Thursday, April 26, 2012

The MF Global Collapse

Alternet, via nc links:
The CEO of MF Global when it disintegrated was Jon Corzine, the former New Jersey Senator and Governor and former co-head of Goldman Sachs & Co.  Corzine took the reins of MF Global in March 2010.  Conflicts abounded with the knowledge and rubber stamp of the Board of Directors.  Corzine was not just Chairman and CEO, he was the firm’s top trader of volatile European BIIPS debt – Belgium, Italy, Ireland, Portugal and Spain.  Corzine took the firm’s position from approximately $500 million when he was hired to $8.1 billion (including Greece and France) in the 19 months it took him to blow up the firm. (How does the CEO of a financial firm police a cowboy trader when he’s the same individual?)  When the Chief Risk Officer of the firm, Michael Roseman, raised warnings about the risk with the Board of Directors, Rosemanwas asked to leave and replaced with a new Chief Risk Officer acceptable to Corzine, according to Congressional testimony given by Roseman and Corzine.
But wearing the three incompatible hats was not the only fatal flaw in Corzine’s management model: he contractually did not owe his total loyalty to MF Global. The August 11, 2011 proxy issued to shareholders and filed with the SEC carried this caveat:
“During the term of Mr. Corzine’s employment agreement with the Company, Mr. Corzine will spend substantially all of his business time and attention on Company matters, except that he may serve as an operating partner of J.C. Flowers. Pursuant to his contract with J.C. Flowers, Mr. Corzine will not receive any salary from J.C. Flowers as long as he is serving as Chief Executive Officer of the Company, but he will have a financial interest as a limited partner in certain of J.C. Flowers’s investment management entities. Mr. Corzine’s employment agreement with the Company contains a provision regarding corporate opportunities. In general, this provision provides that, if Mr. Corzine acquires knowledge from J.C. Flowers (and not the Company) of a potential transaction or other business opportunity that may be a business opportunity for the Company he will have no duty to communicate or present such opportunity to the Company…”
JC Flowers was the namesake of J. Christopher Flowers, a former colleague of Corzine’s at Goldman Sachs. Flowers had acquired a stake in MF Global to help shore it up in 2008 after a trader blew up $141 million of the firm’s money overnight in what the firm called an unauthorized trade. It was Flowers who invited Corzine to become CEO of MF Global.  Corzine left MF Global on November 4, four days after its bankruptcy filing, at the request of the Board.
I really don't understand how Corzine hasn't been indicted.  What exactly does the head of a financial company have to do to be charged with a crime?

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