House report blames ex-CEO Corzine for sinking MF Global

• Posted by PeterLBrandt
• on November 15th, 2012

Two items:

• Press release from U.S. House Oversight Committee
• This story is particularly timely because there are reputable rumors that Corzine will be named to a high ranking regulatory position with the current Administration.

This story is particularly timely because there are reputable rumors that Corzine will be named to a high ranking regulatory position with the current Administration.

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financialservices.house.gov

Financial Services Committee Contact:
Subcommittee Investigation Reveals Decisions by Corzine Led to MF Global Bankruptcy and Missing Customer Funds Full report of Financial Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee to be released Thursday

Washington, Nov 14 -

Decisions by Jon Corzine to chart a radically different course for MF Global and try to turn the 230-year-old commodities broker into a full-service investment bank were the cause of the firm’s bankruptcy and failure to protect customer funds, Republican members of a congressional subcommittee will report this week.
The House Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, chaired by Rep. Randy Neugebauer, will release the full results of its year-long staff investigation into the collapse of MF Global on Thursday.
“Our investigation is essentially an autopsy of how MF Global came to its ultimate demise and what can be done to prevent similar customer losses in the future,” said Chairman Neugebauer.
Corzine, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs who later became a U.S. senator and governor of New Jersey, resigned from MF Global on November 4, 2011, almost 20 months after becoming the firm’s Chairman and CEO.  The brokerage had declared bankruptcy four days earlier and its collapse revealed a $1.6 billion shortfall in customer funds.
“Choices made by Jon Corzine during his tenure as chairman and CEO sealed MF Global’s fate,” Chairman Neugebauer stated.   “Farmers, ranchers and other customers may never get back over $1 billion of their money as a result of his decisions. Corzine dramatically changed MF Global’s business model without fully understanding the risks associated with such a radical transformation.”
The Subcommittee’s staff investigation of MF Global involved three hearings, more than 50 witness interviews, and the review of more than 243,000 documents obtained from MF Global, its former employees, federal regulators and other sources.
“By expanding MF Global into new business lines without first returning its core commodities business to profitability, Corzine ensured that the company would face enormous resource demands and exposed it to new risks that it was ill-equipped to handle,” the subcommittee report states.
In order to generate the revenue needed to fund MF Global’s transformation, Corzine invested heavily in the sovereign debt of struggling European countries.  These investments, which carried enormous default and liquidity risks, were a “prime focus” of Corzine’s attention and he failed to develop a corporate strategy for managing the risks, the subcommittee majority staff found.
Authoritarian atmosphere Those risks were exacerbated by an authoritarian atmosphere Corzine created at the firm where “no one could challenge his decisions,” the subcommittee report reveals.
Corzine made significant changes to MF Global’s senior management, including the hiring of Bradley Abelow, his former gubernatorial chief of staff, as the firm’s chief operating officer.
When MF Global’s chief risk officer disagreed with Corzine about the size of the company’s European bond portfolio, Corzine directed him to report to Abelow rather than to MF Global’s board of directors.  “This change effectively sidelined the most senior individual charged with monitoring the company’s risks and deprived the board of an independent assessment of the risks that Corzine’s trades posed to MF Global, its shareholders and its customers,” the report declares.
Corzine insulated trading activity from review process In addition, the subcommittee’s report reveals that Corzine acted as MF Global’s “de facto chief trader” and insulated his trading activities from the company’s normal risk management review process.  This enabled Corzine to quickly build the company’s European bond portfolio “well in excess of prudent limits without effective resistance.”
Rather than hold the European bonds on MF Global’s books, which could expose the company to earnings volatility, Corzine chose to use these bonds as collateral in repurchase-to-maturity (RTM) transactions.  This permitted the company to book quick profits while keeping the transactions off its balance sheet.
Failure to initially disclose extent of risks Since MF Global did not initially disclose the full extent of its European bond holdings, federal regulators and the investing public were not aware of all the risks facing the company.
The belated disclosure in October 2011 of its extensive European RTM portfolio – which amounted to 14 percent of MF Global’s total assets – combined with poor earnings news prompted credit rating agencies to downgrade the company’s credit rating to junk status.
The downgrade set off a “run on the bank” by MF Global’s investors, customers and counterparties that created a liquidity crisis during what would turn out to be the company’s final days.
Because Corzine had failed to integrate systems and controls for managing the company’s liquidity and protecting customer funds, the company could not fully assess and anticipate its liquidity needs during the crisis, nor could it coordinate its cash management, liquidity monitoring and regulatory compliance functions.
Liquidity crisis prompts withdrawal of customer funds “As the company struggled to find additional liquidity,” the subcommittee reports, “company employees identified excess company funds held in customer accounts.  However, because they did not have an accurate accounting of the amount of customer funds the company held, they withdrew customer funds as well as company funds.”
The subcommittee notes that it will be up to prosecutors and regulators to determine whether MF Global or its employees violated laws or regulations when these withdrawals of customer funds were made.
‘Dereliction of duty’
“However, the responsibility for failing to maintain the systems and controls necessary to protect customer funds rests with Corzine,” the report maintains.  “This failure represents a dereliction of his duty as MF Global’s chairman and CEO.”
In its report, the subcommittee recommends that Congress consider legislation to impose civil liability on the officers and directors of futures commission merchants (FCMs) like MF Global who sign financial statements or authorize transfers from customer segregated accounts.  Such legislation could “restore investor confidence in the derivatives markets and ensure that an FCM does not misuse customer funds in the future,” the Subcommittee report said.
Other findings of investigation to be released In addition to its findings that Corzine’s decisions led to MF Global’s downfall, the Subcommittee report is expected to address regulatory agencies’ failure to share critical information with each other about MF Global, failures by credit rating agencies to sufficiently review MF Global’s public filings, and concerns about the New York Federal Reserve’s decision to designate MF Global as a “primary dealer” despite the company’s troubled financial situation.

