A song Fabrice Tourre wrote just prior to the financial crisis was featured in the trial of the former Goldman Sachs executive Thursday.
In a 2007 email to his then girlfriend Marine Serres, who worked in sales in Goldman's London office, Tourre described a difficult time for his unit, in the form of an adaptation of lyrics from a French song.
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In translation:
In the trading room
A few of us
Were looking for glory
Although we were sad
To have an empty P&L
We could not help but keep hoping
And when a few clients
Took a credit-linked note
In exchange of a good fresh P&L
We narrated verses
Gathered around the stove
Forgetting about the crisis.
Lawyers for the Securities and Exchange Commission showed the jury the song in an effort to show that even as Tourre was working on the Abacus deal—a complex security linked to subprime mortgage bonds—he was privately aware that the subprime market was in trouble.
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When the SEC lawyer initially described it as a poem, Tourre corrected him.