking order, compromise seemed to rule.
“If he just gives back a third of it, he could get this behind him and the thing would settle down,” said one floor specialist who asked to remain unidentified.
He agreed to talk about the new mood at the NYSE only after walking some distance up Nassau Street and around a corner, away from the surveillance cameras at the NYSE.
“A lot of people think he took too much. He took money that should have gone to raises; they didn’t get raises here for a long time,” he said of some of his subordinates and support staff at the exchange.
“There’s some unhappy people here, but nobody talks about it,” he added. “Nobody is supposed to talk to the press.”
Other employees with ID tags showing higher levels of building access said Grasso’s influence will remain at the NYSE for years.
“He’s still here. He’s got a lot of allies and friends,” said one well-dressed NYSE member. “He can still affect people.”
He suggested that Grasso, through his decades-old clique of Wall Streeters, still wields economic influence on member employees and NYSE employees, especially since deferred compensation and professional relationships are always “subject to change.”