Robert E Denham

Robert E. Denham, the lawyer tapped by billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett to help right Salomon Bros. after a devastating 1991 scandal, has returned to the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson. After a year as Salomon's chief counsel, Denham succeeded Buffett in 1992 as chairman and chief executive, a job he held until Salomon's $9-billion acquisition last year by Travelers Group Inc.--a transaction Denham helped to engineer.

Robert E. Denham, the lawyer tapped by billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett to help right Salomon Bros. after a devastating 1991 scandal, has returned to the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson. After a year as Salomon's chief counsel, Denham succeeded Buffett in 1992 as chairman and chief executive, a job he held until Salomon's $9-billion acquisition last year by Travelers Group Inc.--a transaction Denham helped to engineer.

Salomon Inc. on Wednesday named former Los Angeles attorney Robert E. Denham chairman and chief executive, replacing Warren E. Buffett, who stepped in to lead the firm last summer after a scandal threatened its survival. Denham, 46, was managing partner of the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson last August when Buffett recruited him to be general counsel of Salomon, whose Salomon Bros. investment-banking subsidiary had admitted fraud in its government-securities trading unit.

Salomon Inc. on Wednesday named former Los Angeles attorney Robert E. Denham chairman and chief executive, replacing Warren E. Buffett, who stepped in to lead the firm last summer after a scandal threatened its survival. Denham, 46, was managing partner of the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson last August when Buffett recruited him to be general counsel of Salomon, whose Salomon Bros. investment-banking subsidiary had admitted fraud in its government-securities trading unit.

In his lightning drive to bolster scandal-shocked Salomon Bros., the firm's new chairman, Warren E. Buffett, on Sunday named a respected Los Angeles attorney as Salomon's general counsel. Robert E. Denham, 45, managing partner of Munger, Tolles & Olson, will replace Donald M. Feuerstein, who was Salomon's chief legal officer until Buffett asked for his resignation Friday. "Bob was my first and only choice," Buffett said in a statement. The two men are hardly strangers.

The Salomon Bros. scandal has brought unaccustomed attention to the small, snooty and deservedly prestigious Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson. Billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett, now directing repairs at the wounded Wall Street firm, announced Sunday that he had recruited Robert Denham as the new general counsel for Salomon. Denham has been managing partner of Munger Tolles, founded in 1962 by seven lawyers, including current U.S. Trade Representative Carla Anderson Hills.

Warren E. Buffett, the Wizard of Omaha, wore them down as much as he wowed them when he met with analysts and institutional investors on Friday to sketch out Salomon Inc.'s road to recovery from last year's Treasury securities auction scandal. "I don't want you to leave this room with an unanswered question," Salomon's interim chairman said as he opened the 2 3/4-hour session.

Back in 1991, when the screaming about American executive pay reached its zenith, critics like me hammered away at two major problems: First, we claimed, CEO and other senior executive pay was too high; second, we pointed out, pay was relatively insensitive to corporate performance. Apparently deciding that solving both problems at once was too hard a job, the business community commenced working on the second problem: pay sensitivity.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's $15-billion budget plan headed for the March ballot Friday after an alliance with legislative Democrats allowed the governor to break a partisan deadlock and revive a proposal that had once appeared all but dead.

Travelers Group, bidding to become the world's premier financial-services conglomerate, said Wednesday that it would buy investment-banking powerhouse Salomon Brothers for more than $9 billion in stock. Salomon will be folded into Travelers' huge brokerage unit, Smith Barney Inc., to form the nation's second-largest securities firm, behind recently merged Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover & Co. but ahead of Merrill Lynch & Co. But Travelers, led by the wily Wall Street veteran Sanford I.

The Salomon Bros. scandal has brought unaccustomed attention to the small, snooty and deservedly prestigious Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson. Billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett, now directing repairs at the wounded Wall Street firm, announced Sunday that he had recruited Robert Denham as the new general counsel for Salomon. Denham has been managing partner of Munger Tolles, founded in 1962 by seven lawyers, including current U.S. Trade Representative Carla Anderson Hills.

In his lightning drive to bolster scandal-shocked Salomon Bros., the firm's new chairman, Warren E. Buffett, on Sunday named a respected Los Angeles attorney as Salomon's general counsel. Robert E. Denham, 45, managing partner of Munger, Tolles & Olson, will replace Donald M. Feuerstein, who was Salomon's chief legal officer until Buffett asked for his resignation Friday. "Bob was my first and only choice," Buffett said in a statement. The two men are hardly strangers.

THE 12 EXHAUSTED SALOMON BROTHers officers sitting around the oval burled-walnut table in the 45th-floor boardroom of their New York World Trade Center headquarters confronted a reality that one week before would have seemed absurd: Their firm was in danger of collapsing. On this Friday afternoon, Aug. 16, a week after news broke that Salomon's chief trader of U.S.