by Todd Shriber

Daimler AG, the German auto giant behind Mercedes, is having difficulty gaining traction with another one of its luxury brands. Fans of rap music are probably familiar with the Maybach name, but the problem is that car enthusiasts haven’t been too fussed over the ultra-premium luxury automobile.

Maybach was reintroduced by Daimler in 2002, but the brand has sputtered to become a legitimate threat to BMW’s Rolls-Royce and Volkswagen’s Bentley. Just 200 Maybachs were sold in 2010 compared to 2,700 models for Rolls-Royce and 5,100 for Bentley, Bloomberg reported. Additionally, Maybach’s tepid sales don’t jibe with the company’s previous claims that it was immune from the global economic crisis a couple of years ago.

Daimler says it will make a decision on the future of the Maybach in time, but there is a chance the automaker’s hand may be forced.

One analyst quoted by Bloomberg said he can’t see any future for the Maybach marque. Another said Daimler can’t continue Maybach in its current form. Obviously, the goal for Daimler should be to sell more Maybachs, but that goal is made all the more difficult by a dwindling dealer network in the U.S., one of the most important markets for the brand.

When Maybach reappeared in 2001, there were 71 dealers in the U.S., but by 2007, that number slid to 42, according to Left Lane News. Now, there are just 30 Maybach dealers in the U.S., Bloomberg reported.

Only time will tell what Daimler has in store for the Maybach label. But whatever the future holds, fans of the brand can only hope Daimler doesn’t do to Maybach what Jay-Z and Kanye West did to a Maybach in the “Otis” video.

by Todd Shriber

Why anyone would want to buy a stake in the futility-prone New York Mets baseball franchise is up for debate. But the ball appears to have been dropped for hedge fund luminary David Einhorn, who wanted to do just that.

The poker-playing Einhorn appeared to be getting a sweetheart deal to shell out $200 million for a minority stake in the Mets. Perhaps it was too sweet because the Wilpon family, which owns the Mets, scrapped the deal at the last minute.

Fred Wilpon, the Mets’ principal owner, entertained the idea of selling a stake in his team to Einhorn because he needed cash after being hit with a $1 billion lawsuit related to Bernie Madoff’s notorious Ponzi scheme, Bloomberg reported. Einhorn noted today that there were “many, many proposed modifications” to the original deal, and that he was surprised to see such a high level of change, Bloomberg reported.

One of the sticking points appears to be that the Wilpons reversed course on a clause in the original deal that provided for pre-approval from Major League Baseball should Einhorn become the majority owner of the team.

What makes the separation from Einhorn all the more curious is that there is no getting around the fact that the Mets are in a precarious financial position. The team is $427 million in the red and may lose $70 million this year, according to Sports Illustrated. Rather than sell the $200 million stake to one buyer, the Wilpons intend to split it among family and friends to raise the needed proceeds, ESPN reports.

For his part, Einhorn, president of Greenlight Capital, doesn’t intend to pursue other Major League Baseball ownership opportunities at the current time. And hey, at least he’s being nice about being shafted by the Wilpons as he doesn’t intend to pursue litigation against the family, ESPN said.

by Todd Shriber

Earlier this week, shares of preppy apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) were trading around $70. As of this writing, the stock labors below $59 following the company’s proclamation on Wednesday that higher commodities prices will weigh on results in the back of this year.

That’s not the only situation facing the Ohio-based retailer. Abercrombie has another situation, and it is of the Jersey Shore variety. It’s not a good situation either as it amounts to not much more than an arguably embarrassing public relations flap for Abercrombie, which is known almost as much for its racy catalogs as it for its khakis.

Abercrombie has asked Jersey Shore reality show cast member Mike Sorrentino (a.k.a. “The Situation”) and fellow cast members Snooki, J-Wow et al. to stop wearing Abercrombie garb on the hit MTV show. In fact, the company is offering monetary compensation to the cast if they stop wearing Abercrombie apparel, according to the Associated Press.

The company says viewers seeing The Situation in Abercrombie wear could cause “significant damage” and may be “distressing” to customers, the AP reported.

