Trimming Costs Means Bunking At Embassy Suites
坐落于纽约曼哈顿下城区的Embassy Suites酒店也有好处：那里每天晚上都有“加班经理快乐时段”，提供免费的啤酒和爆米花；只要亮一下房间钥匙，就能享用免费的自助早餐，想吃多少吃多少；在隔壁的墨西哥Chevy's餐厅用餐，可以享受9折优惠。Embassy Suites曼哈顿下城区的Embassy Suites酒店此外，住店客人还有机会与高盛集团(Goldman Sachs Group)的银行家们近距离接触，因为高盛最近要求，员工来纽约总部出差时都要住这家酒店。当然，在豪华程度上，这里与高盛员工以往常住的丽兹•卡尔顿大酒店(Ritz-Carlton)和Carlyle酒店无法相提并论，但成本削减以及政府监管意味着他们只能从云端回到地面上，体验一下凡人的生活。一些银行家并不乐意经历这种转变。“没人会大声抱怨，但毕竟我们以前被惯坏了。”高盛的一个员工说，“公司让我们变成对酒店品质吹毛求疵的人。”最近的一个晚上，十几位从芝加哥来纽约出差的高盛员工正在Embassy Suites酒店无精打采地嚼着从傍晚五点半开始的“快乐时段”提供的免费点心。他们呆在一个咖啡厅大小的房间里，围着三张桌子，用塑料杯喝免费的百威啤酒，就着椒盐脆饼和墨西哥玉米薯条，从窗外能看到美林公司(Merrill Lynch & Co.)的总部，不过现在它已被美国银行(Bank of America)收购了。另一天晚上，他们在酒吧的谈论话题主要集中在百慕大再保险商以及对冲基金欺诈案上。高盛看中Embassy Suites酒店不仅是为了节约成本。从2006年起，公司就买下了这个拥有463个房间的酒店，因为这里距离高盛耗资24亿美元建造的位于曼哈顿Battery Park City的未来总部仅一箭之遥。据酒店的一个员工说，之前几个月，酒店的生意一直“上上下下”，但高盛的入主带来了大量客流。2007年的时候，高盛可谓一片歌舞升平，利润达到创纪录的116亿美元。那时，如果去曼哈顿中城拜访客户，高盛的员工可以住在纽约Plaza Athenee酒店。根据酒店网站的介绍，那里是“法国当代风格奢侈的欧洲享受”，每晚房价795美元。Carlyle酒店的房间全价目前是755美元。如果你想住得离位于百老汇街85号的高盛总部近一些，可以考虑丽兹•卡尔顿大酒店，那里通常是每晚495美元。（公司订这些酒店的房间一般都能享受到优惠价。）“谢天谢地，其他一些公司还是喜欢欧洲豪华风格的。” Plaza Athenee的发言人说道。她表示，她不愿点名的一些投行依然还在光顾这个酒店。现在，高盛的旅行服务部门要求公司2万多名出差员工来纽约时都要住在曼哈顿下城的Embassy Suites酒店，无论是合伙人还是初级分析师。高盛员工戏称Embassy Suites为“高盛酒店”，提供的内部价格是每晚250美元；而他们去别的城市出差时，也必须住在那些已和公司谈好价格的酒店里。在公司内部，Embassy Suites酒店已经成为大家开玩笑时的话题，人们对那里的住宿条件表示不满，还有那可笑的电话叫醒服务，居然发出公鸡打鸣的声音。对许多来纽约曼哈顿中城开会的公司高管来说，这个位于曼哈顿岛西南边缘的酒店在交通方面还是不太方便。虽然仅隔一英里之遥，但位于Battery Park区的丽兹•卡尔顿大酒店和Embassy Suites酒店简直就是两个世界。丽兹的房间能看到纽约港和自由女神像，而Embassy Suites的房间只能看到新泽西州泽西市的哈德逊河。丽兹的客人享受的是100%埃及棉制成的400支Frette牌床单，而Embassy Suites的客人只能睡在250支的希尔顿酒店牌床单上，质地是60%的棉，40%的化纤。丽兹•卡尔顿大酒店不提供免费餐饮，早上有11美元的爱尔兰燕麦粥配果盘，晚上有14美元的丽兹•卡尔顿马提尼鸡尾酒（由杜松子酒黄瓜片薄荷以及新鲜柠檬汁调制而成）。在目前经济衰退的大背景下，虽然比大多数竞争对手的日子好过，但高盛公司还是感觉到了阵痛。2008年11月，公司发布自1999年上市以来的第一个亏损季报。高盛还找到了其他的省钱方法。员工加班只能报销20美元的晚餐费，而以往的额度是25美元。如果员工想用公司的钱租一辆车开回家，必须等到晚上10点以后，比以往的规定推迟了一小时。最近，公司还削减了纽约总部的电脑打印机数量，员工只能走更远的距离去拿打印出来的报告。“这些公司不愿做任何损害自己盈利能力的事情，但在目前的环境下，他们必须越来越注重保护股东权益。”瑞士银行(UBS AG)的分析师格兰•斯考尔(Glenn Schorr)说，“如果买下Embassy Suites这样的酒店并要求出差员工住在那里对股东权益有利，那就应该这么做。”2008年，高盛从联邦银行救助基金得到100亿美元的援助。政府加强对银行的监管，禁止其大手大脚花钱，因此高盛也小心翼翼地避免给人留下铺张浪费的印象。公司取消了2009年3月的第一周在迈阿密召开对冲基金会议的安排，并把2月底一个为期三天的技术研讨会从拉斯维加斯的Mandalay Bay酒店移到旧金山的万豪酒店(Marriott)召开。2006年，高盛以约2.25亿美元的价格从Forest City Ratner Cos.公司手中买下Battery Park City区的Embassy Suites酒店，并计划在2010年公司新的总部大楼竣工后，把酒店改造成公司高管外出时的临时住所。据知情人士说，这笔交易也有利于保安方面的考虑，因为这能让公司对酒店实施更严格的安全控制。Embassy Suites在高盛公司的资产负债表上被列为战略型资产，而公司的其他产业，如拉斯维加斯的Stratosphere赌场酒店，则被列为投资型资产。高盛的员工不参与酒店的前台管理，而是把管理工作外包给一家达拉斯企业Highgate酒店，由其负责日常的运营工作，包括管理酒店员工和确定房间价格等。为继续使用Embassy Suites这一名字，公司向该品牌的拥有者希尔顿酒店集团(Hilton Hotels Corp.)支付了授权费。高盛也从该特许经营协议中获益，虽然希尔顿酒店的大股东是百仕通集团(Blackstone Group LP)，但高盛也通过旗下的房地产基金拥有希尔顿酒店的一部分股权。华尔街的这些风风雨雨对24岁的霍莉•洁伊(Holly Jaye)来说可谓是天方夜谭，她来自阿拉斯加州的Jasper，来纽约参加一个学术研讨会。洁伊刚刚趁会议间隙参观了一下自由女神像，她说自己从没听说过什么高盛集团。“在我居住的那个地方，这种酒店已经是很豪华的了。” 洁伊站在Embassy Suites酒店的大堂说道，“我的房间很棒，床非常柔软，浴巾很暖和，看来我该感谢高盛集团为此所做的一切。”Peter Lattman / Susanne Craig 本文涉及股票或公司document.write (truthmeter('2009年03月24日09:21', 'GS'));高盛集团英文名称：Goldman Sachs Group Inc.总部地点：美国上市地点：纽约证交所股票代码：GS