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Reprinted from N.Y. Post

• By KAJA WHITEHOUSE

It was Jon Corzine who sank MF Global last year — bringing financial pain to thousands of investors.

Corzine’s outsize appetite for risk plus his authoritative management style — which stifled challenges — brought down the commodities broker, according to a summary of a report by a House of Representatives subcommittee.

“Choices made by Jon Corzine during his tenure as chairman and CEO sealed MF Global’s fate,” said the chairman of the Financial Services Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas).

MF’s failure “represents a dereliction of his duty as MF Global’s chairman and CEO,” the report declared.

AP

A House panel laid the blame for the collapse of MF Global squarely at the feet of CEO Jon Corzine, saying his bad management decisions caused the firm’s bankruptcy and the loss of $1.6 billion in customer funds.

Among Corzine’s shortcomings as laid out in the report are:

* He created an “authoritarian atmosphere” where “no one could challenge his decisions.”

* He acted as MF’s “de facto chief trader,” allowing him to build a risky European bond portfolio “well in excess of prudent limits.”

* He failed to fully disclose MF’s European bond holdings to federal regulators and the investing public.

In scathing excerpts of a report to be released today, Republican members of the panel also blamed Corzine for a scandalous $1.6 billion shortfall in customer accounts that emerged in the aftermath of the bankruptcy — although they stopped short of saying Corzine should be held criminally liable for the loss.

Instead, the report described the shortfall as the result of MF’s final, chaotic days leading up the bankruptcy.

Employees wrongfully withdrew customer funds because “they did not have an accurate accounting of the amount of customer funds the company held,” the lawmakers found.

They blamed Corzine for that, too.

“The responsibility for failing to maintain the systems and controls necessary to protect customer funds rests with Corzine,” they said.

In the world of commodity and futures trading, customers’ brokerage and trading accounts should be kept separate from a firm’s funds.

Federal prosecutors have been investigating the loss but have yet to make any arrests in the case, and it is unclear whether any will come.

Corzine yesterday took issue with many of the report’s findings, including that he was “authoritarian” and that he took on too much risk.

“At all times Mr. Corzine acted in good faith and did what he believed was necessary to turn around MF Global,” said his spokesman Steven Goldberg.

Indeed, Corzine’s massive trades in European debt, which ultimately led to the firm’s demise, were part of a plan set in place by the board of directors to return MF to profitability, he said.

The subcommittee said it will leave it to prosecutors and regulators to decide whether Corzine or any other MF employee “violated laws or regulations when these withdrawals of customer funds were made.”

But legal experts said the report’s withering conclusions could provide fuel for civil actions against Corzine, who has emerged from MF’s ruins largely unscathed.

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