What’s odd about this is that the target age group Abercrombie likely overlaps with that the ages of the most loyal “Jersey Shore” fans so in effect, Abercrombie has been getting a free endorsement deal from The Situation and friends.

Even more odd is the fact that plenty of companies have sought out the show’s cast members as product endorsers. Snooki pitches pistachios, and Pauly D has been spotted in mayonnaise commercials. Overall, the list is quite lengthy.

Ironically, Abercrombie’s request may have only broadened its association with The Situation and his roommates to a wider audience than probably watches Jersey Shore.

In the words of The Situation, it “Looks like Abercrombie got themself into a Situation!”

by Todd Shriber

If news that the recent tumble experienced by global equity markets has dampened the environment for initial public offerings has you feeling blue, don’t fret because one of the most recognizable brands in the world is said to be preparing a $1 billion IPO that may happen as soon as this year.

That’s right football fans (the non-American kind), Manchester United is said to be planning a $1 billion Singapore IPO, Bloomberg reported, citing two unidentified people with knowledge of the matter. As Trader Daily reported back in June, ManU was mulling a Hong Kong IPO, but it is now leaning toward Singapore, according to Bloomberg.

Either way, the shares won’t be listed in the U.S., home of the Glazer family, which owns the storied football club along with the National Football League’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Listing in Asia makes for sense for ManU, the 19-time English Premier League champion.

To say the club is popular in the Asia-Pacific region is an understatement. The team has droves of loyal supporters in Australia, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam, just to name a few countries from that part of the globe, London’s Telegraph reported.

Despite all the fervor, ManU shares an interesting tidbit in common with some of the widely anticipated U.S. Internet IPOs investors have been so anxious to see: The offering may price at far more than it’s actually worth. Seeking $1 billion for as little as 25% values the business at about double its real worth, Bloomberg reported, citing a banker who specializes in football finance.

by Paul Springer

With financial markets in turmoil and the finance industry being wracked with layoffs, brokers at Mother Merrill have enough to worry about, especially given the beating parent company BofA has taken recently. But now they’re getting mixed messages about their future.

BofA CEO Brian Moynihan is on a campaign to calm alarmed employees – and customers. Both groups could suffer from backblast from the bank’s ill-fated acquisition of financial stink bomb Countrywide Financial.

A Merrill broker in New York told Reuters of doubts about talking points the bank created to make customers feel better:

“The bank says we’re building a fortress balance sheet and maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. What’s irrefutable is that losses and lawsuits are coming out of the woodwork,” said the broker, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about internal matters.

FOX Business Network says Merrill brokers are getting a different message from the outside world:

Brokers at Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch unit are being targeted by rival firms where recruiters are using the bank’s recent troubles in their pitches to get brokers to jump ship.

Some of Merrill’s brokers are worried about having their pay tied to the bank’s performance, FOX says, while others were already frustrated with the big institution’s bureaucracy:

“Many brokers who have stayed through the Bank of America transition may now be thinking twice,” another veteran broker said. “I know I am.”

Quitting or being fired is an uncomfortable process in financial sales and trading. Brokers are always looking for a better payout, and brokerages fear employees will skedaddle with valuable customers, proprietary information and trading data.

An ongoing legal battle shows how much is at stake when key personnel change places. Bond honcho Jeffrey Gundlach got sued by Trust Company of the West (TCW) after he left to work at a rival firm, and he returned fire with a suit of his own demanding $500 million in damages.

Gundlach is accused of stealing client data and prop trading platforms, The New York Times says. Although not usually contractually kosher, brokers and traders have been known take all the client info and account records they can in hopes of enticing clients to come with them to the new firm.

Gundlach maintains that TCW conspired to fire him improperly in order to retain huge management fees.

The trial is the one to watch these days, according to The Times:

The trial has proved unusually exciting for a white-collar civil case, with some testimony resembling that of a bitter divorce proceeding. TCW lawyers have told the jury about a private jet trip Mr. Gundlach arranged for members of his team in 2009 to Marfa, Tex., where they smoked cigars, drank costly wine, viewed art collections and, the lawyers contend, plotted to leave TCW.