Staying at the Embassy Suites Hotel in lower Manhattan has its perks: The nightly manager's happy hour features free beer and popcorn. Flash a room key and earn a seat at the complimentary all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet and a 10% discount at the Chevy's Mexican-style restaurant next-door.Guests can also rub shoulders with the bankers at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which recently ordered that its employees stay there when visiting New York headquarters.It's a far cry from the plusher digs Goldman employees used to enjoy at the Ritz-Carlton and the Carlyle. But cost-cutting and government oversight mean finding out how the other half lives.Some of the bankers aren't happy with the switch. 'No one's supposed to complain out loud, but, let's face it, we're spoiled,' says one Goldman employee. 'They turned us into hotel snobs.'One night recently, a dozen Goldman employees from the Chicago office were yucking it up at happy hour, which starts at 5:30 sharp. The group was huddled around three tables in a cafeterialike room overlooking the headquarters of Merrill Lynch & Co., now owned by Bank of America, drinking free Budweiser out of plastic cups and eating pretzels and tortilla chips. Another evening, topics of conversation around the bar ranged from Bermuda reinsurers to hedge-fund fraud.Goldman has more than cost-cutting initiatives in mind. Since 2006, it has owned the 463-room Embassy Suites, located a stone's throw from Goldman's $2.4 billion future headquarters in Manhattan's Battery Park City. Business has been 'bumpy' over the past several months, according to a hotel employee, but the Goldman influx has boosted results.Life was grander back in 2007, when Goldman booked record earnings of $11.6 billion. If visiting a Midtown client, employees could stay at New York's Plaza Athenee, which features 'luxurious European fabrics in a French contemporary decor,' according to the hotel Web site. Its quoted nightly rate is $795. The Carlyle's current, undiscounted room rate is $755. Those who wanted to be near Goldman's headquarters at 85 Broad St. near Wall Street, could bed down at the downtown Ritz-Carlton, where rooms typically cost $495 a night. (Corporations sometimes negotiate lower room rates at all these hotels.) 'Thank goodness, other companies are still appreciating European luxury,' said a spokeswoman for the Plaza Athenee, who said that other investment banks -- she wouldn't say which ones -- are still using the hotel.Now, Goldman's travel services directs its 20,000-odd out-of-town employees -- from partners down to junior analysts -- to the Embassy Suites in lower Manhattan. Nicknamed 'Hotel Goldman' by employees, it offers them a special corporate rate of $250 a night. When Goldman people visit other cities, the company directs them to hotels at which it has negotiated rates.Inside Goldman, the hotel has become the butt of jokes. There are grumblings about its accommodations and a wake-up call service that blares 'cock-a-doodle-do' into the telephone. For the many Goldman executives who visit New York for meetings in midtown Manhattan, the hotel's location on the far southwestern edge of the island is inconvenient.Though just a mile from each other, the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park and Embassy Suites Battery Park are worlds apart. Rooms at the Ritz offer views of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty; Embassy Suites rooms look out across the Hudson River, at Jersey City, N.J. Ritz guests luxuriate in 400-thread-count Frette linens made of 100% Egyptian cotton, while at the Embassy Suites guests sleep on 250-thread-count Hilton Hotel-brand sheets