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American Morning
'Minding Your Business'
Aired January 21, 2004 - 07:26 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: A little business news now. The latest revelations about a disgraced CEO and the wireless wars are heating up.
Andy Serwer has got those stories this morning, minding your business.
We will talk about AT&T in a minute. But this other stuff is amazing.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: It really is, Heidi.
We're talking about the trial of Dennis Kozlowski across town. Everyone's talking about the Martha Stewart trial. This is a trial where investors really got hurt. We're talking about Tyco, a remarkable story yesterday. Testimony coming out of this trial concerning a Merrill Lynch analyst, a former Merrill Lynch analyst, Phua Young, and his relationship with Dennis Kozlowski, the ex-CEO of Tyco.
He's already embattled because investigators have been looking into his relationship with Kozlowski being too close. They exchanged cases of wine and champagne. Talk about tainted research. But get this. Apparently this analyst fell for a Singapore Airlines stewardess and wanted to check her out, had the company check out and investigate this stewardess and pay for it. Kroll & Associates investigated this woman's background, pregnancy, drug use, previous marriages.
I've never, I mean conflict of interest doesn't begin to describe this. It's sordid, sordid stuff. So clearly a...
COLLINS: But he married her.
SERWER: He did. He made an honest woman of her, if that's some sort of solace here for investors. I don't think it is.
COLLINS: Right.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Something Gordon Geckoesque (ph) about it, isn't there?
SERWER: Yes. Greed is good, wasn't that what he used to say, Jack?
CAFFERTY: That's what he said.
COLLINS:
SERWER: We want to talk about AT&T Wireless very quickly, a big story on Wall Street this morning.
COLLINS: Right.
SERWER: It looks like this company is, in fact, up on the block, according to published reports. This is an industry ripe for consolidation, a lot of possible bidders here, including Cingular Wireless, NTT, DoCoMo, Nextel, T-Mobile and Vodafone. You can see there. So that'll be one we'll be watching.
COLLINS: Yes, absolutely.
All right, Andy, thanks so much.
SERWER: You're welcome.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired January 21, 2004 - 07:26 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: A little business news now. The latest revelations about a disgraced CEO and the wireless wars are heating up.
Andy Serwer has got those stories this morning, minding your business.
We will talk about AT&T in a minute. But this other stuff is amazing.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: It really is, Heidi.
We're talking about the trial of Dennis Kozlowski across town. Everyone's talking about the Martha Stewart trial. This is a trial where investors really got hurt. We're talking about Tyco, a remarkable story yesterday. Testimony coming out of this trial concerning a Merrill Lynch analyst, a former Merrill Lynch analyst, Phua Young, and his relationship with Dennis Kozlowski, the ex-CEO of Tyco.
He's already embattled because investigators have been looking into his relationship with Kozlowski being too close. They exchanged cases of wine and champagne. Talk about tainted research. But get this. Apparently this analyst fell for a Singapore Airlines stewardess and wanted to check her out, had the company check out and investigate this stewardess and pay for it. Kroll & Associates investigated this woman's background, pregnancy, drug use, previous marriages.
I've never, I mean conflict of interest doesn't begin to describe this. It's sordid, sordid stuff. So clearly a...
COLLINS: But he married her.
SERWER: He did. He made an honest woman of her, if that's some sort of solace here for investors. I don't think it is.
COLLINS: Right.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Something Gordon Geckoesque (ph) about it, isn't there?
SERWER: Yes. Greed is good, wasn't that what he used to say, Jack?
CAFFERTY: That's what he said.
COLLINS:
SERWER: We want to talk about AT&T Wireless very quickly, a big story on Wall Street this morning.
COLLINS: Right.
SERWER: It looks like this company is, in fact, up on the block, according to published reports. This is an industry ripe for consolidation, a lot of possible bidders here, including Cingular Wireless, NTT, DoCoMo, Nextel, T-Mobile and Vodafone. You can see there. So that'll be one we'll be watching.
COLLINS: Yes, absolutely.
All right, Andy, thanks so much.
SERWER: You're welcome.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
