July 03, 2008

Holiday Criminule News

Scamuel Israel III

As anticipated, Judge Colleen McMahon—who declined the prosecutors’ request to jail Scammy immediately after he was sentenced back in April—was quite the cranky one from the opening “Welcome back, Mr. Israel.”

When Scammy took a seat while she spoke:

“If you can ride a motorcycle, Mr Israel, you can stand up in my courtroom.”

When Scammy’s counsel started demanding consideration for the now famous alleged health issues:

“I did that once and Mr Israel repaid me amply by not showing up to the medical facility to which he was designated.  It was thrown in my face the last time.”

Or, in the original Irish, “Feck you, asshat.”. See LiveBlogging Scammy 1:14 pm EDT.

Original sentence begins immediately. Held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York, until the grand jury returns an indictment on the not-so great escape charges. No rush. Oh, and the $500,000 bail? Forfeit (see LiveBlogging Scammy 4:20 pm).

Bangs gavel. Strides to chambers. Thinks.

“Remind me to have a word with Naomi about that goose botherer. And the wisdom of letting people with too much money roam after sentencing. Naomi? Naomi? She’s in court? Damn.”

Bayou's Israel Tells Judge He Really Tried Suicide
By Carlyn Kolker and David Glovin
Bloomberg Jul. 3 2008


Phil ‘Goose Botherer ’ Bennett

16 years. Reports Sep. 4. Judge declined prosecutor’s request for immediate incarceration. What could go wrong with that?

Mr. Bennett said Thursday at the sentencing hearing that he had not meant to hurt anyone. His voice cracked when he apologized to his family for their “unimaginable agony.”

Well, not so unimaginable, or agonizing. The ratbag has managed to put a substantial amount of both the money he stole, and the toys it bought, beyond the reach of the government and Refco’s creditors. So Mrs B. and the Brats will be just fine, and not having to share a roof with the man who knocked off a financial Everest by out-sliming his mentor, Tom Dittmer (Member, Futures Industry Association Hall of Fame, for Services to Unindicted Felonies), should represent a substantial upgrade in living conditions.

Ex-Refco Chief Bennett Gets 16-Year Term for Fraud
by David Glovin
Bloomberg Jul. 3 2008

Phil Bennett’s comeuppance cometh today

Goose Former Refco chief executive officer Phillip R. Bennett gets his at 11 am this morning, when he appears before US District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald for sentencing on charges related to his role in the Oct. 2005 collapse of the futures brokerage and crime syndicate. While eligible for a sentence of 315 years and a $2.4 billion restitution order, the kindly folks at the Probation Service are recommending 20 years for the 58-year-old.

According to a statistically bogus poll of NakedShorts readers, a plurality—70 per cent—are looking for a punishment at the high end of the range, although a surprising (at least here) number—almost 20 per cent—chose the “3 months probation and $30 restitution” option.

The latest sentencing-related court filings add only some small points of color, with the defense ladling on the syrup of his sudden urge to cooperate with civil litigants seeking recovery of Refco-related losses. Including a hint that he might have turned on his old buddy Christopher Sugrue:

Mr. Bennett has had a very productive meeting with counsel for the Joint Liquidators of Minus Funds, an entity that went bankrupt in the wake of the collapse of Refco and is now seeking hundreds of millions of dollars for defrauded investors, in suits filed against a number of defendants associated with Refco.

The government? No sale.

...the information Bennett is providing to the plaintiffs is colored by the circumstances of his “cooperation”:

  1. The significant incentive to lie to the civil plaintiffs by falsely inculpating his codefendants in order to gain the letters...that he has submitted to the Court;
  2. unlike a cooperating witness, Bennett faces little risk of detection or punishment if he lies to the civil litigants;
  3. unlike with a cooperating witness, there is no assurance that such “cooperation” will continue until completion (that is, after he is sentenced on July 3);
  4. unlike with a cooperating witness, there is no opportunity for a credibility determination by a neutral party, such as the Court, or by a party whose interest is aligned with a truth-seeking function, such as the Government; and
  5. unlike with a cooperating witness, there is no way to accurately assess the value of the cooperation after it has been completed. In other words, under the circumstances, and unlike a cooperating defendant, Bennett has every incentive to lie with little worry of having to suffer the consequences of having done so...