made of a 60/40 cotton-poly blend.And forget free breakfast or drinks at the Ritz, which offers an $11 Irish oatmeal brulee with berries compote in the morning and a $14 Ritz Carlton Martini (gin, muddled cucumber, mint and fresh lime juice) at night.While still better off in the current recession than most of its rivals are, Goldman is feeling the pinch. In November, it posted its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999.And Goldman has found other ways to pinch pennies. Goldman people working late can only put in for $20 in dinner costs; the old limit was $25. If Goldman employees want to take a hired car home, they have to wait until 10 p.m., an hour later than before. The firm recently slashed the number of computer printers at its New York headquarters, frustrating employees who now have farther to walk in order to retrieve pitchbooks.'These firms don't want to do anything that harms their ability to produce revenue, but in this environment they have to be incredibly mindful of protecting shareholder value,' said Glenn Schorr, an analyst at UBS AG. 'If that means buying a hotel like the Embassy Suites and having employees stay there, so be it.'Goldman, which accepted $10 billion in federal bank-rescue funds last year, has also taken great pains to not appear profligate, with all the intense government scrutiny over banks' spending on luxuries. It called off its big Miami hedge-fund conference scheduled for the first week in March and moved a three-day technology conference in late February from the Mandalay Bay casino-resort in Las Vegas to the San Francisco Marriott.In 2006, Goldman acquired the Embassy Suites in Battery Park City site from Forest City Ratner Cos. for about $225 million. The plan was to turn the hotel into a dormitory for out-of-town Goldman executives once the headquarters building is completed in 2010. The purchase also satisfied security concerns, because it gives the company more control over the site, according to people familiar with the matter. The Embassy Suites is held on the firm's balance sheet as a strategic asset. Other properties it owns, such as the Stratosphere, a hotel and casino in Las Vegas, are categorized as investments.Goldman employees don't work the front desk. The firm outsources the management of the hotel to Highgate Hotels, a Dallas outfit that handles day-to-day operations including staffing and setting room rates. For use of the Embassy Suites name, it pays a franchise fee to Hilton Hotels Corp., which owns the popular brand. Goldman also benefits from the franchise arrangement; its real-estate fund owns a piece of Hilton alongside the lodging giant's main owners, Blackstone Group LP.These Wall Street goings-on were lost on Holly Jaye, a 24-year-old schoolteacher from Jasper, Ala., in town for an education conference. Ms. Jaye, who had just sneaked in a trip to the Statue of Liberty, said she had never heard of Goldman Sachs.'Where I come from, this would be considered a luxury hotel,' said Ms. Jaye, standing in the Embassy Suites lobby. 'My room is wonderful. I've got a soft bed and a warm bathrobe. I guess I should thank Goldman Sachs.'Peter Lattman / Susanne Craig
