Jack Benjamin Grubman was a former managing director of Salomon Smith Barney and the lead research analyst for telecommunications sector.
He was born in northeast Philadelphia Pennsylvania to Izzy and Mildred Grubman. His father worked for the state Highway Department, while his mother worked in a department store. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics (cum laude), from Boston University and a master's degree in probability theory from Columbia.[1]
He is married and has twin girls.[2]
In 1977, he started work at AT&T. In 1985, he moved to PaineWebber. By 1994, he was making a million dollars a year and moved to Salomon which then became Salomon Smith Barney. During this period, he was the most important analyst of the telecommunications industry during a time of great upward activity in the sector.
The sector reached a peak by 2001, however Grubman still made public statements calling for investors to buy. In March 2001, he listed ten stocks in the sector to buy a year later five were selling for less than a dollar a share.[3] It was his activities during these years that led him into legal problems.[4]
The commission found that from 1999 to 2001, Grubman had issued research reports and other documents that concealed material facts and which mislead investors.[5] During this time, he was probably the highest-paid analyst on Wall Street at about twenty million dollars a year.[6]
In 1999, he upgraded his opinion of AT&T stock from “neutral” to “buy.” In a 2001 e-mail, Grubman explained the change was part of a scheme to get his daughter into 92nd Street YMCA’s preschool program.[7]
Grubman was advising both telecoms firms such as Global Crossing and investors at the same time.[8] In April, 2003, the Security and Exchange Commission banned Grubman from financial industry for life for misconduct. Grubman was also required to pay a fifteen million dollar fine.[9] According to an article in Forbes, Grubman had a net worth of about fifty million dollars after paying the fine.[10]
In 2004, he was hired by Distinctive Devices as a consultant, a move that increased the stock price of the firm.[11]
As of August, 2011, he was a managing partner at the Magee Group.[12]