MF Global Bankruptcy

[lester1/2jr]

I'm fascinated by this story. Jon Corzine, who in my eyes pretty much ushered in the tea party movement by being such a lousy and spendthrift Governor of New jersey, made a gigantic investment in euro debt in 08 as head of MF Global. As you can well imagine, it didn't pay off and the company is now bankrupt.

While doing this (going bankrupt) he committed some serious breaches of ethics which crossed the line to breaking the law in at least one case. He may well go to jail.

He's worth 500 million.



http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article31689.html


Here's a good description of the rule he broke


"In layman's terms, you may buy a Rolls Royce with customers' excess cash, sell it at a profit, and pocket part of the profits. You may buy a Rolls Royce and try to resell it at a profit with your firm's cash. But you aren't allowed to take customers' money to make the car payments on your firm's Rolls Royce. If one engages in this impermissible activity, it becomes almost impossible to cover up if you have an accident driving your Rolls Royce."

At one point when customers began requesting their money MF GLobal rather than wiring them the money sent it by snail mail! By the time it got to the customers the firm was bankrupt and the checks bounced. classy

They were leveraged at 40:1 an insane ratio.

This is Enron stuff. The same way all those guys were in with the Bushes Corzine was a big Obama crony.

[rebel_1812]

I would put it into even more laymans terms.  They stole customers money to invest it.   If this mess isn't cleaned up I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing bank runs.

[lester1/2jr]

the hearing was crazy. He couldn't recall this or that and has no idea about anything.

[rebel_1812]

the hearing was crazy. He couldn't recall this or that and has no idea about anything.

Yeah I love it when leaders of large organizations use the ignorance defense.  I would love to see his interview for his next CEO job, "well at my last job I knew nothing about the organization or what was happening within it.  However, I feel I would be a good fit in your organization.  Please give me a million dollar salary with stock bonuses, because I'm a skilled candiate with experience, that is in short supply."

[lester1/2jr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=18A698QQex0

[lester1/2jr]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMI6JYX2e0Q&feature=share

Thisa guy lost money with MF Global and is shocked to discover that Fidelity seems to have some of the same issues and be very opaque in proving they actually have the funds they claim they do.

Ann Barnhardt (previous vid) believes it's because basically all these places are Mf Global, that they are all leveraged to the hilt and using clients money.

He closes his margin account because he seesm to feel the bank is using this as collateral for their own investments. He is also not convinced that his foreign currencies actually exist, that they are in fact some other sort of derirative or something. So he asks for them to send the actual money to him.

[lester1/2jr]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-24/mf-global-s-corzine-ordered-funds-moved-to-jp-morgan-memo-says.html


dude is very close to going directly to federal penitentiary

[lester1/2jr]

"While the memo makes clear that Mr. Corzine was involved in patching the overdraft, it does not indicate that he requested the funds be drawn from customer accounts. He asked only that the overdraft be fixed" http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/new-details-emerge-on-mf-global-but-no-smoking-gun/


So he requested that the bill be paid, but did not specifically say that money should come from the place it came from: customer accounts. Meanwhile, this fund was the only place where that much money existed. Where did he imagine the money was coming from when he gave the order to pay the thing? Why didn't he ask? How would some mid level manager be able to authorize taking money from a fund that no one ever, ever takes from? No one is going to believe an "I was busy, it was crazy" defense. I wouldn't count him out but it looks very bad.

[Flick James]

What does the "MF" stand for?

[lester1/2jr]

used to be known as Man Financial.

[Flick James]

I thought it was "Mother F***in' Global!"

My wife and I are thinking of starting a small side business providing accounting services geared toward small businesses. I think we'll call it MF Accounting Services and when somebody asked what the MF stands for, we'll shout "Mother F***in' Accounting, Biiiaaaatch!"

[lester1/2jr]

that's a good idea.