Staying at the Embassy Suites Hotel in lower Manhattan has its perks: The nightly manager's happy hour features free beer and popcorn. Flash a room key and earn a seat at the complimentary all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet and a 10% discount at the Chevy's Mexican-style restaurant next-door.Guests can also rub shoulders with the bankers at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which recently ordered that its employees stay there when visiting New York headquarters.It's a far cry from the plusher digs Goldman employees used to enjoy at the Ritz-Carlton and the Carlyle. But cost-cutting and government oversight mean finding out how the other half lives.Some of the bankers aren't happy with the switch. 'No one's supposed to complain out loud, but, let's face it, we're spoiled,' says one Goldman employee. 'They turned us into hotel snobs.'One night recently, a dozen Goldman employees from the Chicago office were yucking it up at happy hour, which starts at 5:30 sharp. The group was huddled around three tables in a cafeterialike room overlooking the headquarters of Merrill Lynch & Co., now owned by Bank of America, drinking free Budweiser out of plastic cups and eating pretzels and tortilla chips. Another evening, topics of conversation around the bar ranged from Bermuda reinsurers to hedge-fund fraud.Goldman has more than cost-cutting initiatives in mind. Since 2006, it has owned the 463-room Embassy Suites, located a stone's throw from Goldman's $2.4 billion future headquarters in Manhattan's Battery Park City. Business has been 'bumpy' over the past several months, according to a hotel employee, but the Goldman influx has boosted results.Life was grander back in 2007, when Goldman booked record earnings of $11.6 billion. If visiting a Midtown client, employees could stay at New York's Plaza Athenee, which features 'luxurious European fabrics in a French contemporary decor,' according to the hotel Web site. Its quoted nightly rate is $795. The Carlyle's current, undiscounted room rate is $755. Those who wanted to be near Goldman's headquarters at 85 Broad St. near Wall Street, could bed down at the downtown Ritz-Carlton, where rooms typically cost $495 a night. (Corporations sometimes negotiate lower room rates at all these hotels.) 'Thank goodness, other companies are still appreciating European luxury,' said a spokeswoman for the Plaza Athenee, who said that other investment banks -- she wouldn't say which ones -- are still using the hotel.Now, Goldman's travel services directs its 20,000-odd out-of-town employees -- from partners down to junior analysts -- to the Embassy Suites in lower Manhattan. Nicknamed 'Hotel Goldman' by employees, it offers them a special corporate rate of $250 a night. When Goldman people visit other cities, the company directs them to hotels at which it has negotiated rates.Inside Goldman, the hotel has become the butt of jokes. There are grumblings about its accommodations and a wake-up call service that blares 'cock-a-doodle-do' into the telephone. For the many Goldman executives who visit New York for meetings in midtown Manhattan, the hotel's location on the far southwestern edge of the island is inconvenient.Though just a mile from each other, the Ritz-Carlton Battery Park and Embassy Suites Battery Park are worlds apart. Rooms at the Ritz offer views of New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty; Embassy Suites rooms look out across the Hudson River, at Jersey City, N.J. Ritz