...Furthermore, even with respect to his so-called cooperation, it appears that Bennett has been less than fully candid in the single deposition he has given...
[Emphasis added]

It will be interesting to see, in light of recent developments, whether Judge Buchwald allows Bennett to remain on bail. Unlike Bayou founder Scamuel Israel III, Bennett has been accompanied by an ankle bracelet since his arrest in Oct. 2005, and his leash was tightened further after his guilty plea in February, when he was ordered to choose between his Park Avenue penthouse, or his Gladstone, NJ, palace. He chose the palace, doubtless to bolster his attorney’s claim that, at heart, he’s just a simple goose-botherer, and not one of the biggest thieves in financial history.

Reply Memorandum of Phillip R. Bennett
US v. Phillip R. Bennett
Jun. 19 2008

Response to Reply Memorandum of Phillip R. Bennett
US v. Phillip R. Bennett
Jun. 30 2008

Earlier on NakedShorts

July 3 fireworks for Refco boss
Jun. 13 2008

July 02, 2008

LiveBlogging Breaking Scammy

8:09 pm EDT

LiveBlogging Breaking Scammy has now ended.


8:07 pm EDT

What a guy

...In a brief statement after the court hearing, he said the only reason he turned himself in was because police had arrested his girlfriend. “She had nothing to do with it,” he said as marshals whisked him a way in a maroon Dodge. “That's the reason I'm here.”...

Nothing to do with it, except driving him back and forth to the RV on and before Getaway Day, helping him load up, and then and lying to investigators for more than a week.

Hedge fund swindler says he turned himself in to help girlfriend
by David Abel
Boston Globe Jul. 2 2008


 7:32 pm EDT

Scamuel Israel III will appear before Judge Colleen McMahon in Courtroom 21-B, 500 Pearl St, Manhattan on Thursday, July 3, at 10 am. As for questions on his whereabouts tonight, we can only say he is in federal custody.

Herbert Hadad, spokesman, US Attorney, Southern District of New York


SammyInCuffs


Image source


5:23 pm

Ending with a fine whine

Judge Michael Ponsor this afternoon ordered Scammy shipped back to New York to face the music (Judge Colleen McMahon, conductor). But Scammy, as always, had an angle.

Wearing a blue T-shirt and athletic shorts, Israel, 48, asked...Ponsor to send him to Devens federal prison in Ayer, Massachusetts, where he was due to start the prison sentence.

“I have significant medical issues,” said Israel...“I do require daily medical attention.”

Israel, who appeared without a lawyer, told the judge that he would be safer in the low-security part of the Devens facility.

“I am not a danger to the community. I have not done anything violent,” Israel said. “If I was going to flee again, I would not have turned myself in.”

The judge rejected the former fugitive's plea, telling him, “You could be at Devens right now if you wanted to be.”

Compared with what McMahon has waiting for him, Ponsor is just an old softie.

Ex-hedge fund manager Israel ordered back to NY
by Scott Malone
Reuters Jul. 2 2008


 4:20 pm

Scammy’s last latest margin call

Reuters is reporting that that Scammy’s Mom arranged for him to turn himself in. And why would she do that? Well...

One consequence of Scammy Israel III’s ill-fated rush from justice is that three “financially responsible persons” will likely split a large bill from the US Department of Justice. Israel was released on bail of $500,000—secured by both a personal recognizance bond and the three FRPs—in Sep. 2005, after being charged with his role in the Bayou hedge fund fraud.

Publicly available court records do not, regrettably, name the FRPs; neither do they indicate that Scammy’s bail conditions were changed, even after his sentencing in April. But it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that Mommy got the invoice.

Mr. Israel's mother had told U.S. marshals that he would give himself up, according to Reuters.

She had been in touch with Mr. Israel for weeks and had urged him to turn himself in, officials told Reuters. [Emphasis added].

Interesting. Does that mean that Mrs Israel will find herself, like Scammy's girlfriend, charged with aiding and abetting his disappearance?

