Bob hetzer paine webber series#

He'd gone with the widow of one of his deceased partners. Earlier in the day Dunne had made his first visit to ground zero. In a cramped cubicle a partner and his secretary have removed the arms from their chairs to give them enough room to share a desk.Īs Dunne walks into his office, a colleague stops him and asks him that question.

In a conference room down the hall, 12 people are sharing one table they've dubbed themselves the Knights of the Round Table. The others-the ones being used by Sandler O'Neill-have two or three people sandwiched around one desk. Some are still being used by Banc of America employees, one to an office. On the wall above the bond desk is an American flag, and under that, in handwritten block letters, is a sign that reads: 'Our Little Big Firm.' A salesman named Joel Comer has actually become a bond trader-as he must, since all of the firm's bond traders were killed in the attack. In recent years buying and selling bonds has generated as much as 40% of Sandler's revenues it's critical for the firm to have a functioning bond desk, even in its battered state.

Bob hetzer paine webber series#

On his left are a series of secretarial cubicles Sandler is using this space as its 'bond desk.' In this crowded area, bond salesmen are jostling for space, shouting out prices. The dates, one quickly realizes, mark the days when funerals will take place the purpose of this makeshift calendar is to ensure that at least one of Sandler's remaining 22 partners will attend each of Sandler's 66 funerals.ĭunne makes a quick turn and strides down a hallway. Dunne III, I'm sorry for what happened to your company,' reads one from a Bronx sixth-grader), and, most prominent of all, a large matrix in which are written the names of both the living and the dead-as well as a series of dates. Behind the man, taped to a large glass conference room wall, are memorials to the deceased-photographs of dead Sandler employees, letters and drawings from well-wishers ('Dear Mr. As he walks into the reception area, he nods at a man sitting there-a Sandler banker who is using the area as his office. It's not much more than a quarter of a floor, and of course it has nowhere near the breathtaking views of Sandler's old WTC headquarters. 11 quarters, temporary space donated to the firm by Banc of America. The midtown office Dunne has just entered is Sandler O'Neill's post-Sept.

Now, as the sole surviving senior partner, he has made it his mission to make Sandler O'Neill whole again his every waking hour is devoted to the enormous struggle of rebuilding his decimated firm. The 45-year-old Dunne, who had been the third member of the ruling troika, was close to both men-Sandler had been his mentor and Quackenbush his best friend. Out of 171 total employees, 66 died that awful morning, including two of the three people who ran the firm: name partner Herman Sandler and investment-banking head Chris Quackenbush. Dunne's small Wall Street firm, Sandler O'Neill & Partners, used to have its headquarters on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center, and it was among the hardest-hit by the Sept. Except it's more serious than that you can sense immediately there's more at stake. His demeanor-the sense of purpose in his stride, the unblinking focus in his eyes-conveys the kind of fierce intensity you might associate with a concert pianist playing Rachmaninoff's Third. On a bright mid-October afternoon, Jimmy Dunne III gets out of an elevator on the 19th floor of a New York City skyscraper, marches through a set of generic glass doors, and heads into a small office overflowing with people. (FORTUNE Magazine) – 'How was it, Jimmy?'