guests luxuriate in 400-thread-count Frette linens made of 100% Egyptian cotton, while at the Embassy Suites guests sleep on 250-thread-count Hilton Hotel-brand sheets made of a 60/40 cotton-poly blend.And forget free breakfast or drinks at the Ritz, which offers an $11 Irish oatmeal brulee with berries compote in the morning and a $14 Ritz Carlton Martini (gin, muddled cucumber, mint and fresh lime juice) at night.While still better off in the current recession than most of its rivals are, Goldman is feeling the pinch. In November, it posted its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999.And Goldman has found other ways to pinch pennies. Goldman people working late can only put in for $20 in dinner costs; the old limit was $25. If Goldman employees want to take a hired car home, they have to wait until 10 p.m., an hour later than before. The firm recently slashed the number of computer printers at its New York headquarters, frustrating employees who now have farther to walk in order to retrieve pitchbooks.'These firms don't want to do anything that harms their ability to produce revenue, but in this environment they have to be incredibly mindful of protecting shareholder value,' said Glenn Schorr, an analyst at UBS AG. 'If that means buying a hotel like the Embassy Suites and having employees stay there, so be it.'Goldman, which accepted $10 billion in federal bank-rescue funds last year, has also taken great pains to not appear profligate, with all the intense government scrutiny over banks' spending on luxuries. It called off its big Miami hedge-fund conference scheduled for the first week in March and moved a three-day technology conference in late February from the Mandalay Bay casino-resort in Las Vegas to the San Francisco Marriott.In 2006, Goldman acquired the Embassy Suites in Battery Park City site from Forest City Ratner Cos. for about $225 million. The plan was to turn the hotel into a dormitory for out-of-town Goldman executives once the headquarters building is completed in 2010. The purchase also satisfied security concerns, because it gives the company more control over the site, according to people familiar with the matter. The Embassy Suites is held on the firm's balance sheet as a strategic asset. Other properties it owns, such as the Stratosphere, a hotel and casino in Las Vegas, are categorized as investments.Goldman employees don't work the front desk. The firm outsources the management of the hotel to Highgate Hotels, a Dallas outfit that handles day-to-day operations including staffing and setting room rates. For use of the Embassy Suites name, it pays a franchise fee to Hilton Hotels Corp., which owns the popular brand. Goldman also benefits from the franchise arrangement; its real-estate fund owns a piece of Hilton alongside the lodging giant's main owners, Blackstone Group LP.These Wall Street goings-on were lost on Holly Jaye, a 24-year-old schoolteacher from Jasper, Ala., in town for an education conference. Ms. Jaye, who had just sneaked in a trip to the Statue of Liberty, said she had never heard of Goldman Sachs.'Where I come from, this would be considered a luxury hotel,' said Ms. Jaye, standing in the Embassy Suites lobby. 'My room is wonderful. I've got a soft bed and a warm bathrobe. I guess I should thank Goldman Sachs.'Peter Lattman / Susanne Craig