Mom brokered hedge fund fugitive's surrender
by Aaron Siegel
Investment News Jul. 2 2008


 2:32 pm: The official word from the US Attorney:

...Mr GARCIA praised the United States Marshals Service for its extraordinary efforts leading to Israel’s surrender. Mr. GARCIA also praised the extraordinary work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which investigated the underlying fraud and worked with the US Marshals in investigating ISRAEL's disappearance. Mr. GARCIA also thanked the New York State Police and the Southwick, Massachusetts, Police Department.


1:14 pm EDT

Irresponsible Media Speculation

A person...ahem...familiar with the situation...this morning informed NakedShorts that Judge Colleen McMahon, who has overseen Bayou criminal matters since Scammy and co-conspirator Daniel Marino entered their guilty pleas in Sep. 2005, is furious—not the word he used, but this is a family blog—with Israel and his now aborted dash to freedom. A couple of things to ponder:

  • The going rate for intentional abscondation appears to be in the general neighborhood of five years, tacked onto the end of the original—20 years here—sentence. But that may not be the worst of it.
  • When sentencing Scammy, McMahon went out of her way to insist that he was to be accommodated at a facility where his various alleged medical issues—dicky back, dodgy ticker, fondness for recreational pharmaceuticals—could be treated. The US Bureau of Prisons, which has a fair degree of latitude in these matters, followed McMahon’s direction and ordered him to Federal Medical Center Devens.

McMahon is unlikely to so sympathetic this time around, and that, combined with factors including the length of his sentence and his now proven propensity for impromptu disappearing acts, means that he is much more likely to find himself in a high security facility. Which is where, in the words of Arlo Guthrie’s ‘Alice’s Restaurant,’ they put the mean nasty ugly looking people from the Group W bench.

Mother rapers.  Father stabbers.  Father rapers!  Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me!  And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me...


12:40 pm EDT: Mary Thomson, on CNBC, reports that Scammy is being moved to the federal courthouse in Springfield, Mass., where he will be arraigned at 3 pm. 


12:07 pm EDT:

Israel, 48, turned himself in at 9:15 a.m. today, according to Sue Anderson, assistant to Southwick, Massachusetts, Police Chief Mark Krynicki. Southwick, near the Connecticut border, is about 117 miles from where Israel disappeared in New York the day he was to report to a federal prison northwest of Boston...

...Yusill Scribner, another spokeswoman for [US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Michael] Garcia, didn't immediately have details on whether Israel will be brought to New York or sent directly to prison.

Bayou Co-Founder Israel Surrenders in Massachusetts
By David Glovin and Carlyn Kolker
Bloomberg Jul. 2 2008


11:34 am EDT:

...He was talking to his mother on the phone when he walked into a local jail and surrendered to the United States Marshals task force, a spokeswoman for the marshals said...

Fugitive Hedge Fund Manager Surrenders
by Abha Bhattarai
The New York Times Jul. 3 2008


10:58 am EDT: Helpful map showing directions from Southwick, Mass., to Devens, Mass., where Scammy failed to show up Jun. 9. (His actual route will probably include a detour to New York for a brief, but unpleasant, discussion with Judge Colleen McMahon.)


 10:53 am EDT: He is in custody. That's all we're saying at the moment

Spokesman ― US Attorney


10:45 am EDT: SOUTHWICK, Mass. (CBS) ― Samuel Israel III, the hedge fund swindler who apparently tried to fake his suicide, has turned himself into police in Southwick, Mass., CBS 2 has confirmed.

Details of his arrest are not yet known...

Missing Hedge Fund Swindler Surrenders
WCBS New York


10:20 am EDT: Scamuel Israel III has turned himself into police in Southwick, Mass., according to CNBC..

Those new structured credit ratings in foole

by David S. Products

I was pleased to read yesterday that, in response to widespread criticism of the performance of structured credit product ratings and ahead of impending regulatory intervention, the following announcement from the International Rating Cartel Trust:

New ratings methodology

This will once and for all make our models more precisely inaccurate. This will eliminate existing confusion over whether model errors resulted in material deviations from their intended inaccuracy, as at Moody's, or not, as at S&P.

