Anybody read this interview with Ethan Penner?

This morning, I was reading this 35 page long article/interview with Ethan Penner- a guy who could be credited with creating the CMBS industry. It was absolutely fascinating. Link to the interview http://www.c-loans.com/pre_joomla/ethan_penner_in…

Some snippets

When he was 22 years old making $30K a year, during an interview on Wall Street, he was told"You can’t see this right now, but this job will lead you to a Wall Street career that will make you wealthy beyond your wildest imagination"

When he was 26 after spending two years as a trader, during an interview with Morgan Stanley, he said “Well, I need a two-year guarantee because I have not gotten this year’s bonus at Drexel, so you need to pay me at least that much. Then next year, I need to be covered too.” And damned if they didn’t say “fine.” They said, “What’s the number?” I thought for a moment and I said, “900 grand.” This was for 15 months. When I said it, honestly, I chuckled because it was so absurd, right? I threw out a number that was so high that it made me just laugh to think that someone would ever pay me that figure at that stage of my career. And …? And they said “fine.”

Now, I’m out in San Francisco in the financial district working at little, barely known Magellan Financial. But Steve Kantor, who was head of real estate at Paine Webber and knew me from my Drexel days, called me at Magellan and said, “Look, this equity deal is all done. It’s ready to go.” This is now roughly September of 1992. “If we don’t get the debt side of this deal priced by Thanksgiving (because nothing gets done after thanksgiving)“we can’t do the equity deal. And we’ve really lost faith in Oppenheimer’s ability to get the deal done. They’ve been working with Teachers for four months and are going nowhere. Can you get involved? Could I hire Magellan Financial to do this deal?” I said to Steve, “Give me 24 hours and you’ll be done, this is a done deal.”

I said, “OK. Let me ask you a question. If I gave you the exact same deal that Key Bank has given you and I ceded those four points, would we have a deal?” They looked at each other and collectively said, “I guess.” Then I stuck out my hand and I said, “Congratulations. We’re done.” Bert looked at me in astonishment and said, “What do you mean?” I said, “We have a deal. You have those terms with the four points ceded to you.” He said, “Well, what’s the process? I mean, you have to go to committee. How long will it take?” I said, “No, no, no, no, no. I am the committee and I just made the commitment to you.” He looked at me like I was from another planet. Like, “What are you talking about?” He said, “Well, when will we have some documentation?” I said, “Well, if you let me use your phone, I’ll call my lawyer now and while I’m still here, I’ll have a commitment letter faxed to you and we can both sign it, here and now, within the next half hour.” Bert said, “A half hour?” I said, “Sure. We’ll just sit here and schmooze a little bit until we can get the letter back from the lawyers.” So I got on the phone, made the call and in a half hour, the documents were coming in over the fax"

What an absolute badass.