l****z 发帖数: 29846 | 1 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL/NEWSCORE
Last Updated: 9:31 AM, January 30, 2012
Posted: 8:42 AM, January 30, 2012
Nearly three months after MF Global Holdings collapsed, officials hunting
for an estimated $1.2 billion in missing customer money increasingly believe
that much of it might never be recovered, according to people familiar with
the investigation.
As the sprawling probe that includes regulators, criminal and congressional
investigators, and court-appointed trustees grinds on, the findings so far
suggest that a "significant amount" of the money could have "vaporized" as a
result of chaotic trading at MF Global during the week before the company's
Oct. 31 bankruptcy filing, a person close to the investigation was cited as
saying Monday.
GETTY IMAGES
Former chairman and CEO of MF Global Jon Corzine testifies during a hearing
before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Financial
Services Committee last month.
Many officials now believe certain employees at MF Global dipped into the "
customer segregated account" that the New York company was supposed to keep
separate from its own assets -- and then used the money to meet demands for
more collateral or to unfreeze assets at banks and other counterparties as
they grew more concerned about their financial exposure to MF Global.
Investigators also are examining other scenarios that have gained traction
in recent weeks, such as the possibility that MF Global suffered steep
losses on investments made using customer money. Officials investigating the
case have looked into whether such investments were appropriate under rules
at the time.
As money poured out of MF Global, much of it likely passed through J.P.
Morgan Chase and other banks where the securities firm had accounts, as well
as trade-clearing partners such as Depository Trust & Clearing and LCH.
Clearnet Group, people familiar with the matter said.
Those companies have denied being knowingly in possession of any missing MF
Global money, and any efforts to make them fill the hole would face daunting
hurdles. And because the firms usually were middlemen between MF Global and
other counterparties, the funds they touched were then scattered widely,
complicating the search.
Of the $6 billion kept at MF Global by farmers, hedge funds, floor traders
and other customers when panic erupted over its exposure to European
sovereign debt and shaky financial outlook, about $5.3 billion has been
located, according to James Giddens, the bankruptcy trustee for the
securities firm's US-based brokerage operation.
But hundreds of millions of customer dollars are potentially snarled in
litigation with other parts of MF Global, including its UK arm, and US
officials might never be able to recover those funds. As a result, Giddens
believes the shortfall is at least $1.2 billion, though regulators at the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission and CME Group, parent of the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange and New York Mercantile Exchange, have estimated the
total is smaller than that.
Lawmakers have pushed for answers from Jon S. Corzine, the former New Jersey
governor and Goldman Sachs Group chairman who led MF Global into its big
European bet and was CEO when the company failed.
On Thursday, a House Financial Services subcommittee will zero in on the
securities firm's risk-management practices and the role of credit-rating
firms in the collapse. Among the people scheduled to testify at the hearing
is Michael Roseman, a former chief risk officer at MF Global who raised
serious concerns several times in 2010 about the growing bet on European
bonds by Corzine.
So far, Giddens' office has returned about 72 percent of the money in
customers' US accounts when MF Global filed for bankruptcy at the end of
October. Money in accounts outside the US remains frozen, and officials have
received few big breaks in the case. |
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