Because the covered securities might be subject to huge amounts of compression pressure, the new methodology is designed to reflect the possibility that they will form natural diamonds, substantially increasing their value. The following pictorial guidelines are intended to address regulatory demands that ratings should assist investors in making "an independent judgment of credit risks," and eliminate doubts as to the consistency of our inaccurate ratings.  Without consistency our ratings might be perceived to not have any value at all, especially given their apparent inaccuracy.

NewRatingsMethod
Rating 1, Now AA (previously AAA (erroneous model)):  Note the securities have uniform color and a pleasing shape. Delivered in hard-to-open bags. Very ready for conversion to diamonds.

Rating 2, Credit Watch Negative (previously, No Ratings Impact): Note the presence of smoke, which sometimes implies the existence of fire. May also result from diamond-forming pressures.  From now on we will keep a really really close eye on these.

Rating 3, Downgrade (previously, Rating Affirmed): Note the change in color, the radiation of heat, and suitability for cooking a portfolio. Diamond formation improbable at this stage, but still investment grade, especially for hedge funds that have suspended redemptions from "Wishin' and hopin'" portfolio.

Rating 4, Unrated (previously, Super-Senior Tranche): Note slightly diminished potential for diamonds as much of the capital has been incinerated.  Subject to UBS Exemption, covering possibility of diamonds being smuggled into the bag, via private bankers' toothpaste tubes.

SEC Publishes Proposals to Increase Investor Protections
by Reducing Reliance on Credit Ratings
US Securities and Exchange Commission
Press release Jul. 1 2008

SEC Proposes Comprehensive Reforms to Bring Increased
Transparency to Credit Rating Process
US Securities and Exchange Commission
Press release Jun. 11 2008

July 01, 2008

Moody's rats out rattings rats. . .

Quotesopen_2

As for both Moody's and S&P,
defending their models for incompetent
ratings is like a writer defending
Microsoft Word for a badly written article

Quotesclose

Derivatives consultant Janet Tavakoli (Personal communication).

Moody's Says Some Employees Breached Code of Conduct
by Emma Moody and Neil Unmack
Bloomberg Jul. 1 2008

Moody’s Shakes Up Management After CPDO Errors
Dealbook (The New York Times) Jul. 1 2008

Earlier on NakedShorts

That Moody’s investigation in fool I
May 23. 2008

. . .hits new hilarity high

Moodys_HedgeFundAnalysis
One of world’s most qualified sources? Indutiably. Just not in the way that the flier, which wormed its way into NakedShorts’ inbox this morning, intended.

Expanding credit intelligence (ahem)
Hedge Fund Analysis

Another flawed Bear Stearns autopsy

BearFalling Bryan Burrough, author of ‘Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco,’ tosses his 10,000 words into the Bear Stearns meltdown pot in Vanity Fair this month, featuring a quote from an unnamed vice-chairman of an unnamed investment bank.

“If I had to pick the biggest financial crime ever perpetuated,” he concludes, “I would say, ‘Bear Stearns.”’

Well, that understandably anonymous individual definitely needs to get out more.

The story adds some new names to the unindicted co-conspirators file, naming Stevie Cohen’s SAC Capital, which “vehemently” denied the allegations, and “Jeff Dorman, who briefly served as global co-head of Bear’s prime brokerage business until resigning to take a similar position at Deutsche Bank last summer.”

“We heard Dorman was saying things last summer,” says a Bear executive. “At the time we reached out to Deutsche Bank and told them he better stop it.” (Asked about the allegation, a Deutsche Bank spokeswoman acknowledged that Bear had sent its executives a letter last August asking Dorman not to solicit its clients, as he had agreed upon leaving Bear. Deutsche Bank replied that he wasn’t. The exchange didn’t explicitly address what Dorman might have been saying about the firm, nor would the spokeswoman.)

Hmmm. But the distinguishing feature of this contribution to the pathologist’s file is its fisking of the contribution of “trigger-happy [CNBC] reporters” during the week of Mar. 10, when fleeing customers pushed Bear into the abyss. That section includes at least a dozen mentions of the word ‘rumor,’ but omits to mention that virtually all of the so-called rumors—most specifically of clients pulling assets, and counterparties refusing to deal with Bear— were, in fact, true.