The Times says a TCW lawyer alleged that Gundlach departed with a trading system whose value was in line with the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken, while Gundlach more or less argues that he puts MBS analysis programs together in his sleep.

The trial is ongoing. One thing is for sure – Merrill’s brokers may have some tough choices ahead of them.

by Paul Springer

While economies are faltering and people and governments alike are rattling tin cups all over the world, some people are doing just fine. More than fine, if you take a look at markets for certain pricey products like Ferraris and gigantic mansions.

“If the rich have done well in the past few years, the extremely rich have done extremely well,” according to a Daily Ticker story about a visit to a Ferrari dealership in New York City.

Sales are up. But oddly, at a time when Joe Blow can’t get a mortgage loan to save his soul, more Ferrari buyers – about 40% — are eschewing the all-cash payment for leasing. “The typical customer using financing has annual income of $1.5 million a year and liquid assets of more than $10 million,” the article says.

But Ferraris go for chump change compared to classic vehicles, which routinely go for prices above the million-dollar level.

When this 1925 Rolls-Royce New Phantom Torpedo Sports Tourer sells for a $1 million-plus later this month, neighbors of the new owner will garage Ferraris and Lambos in shame – and fear. The bright red “Tiger Car” features a hand-cranked machine gun, always handy to scatter the rabble.

Then again, classic cars go for mere shekels compared to the mansion in the U.S. that Russian gazillionaires are flocking to buy. “International investors are buying some of the priciest homes in America as the broader housing market slumps and a weak dollar makes U.S. property more of a bargain,” Bloomberg reports.

Bloomberg says one example is Capital Group Chairman Vladislav Doronin’s $16 million purchase of a shack once owned by Shaquille O’Neal. Such a purchase pales in comparison, however, to venture capitalist Yuri Milner’s acquisition of a $100 million home in Silicon Valley’s Los Altos Hills, Calif., this April.

For those seeking glamorous digs in London, an astronomically costly parcel is being developed by hedge fund Orion Capital Managers. When finished, the one-acre apartment plot will be worth £300 million ($492 million).

Gary Hersham, one of the agents involved, told The London Evening Standard that one family might just gobble up the whole thing.

“”When one is super-rich, £30 million to £40 million is neither here nor there,” Hersham said in the article.

That may be so, but I’d much prefer it were here right next to me where I could have it steamed and pressed for a spending orgy of Neronian proportions.

by Todd Shriber

Three blondes walk out of a Monaco restaurant… No, this isn’t a sophomoric blonde joke or a scene from a James Bond movie. It is a very real scenario that earlier this week led to one of the most expensive accidents any car lover dare dream of. Well, this might give car lovers nightmares.

According to the Digits Up blog, the three ladies departed the Cafe de Paris restaurant, got in their blue Bentley Azure, which costs a cool $363,000, and allegedly proceeded to ding a Mercedes Benz S-Class, which costs just $91,000. That’s bad. Blue on white in car accident will almost certainly lead to some big bills at the local body shop.

The incident, dubbed “Carmageddon” by some, did not end there. The Bentley proceeded to scrape the nose of a black Ferrari F430, which new can run close to $200,000 according to Edmunds. That knocked a $228,000 Aston Martin Rapide sedan into a $77,000 Porsche 911.

Add all that up, and that’s close to $1 million worth of some of the world’s most elite automobiles coming together for a fender bender that would be enough to put a Geico agent into tears and have the guys at the local body shop salivating.

Fortunately, the carnage ensued at a low speed, so all the victims and the offending Bentley appear salvageable. The cause of the accident still is not known, according to WreckedExotics.com. We can’t wait for that police report.

by Todd Shriber

Times are tough for one-time golf king Tiger Woods, who sat out the British Open, one of golf’s four most prestigious events, due to a bum knee. Unfortunately for Woods, the knee isn’t the only thing that can be called “bum.” His personal finances might qualify for that dubious distinction as well.

