An Ig Nobel relationship is disclosed in today’s edition of The New York Times. In a report headlined “Goldman Sachs and the $580 Million Black Hole“, the newspaper tells about a dance done several years ago between two eminent corporations: Lernaut & Hauspie, and Goldman Sachs. The leaders of both corporation shared Ig Nobel Prizes in economics, though in different years. The Times says:
And yet, even today what happened next to the Bakers seems remarkable. With Goldman Sachs on the job, the corporate takeover of Dragon Systems in an all-stock deal went terribly wrong. Goldman collected millions of dollars in fees — and the Bakers lost everything when Lernout & Hauspie was revealed to be a spectacular fraud. L.& H. had been founded by Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspie, who had once been hailed as stars of the 1990s tech boom. Only later did the Bakers learn that Goldman Sachs itself had at one point considered investing in L.& H. but had walked away after some digging into the company.
This being Wall Street, a lot of money is now at stake….
Here’s the story on those Ig Nobel Prizes:
The 2002 Ig Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to the executives, corporate directors, and auditors of Enron, Lernaut & Hauspie, Adelphia, Bank of Commerce and Credit International, Cendant, CMS Energy, Duke Energy, Dynegy, Gazprom, Global Crossing, HIH Insurance, Informix, Kmart, Maxwell Communications, McKessonHBOC, Merrill Lynch, Merck, Peregrine Systems, Qwest Communications, Reliant Resources, Rent-Way, Rite Aid, Sunbeam, Tyco, Waste Management, WorldCom, Xerox, and Arthur Andersen, for adapting the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers for use in the business world.
The 2010 Ig Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to the executives and directors of Goldman Sachs, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Magnetar for creating and promoting new ways to invest money — ways that maximize financial gain and minimize financial risk for the world economy, or for a portion thereof.