“Everyone on Wall Street knows the joke,” says another Bear executive involved in the discussions. “At CNBC, there is simply no adult supervision.”

Nobody could contest that analysis but, amidst the frenzied finger-pointing, is plenty of evidence that adult supervision was at least as conspicuously lacking at Bear Stearns. 

Bringing Down Bear Stearns
by Bryan Burrough
Vanity Fair Aug. 2008

(Forelock tugs to Felix Salmon and Dealbook.)

Earlier on NakedShorts

Great moments in death throes
May 29 2008

The last days of Bear
Apr. 1 2008

June 30, 2008

Steel: The Top is In II

LONDON: The steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal joined the board of Goldman Sachs as an independent director, the company announced Sunday, underlining the growing mutual dependence of the developing world and Wall Street's titans.

The very same Lakshmi Mittal who last week announced that, in so many words, steel prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau (© Irving Fisher Sep. 1929).

Mittal joins Goldman Sachs board
by Julia Werdigier
International Herald Tribune Jun. 29 2008

Lakshmi N. Mittal to Join Goldman Sachs Board
Press release Jun. 29 2008

Earlier on NakedShorts

Steel: The Top is In 
Jun. 29 2008

Fisking Michael Masters

Part II:  The witch hunter gets witch hunted

MichaelMasters These very pixels were not the only place Michael Willingham Masters, energy price witch hunter extraordinaire, caught some push-back over the last few days. Now even the grown-up media is on his case:

Is speculation playing a role in high oil prices? It’s not out of the question. Economists were right to scoff at Mr Masters — buying a futures contract doesn’t directly reduce the supply of oil to consumers — but under some circumstances, speculation in the oil futures market can indirectly raise prices, encouraging producers and other players to hoard oil rather than making it available for use...

..What about those who argue that speculative excess is the only way to explain the speed with which oil prices have risen? Well, I have two words for them: iron ore.

You see, iron ore isn’t traded on a global exchange; its price is set in direct deals between producers and consumers. So there’s no easy way to speculate on ore prices. Yet the price of iron ore, like that of oil, has surged over the past year. In particular, the price Chinese steel makers pay to Australian mines has just jumped 96 percent. This suggests that growing demand from emerging economies, not speculation, is the real story behind rising prices of raw materials, oil included.

In any case, one thing is clear: the hyperventilation over oil-market speculation is distracting us from the real issues...

Fuels on the Hill
by Paul Krugman
The New York Times Jun. 27 2008

...There are so many holes in [Masters’] argument I scarcely know where to start. The CFTC says that some $5 trillion worth of futures and options transaction trades take place every day; can an influx of $240 billion, spread over five years, really propel prices upward to the extent that he and others claim? Then there’s the fact that the commodities markets don’t work like equity markets, where a small amount of trading can lift every share of a company’s stock. In commodities trading, every contract has a buyer and a seller, meaning that for every bet that prices are going up, somebody else is betting they are going down. Why doesn’t that short interest depress prices?

And what about all those commodities, like coal or barley or sulfur, that don’t trade on any futures market but have risen as fast as or faster than oil? Or how about the recent decline in cash flows into many commodity funds—why have prices kept going up if the money has stopped pouring into those funds? My speculator friends tell me that in the last two weeks, trading volumes have been cut in half. Indeed, what I hear is that much of the speculative money that remains in the market is betting against higher oil prices...

Easy Target, But Not the Right One
by Joe Nocera
The New York Times Jun. 28 2008 d whoever could Barron’s’ Randall Forsyth, filling in this week for Alan Abelson, have in mind?

...Crude oil futures? That's another matter, especially when those evil speculators get sway. Somehow, the "S" word gets bandied about only when markets go the wrong way. I don’t recall it when the Nasdaq hit 5000 or those operators were scooping up condos in Vegas...

Copy Karachi?
by Randall W. Forsyth
Barron’s Jun. 30 2008

Best of all perhaps, comes Masters’ wriggling on a hook baited by “financial blogger Greg Newton” and trolled by BusinessWeek’s Moira Herbst. Hang on. What’s this?

In an interview June 27, Masters called Newton's math “way off,” in part because it did not account for offsetting positions, and other options and derivatives not reported on the SEC forms, known as 13F-HRs.