As Fortune notes, Woods’ endorsement income has fallen considerably since his marital acrimony in 2009. Many athletes can rebound from infidelity to reclaim lucrative sponsorship deals, NBA star Kobe Bryant being one prominent example. But the sheer tawdriness of Woods’ off-the-course antics could hamper the golfer’s endorsement deals for years to come.

Endorsers have either dropped him altogether, as PepsiCo (PEP) and Procter & Gamble’s (PG) Gillette unit did, or scaled back his ads, as Nike (NKE) has. And given that Woods hasn’t won a tournament since 2009, it may not be surprising that he isn’t generating enough income to cover his lavish living expenses. He made $20 million from Nike in 2009, but just about half that last year, Fortune reports.

Woods has an ill-timed bet on Florida real estate going, which is probably weighing on his finances. The property tax on his Florida estate, which is valued at $47 million, is almost certainly quite high. Then there is his settlement with ex-wife Elin Nordegren, which the New York Daily News reported to be $110 million. That’s a lot of money going out without a lot coming in.

Don’t feel too sorry for Woods though because he should have some money in the bank. After all, he topped Sports Illustrated‘s “Fortunate 50” of the highest-earning U.S. athletes in 2010, raking in almost $62.3 million in earnings.

by Todd Shriber

Among hedge fund manager David Einhorn’s many pursuits beyond Wall Street and baseball is poker. The Greenlight Capital president’s acumen for No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em was on full display during the first day of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas, where he survived the first day of competition with 94,400 in chips, more than triple the 30,000 competitors play with.

Einhorn’s one-day performance is impressive when considering he is among 4,521 entrants remaining of 6,865 who started the day, and his chip stack is more than the double the average of $45,555, according to Bloomberg. And to his credit, Einhorn outlasted last year’s defending champion Jonathan Duhamel, who was bounced on Monday, according to The Associated Press.

Not to give Einhorn, who in May agreed to purchase a third of the New York Mets baseball franchise, too much of a hard time, but his early performance at the WSOP is certainly superior to that of Greenlight Capital’s this year. As Trader Daily reported last week, the hedge fund was down 5% for the year as of mid-June. Perhaps it’s proof that there only so many similarities between poker and trading.

Alas, we jest. Frankly, anyone that is not participating in the WSOP should be cheering Einhorn on. In 2006, the hedge fund manager won almost $660,000 by placing 18th at the main event and proceeded to donate all of his winnings to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, according to Cardplayer.com.

No word yet on whether Einhorn will donate his winnings this year to the foundation, but he is currently a member of its board of directors, along with several other Wall Street luminaries.

One of the reasons that 18th century or Ming dynasty-era Chinese vases command such lofty prices is scarcity. Aficionados of such furnishings cannot simply saunter into the local Pottery Barn or Williams Sonoma and purchase a multi-million dollar vase.

Applying the scarcity principle, it looks like Wynn may have overpaid. Just days before he snatched up that quartet of vases, which are destined to adorn a new Wynn hotel on the Chinese island of Macau, shipwreck explorers announced the largest finding of Ming porcelain.

Arqueonautas Worldwide issued a press statement in late June confirming the discovery of “the largest cargo of Ming porcelain found to date, with hundreds of thousands of artifacts…”. Working with RM Discovery Inc. and in cooperation with the Indonesian government,  Arqueonautas Worldwide made the Ming porcelain find about 90 miles off the coast of Indonesia in 180 feet of water, according to a statement issued by the company.

Of course, the antiques market is very nuanced, and no one knows yet what portions of the Ming market will be impacted by the Arqueonautas find. But with so many Ming artifacts (worth a preliminary estimate of at least $70 million) potentially coming to market sometime in the near future, Wynn might find himself learning a hard lesson in supply and demand. When the total world supply of something you own can be counted on your hands, having a few dozen show up overnight can do a number on valuations.

Either way, it’s probably all right – Wynn can afford it regardless. He was worth $2.3 billion as of March, according to Forbes.