Housing Maven
Ivy Zelman overlapped with me at Salomon Brothers. She has written a short autobiography discussing her improbable rise in male dominated Wall Street and the complications that arose with her being a mom for her three children. In many respects her autobiography has much in common with national security professional Fiona Hill’s, a book that I recently reviewed. (Shulmaven: My Amazon Review of Fiona Hill's "There is Nothing for You Here")
Ivy was a scrappy kid from suburban Long Island who
after a short stint at New York’s Baruch College, she ended up graduating from
northern Virginia’s George Mason University with a degree in accounting. This
was and is hardly the profile for a starting analyst on Wall Street, yet Ivy
talked her way into Salomon Brothers investment banking. After being harassed
in the transportation group at Salomon she ends up in the research department
where there was an open position for covering the homebuilding industry. She
was an unlikely hire, but with Salomon in the midst of its treasury scandal,
internal opportunities opened up.
From 1993 to 1997 she rose from being a nonentity to
being ranked Number 2 by the all-important Institutional Investor survey.
However, with Salamon’s merger with Travelers and its Smith Barney subsidiary
she was fired because the Smith Barney homebuilding analyst was ranked Number
1. I too left Salomon that year for a
hedge fund. Ivy quickly found a home at Credit Suisse and was treated like a
star and was quickly ranked Number 1 in the survey.
While there she understood better than almost everyone
that the asbestos litigation was going to destroy such building products
companies as U.S. Gypsum and Owens Corning. By then she had picked up coverage
of that industry. She later made the biggest call of her life in 2004 turning
bearish on the homebuilders accurately foreseeing the debacle to come. However,
she was early and was subject much ridicule as the stocks ripped higher in her
face. She lost her Number 1 ranking and many in the industry called he “Poison
Ivy.” Her conviction was based on the fact that she developed a coterie of
private homebuilders who were far more candid than the public homebuilders she
covered.
Along the way she married her husband David who was a
salesperson at Salomon. David talked her into moving to Cleveland and she
received the blessing of Credit Suisse to make the move. In the Cleveland
suburbs they quickly had three children. Believe me having three children and a
Wall Street travel schedule is no easy task.
In late 2006 she breaks with Credit Suisse to form
Zelman and Associates to better monetize her contacts and her still very strong
franchise value. Remember she does this with three small children under the age
of seven. In a way it was perfect timing as the housing boom began to unwind
with vengeance. Within the year because of her prescience, her views were
thought out by lenders, the entire mortgage securities industry and government.
While basking in her new prestige she was stricken
with breast cancer that required a double mastectomy and many subsequent
surgeries. Nevertheless, she plowed on with the support of family and a host of
friends. Her book brings how caring and curious person she is. She has
friendships ranging from CEOs to secretaries to drivers.
This is a short and easy book to read, but do not
mistake it for a work of literature. I may too close to it, but there is much
to be learned in her book. I am going to give it to my youngest daughter who
works for a major securities firm.
For the full Amazon URL see:
Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Gimme Shelter: Hard Calls + Soft Skills From A Wall Street Trailblazer
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