MF Global executives hire lawyers as inquiry grows
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The federal investigation into the collapse of MF Global is ramping up with several more executives, including a long-time colleague of former CEO Jon Corzine, hiring criminal defense attorneys.
Executives at the failed futures brokerage house are in the process of hiring lawyers as a federal grand jury in New York recently began issuing subpoenas seeking information and records, say people familiar with the inquiries.
Chicago’s Harris Bank plays role in MF Global mess
By Matthew Goldstein, Lauren Tara LaCapra, David Henry and Jennifer Ablan
(Reuters) – The hunt for the missing $600 million in customer money at MF Global Holdings Ltd (MFGLQ.PK: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) may begin with Harris Bank, a Chicago-based lender that often holds client money for many large futures brokerage firms.
A Harris Bank branch office in downtown Chicago was the main repository for money from many of MF Global’s 150,000 customers, according to customers and representatives with smaller investment firms that introduced clients to the New York-based brokerage.
MF Global and the rubber check
By Matthew Goldstein
With the mystery of the missing $600 million in customer funds at MF Global Financial still unresolved, a lot of customers of the failed futures firm are starting to complain about getting bounced checks.
It appears that 10 days ago, with speculation swirling that the Jon Corzine-led firm would soon file for bankruptcy, a good number of customers started to put in requests to pull their money from the New York-based outfit. But instead of simply wiring that money back to their customers, it seems MF Global tried to buy some time for itself by sending that money back via snail mail in the form of an old-fashioned check.
The two faces of Jon Corzine
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sometimes it seems there are two Jon Corzines.
There’s the statesman-like former senator and governor, who while serving this past year as a visiting professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, has championed the need for stiffer regulation of Wall Street banks.
And there’s the risk-loving trader with a thirst for profits, who oversaw a $6.3 billion bet on European sovereign debt that culminated with Monday’s bankruptcy filing of MF Global Holdings MF.N.
Insight: The two faces of Jon Corzine
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Sometimes it seems there are two Jon Corzines.
There’s the statesman-like former senator and governor, who while serving this past year as a visiting professor at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, has championed the need for stiffer regulation of Wall Street banks.
And there’s the risk-loving trader with a thirst for profits, who oversaw a $6.3 billion bet on European sovereign debt that culminated with Monday’s bankruptcy filing of MF Global Holdings.
The confession season
By Matthew Goldstein and Jennifer Ablan
The year is not yet over and already the confessions are starting to roll in from some of the biggest U.S. money managers.
Bill Gross, manager of the world’s biggest bond fund, sent out a “mea culpa” letter late Friday to his many mom-and-pop investors, saying he’s sorry for putting up such bad numbers this year. Mea culpas from Pimco’s guiding light and the self-styled “bond king” are rare, largely because his Total Return Fund has long been one of the industry’s top performers.
Paulson faces big test as clients mull future
BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Hedge fund manager John Paulson, long lionized for his successful bets on the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and the surge in gold prices, is now facing the toughest challenge of his career.
With one of Paulson’s largest funds down nearly 50 percent for the year and several others also posting big losses, the big question is whether the manager’s large and wealthy fan base will scurry for the exits and seek to redeem billions of dollars by year’s end.
The law catches up to TL Gilliams
By Matthew Goldstein
Tyrone Gilliams Jr. wanted to live a larger than life story–with much of it playing out last year in videos he had produced and plastered all over the Internet. A year later, Gilliams true life drama has him fighting to maintain his freedom.
On Oct. 5, federal authorities arrested Gilliams and charged him with wire fraud in connection with a $4 million investment scheme that Reuters chronicled in a Special Report in May. As noted in yesterday’s arrest story, U.S. prosecutors in New York didn’t begin looking into Gilliams until Reuters reported that he allegedly had used some of his investors’ money to reinvent himself as a Philadelphia-area philanthropist.
Commodities trader/hip hop promoter arrested
NEW YORK, Oct 5 (Reuters) – Commodities trader and hip-hop
promoter Tyrone Gilliams was arrested Wednesday on charges of
running a $4 million investment scam, according to a criminal
complaint filed by federal prosecutors in New York.
Gilliams, known for promising his investors superior
returns, was arrested in Philadelphia and is charged with one
count of wire fraud.
Wall Street protesters just want to be heard
Early morning at Occupy Wall Street
Updated Oct. 5
By Matthew Goldstein and Jennifer Ablan
There’s been a lot of talk that other than rallying against bankers and corporate greed, the message coming from Occupy Wall Street isn’t a clear one. And many of the college students, artists, unemployed, transients who’ve set-up camp in a concrete plaza in lower Manhattan wouldn’t disagree with that assessment.
In fact, many of the young protesters–mostly in their 20s–seem to embrace the notion that it’s hard to define just what Occupy Wall Street is all about and what it hopes to achieve. For many, sleeping on the streets and staging a “Zombie March,” or getting arrested for blocking traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge is enough to bring attention to the fact that too many Americans are still suffering from the financial crisis.
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