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The Wall Street FixFRONTLINE
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View the 53 minute program in five consecutive chapters.
Available in Windows Media and RealPlayer formats.

winner of

The 2002-03 National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary on a Business Topic

 read a synopsis of this program

Chapter One - The Rise of WorldCom - The early years of Bernie Ebbers' long distance service company, how it reached nearly $1 billion in sales within 10 years, and two major events that helped propel WorldCom into becoming America's hottest telecom stock. Chapter Two - Jack's World - In the 1990s Jack Grubman of Salomon Smith Barney personified a new type of Wall Street analyst who connected companies with banks, banks with corporate decision-makers. Grubman early on picked WorldCom as a favorite - and ended up giving it far more than just the spotlight. Chapter Three - Sandy Weill's Superbank - It took tough politics and the repeal of a landmark 1933 law for Weill to create Citigroup, the world's largest financial institution. But the superbank's new combined powers would mean Ebbers, WorldCom, Grubman and Citigroup would become troublingly intertwined.
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Chapter Four - The Grand Deception - Why telecom's hype had been a lie for several years...how analyst Jack Grubman was giving Ebbers guidance on WorldCom corporate strategyäand with its stock falling, how Citigroup came to WorldCom's rescue - despite telecom capacity glut, plummeting phone prices - selling the investing public $17 billion in WorldCom bonds. Chapter Five - Is Wall Street Fixed? - N.Y. State Att'y General Eliot Spitzer's investigation of investment banks finds widespread abuses; one celebrated case involves Citigroup and Sandy Weill. Eager to get the scandals behind them, the banks cut a deal. But many say the reforms won't work and the deal did little to repay investors.
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published may 8, 2003

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