Newton’s math, as far as it went, was precise. He did however concede that that the calculations might well not reflect the actual performance of the stocks in the Masters’ portfolio for several reasons.

Masters declined to elaborate on the fund's position or overall performance.

Curses. That’s a knowledge gap NakedShorts hopes to fill this week.

Scourge of the Oil Speculators
by Moira Herbst
BusinessWeek Jun. 27 2008

Earlier on NakedShorts

Fisking Michael Masters
Part I: Talking his big book of airlines
Jun. 26 2008

Image source

Steel: The Top is In III

High prices curing high prices

NakedShorts usually takes his prognosticators with more salt than the Dead Sea, but when the guys who called the steel move pretty much all the way from the bottom issue a de facto sell on their biggest customers? It may pay to pay heed.

As a growing number of steel buyers and others forecast a leveling out in flat rolled steel prices during the coming months, two industry analysts gave a stronger message last week: Spot prices on sheet are poised to “plummet” in the second half of 2008.

Peter Marcus and Karlis Kirsis, managing partners in World Steel Dynamics (WSD), see the odds as essentially even that the export market price for hot rolled coil will fall to a range of $675-750 per tonne fob from about $1,100 per tonne currently...

...Marcus acknowledged that most of WSD’s own sources do not expect prices to decline as much as he and Kirsis anticipate. But...they gave a number of reasons for their outlook.

These include a sharp rise in global steel output as high prices have both encouraged mills to boost output and have coaxed more obsolete scrap out of the reservoir, resulting in a 12% rise in worldwide steel production this year to 1.5 billion tonnes. Moreover, an approximate doubling of steel product prices in several markets have helped to dampen demand in certain highly steel-intensive sectors...since their producers find it virtually impossible to pass along soaring costs to end-users. [Emphasis added].

Possibly early. But probably not wrong. And just as Australian iron ore producers whacked the Chinese with a near-doubling in iron ore prices.

WSD expects flat rolled coil price plunge
by Frank Haflich
Metal Bulletin Jun. 30 2008
(not directly linkable)

World Steel Dynamics

June 27, 2008

Cox hardens for a big finish

Former mutual fund fraud enabler and current useless US Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox has now finished the nap he took while the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board gift-wrapped Bear Stearns into an only slightly belated birthday present for Jamie Dimon.

The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a series of rule changes, including easing restrictions on trading with overseas brokers and lowering reliance on credit ratings that will likely frame the agency's actions in the waning months of the Bush administration...

...The rules proposed Wednesday are part of an aggressive agenda unveiled two weeks ago by SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, who has said he will leave the agency in February 2009 after a new president takes office.

So who said this blog was nothing but a fount of negativity? That’s good news right there.

Cox Pushes Change As Exit at SEC Nears
By Kara Scannell and Judith Burns
The Wall Street Journal Jun. 26 2008

Earlier stuff we meant to point out showing why Cox’s official portrait will end up in the Harvey Pitt Wing of Useless Securities Regulators:

SEC Chief Under Fire
by Kara Scannell and Susanne Craig
The Wall Street Journal Jun. 23 2008

No, really, I am totally useless*
by Christopher Cox
The Wall Street Journal Jun. 23 2008
* Not the real headline, but this one is more precise.

Let’s send Kevin Davis a Metrocard

MetroCard

With its stock down 80 percent from the first tick of its IPO last year, don’t think that the board of MF Global Ltd is snoring gently at the wheel. Facing a certain uncertainty in its outlook, caused not least of all by the urgent need to close rogue wheat trading loopholes, the board has really stuck it to chief executive officer Kevin R. Davis, who managed to run up $105,800 in transportation expenses in fiscal 2008.

To the proxy:

Mr. Davis made use of a designated third-party private car service primarily for business and commuting purposes. The total cost of these services not otherwise reimbursed by Mr. Davis for fiscal 2008 was $95,000. Although we make transportation services available to enhance the security and efficient travel of our chief executive officer, SEC rules require that costs of commuting and other uses not directly and integrally related to our business be disclosed as compensation to the executive. Because we do not track use of these services on the basis contemplated by these SEC rules, we have reported the full amount of our estimate of these services for Mr. Davis...

But...but...but:

...Effective for fiscal 2009, the Compensation Committee approved an annual car and driver allowance of $75,000 for Mr. Davis...

To help fill the $20,000—or $30,800, depending on which 2008 number you want to go with—gap, NakedShorts will send Davis a $23 Metrocard (our cost $20), and would encourage readers to do likewise. Don’t bother tossing in a Starbucks card: word is that Davis already has a cappuccino machine.

MF Global Ltd DEF 14A
Definitive Proxy Statement
See: Other benefits and perquisites (Page 31) and
Additional Detail Regarding All Other Compensation (Page 40)

Disclosure: NakedShorts’ Falling Anvil portfolio remains long MF.

June 26, 2008

Fisking Michael Masters

American

Part I: Talking his big book of airlines

Michael Masters, principal at and founder of hedge fund firm Masters Capital Management LLC, says...“Witch hunts aren’t good for anybody, including the government,” he says. “It’s a waste of resources.” [Emphasis added].
Hedge Funds Flee Tax Haven in Virgin Islands, Hounded by IRS
by Ryan J. Donmoyer
Bloomberg Jan. 25 2007

One of the unquestionable stars of the energy price witch hunt has been one Michael Willingham Masters. His view that commodity speculation by financial investors is largely responsible for driving crude oil to new records won widespread, and largely uncritical, coverage after his May 20 appearance before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

And why not? It’s not every day that a hedge fund manager calls Evil Speculators! on hedge fund managers (among others). Especially at a Senate hearing where grandstanding on the back of carefully winnowed possibly facts is strictly prohibited. But it all does raise a few questions about who Michael Masters is—because he certainly wasn’t a household name, even in the hedge fund household, before his 15 minutes kicked in—how he climbed aboard the bully pulpit, and what his motives may be for lifting his head above the parapet behind which most hedge fund managers prefer to quietly lurk.

Mr Masters?

I have been successfully managing a long-short equity hedge fund for over 12 years and I have extensive contacts on Wall Street and within the hedge fund community. It’s important that you know that I am not currently involved in trading the commodities futures markets. I am not representing any corporate, financial, or lobby organizations. I am speaking with you today as a concerned citizen whose professional background has given me insight into a situation that I believe is negatively affecting the US economy. While some in my profession might be disappointed that I am presenting this testimony to Congress, I feel that it is the right thing to do.

Concerned citizen he may be, but hardly a disinterested one. What he never got around to mentioning was that, according to his most recent US Securities & Exchange Commission 13F-HR filings, his hedge fund portfolio is at least knee-deep levered long in US airline stocks and General Motors.

Over the jump, some numbers doubtless contributing to Masters’ distress at crude oil prices.

Continue reading "Fisking Michael Masters" »

Two words: superseding indictments

BusinessWeek’s Matthew Goldstein, who has spent large chunk of his career being extremely well informed about the serial skullduggery at Bear Stearns, intimates that the feds may not be done with Messrs Cioffi and Tannin.

BusinessWeek has learned that authorities are now examining the funds’ dealings with Wall Street banks to determine whether the managers misled them as well...

...Prosecutors are particularly interested in the toxic $4 billion collateralized debt obligation that the pair enlisted BofA to guarantee and sell in the spring of 2007—when the market for such risky mortgage-backed securities teetered on the brink of implosion.

Far be it for me to tell him his business, but Jamie Dimon’s better move might have been to have the Fed cover the legal exposures, and take his chances with the mortgage book.

Did Bear Stearns Fool the Street, Too?
by Matthew Goldstein and David Henry
BusinessWeek Jun. 25 2008

Remember: Vote early, vote often...Polls close Jul. 3

June 25, 2008

We, the jury. . .

Having had a chance to read the indictment and other official documentation charging former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin with assorted miscreancy, having digested at least some of the dead-tree and pixellated coverage, and wasted numerous hours (on unrecorded lines, because if we have learned nothing else we have learned not to email stuff, ever) discussing the pros and cons, hereby aver that:

Too expensive to axe?

Canning Davis would cost MF Global $40 million