Friday, October 28, 2011

Jon Corzine: As Destructive In the Private Sector As He Was In New Jersey

After leaving the state broke and bankrupt with his leftist economic illiteracy, he is now doing the same to investors (aka "suckers") at MF Global Holdings:

Shares of MF Global Holdings, the outfit Jon Corzine took over last year, dropped 40 percent yesterday after its biggest-ever quarterly loss as a public company. Corzine has tried to transform the broker into a global investment bank that manages money for customers and provides capital services for companies. In the past 12 quarters, the company has turned a profit three times, and shares are down 70 percent this year.

And investors are fleeing Corzine the way citizens fled New Jersey:

Some customers are moving money away from struggling futures brokerage MF Global Holdings Ltd, according to hedge funds, rivals, and analysts, though the extent of the outflows is unclear.

Any substantial departures will likely put further pressure on MF Global Chief Executive Jon Corzine, a former New Jersey governor and former head of Goldman Sachs, to sell all or part of the company.

MF Global, whose shares slumped 15.9 percent on Thursday and have lost more than 60 percent of their value this week, had been trying to transform from a brokerage that mainly places customers' trades on exchanges into an investment bank that bet with its own capital.

But its bets on bonds from euro zone countries have gone bad, prompting regulators to press it to boost capital and one rating agency to cut the company's debt rating to junk status.

Three brokers at rival firms said they were signing up customers who were formerly at MF Global, and Patrick O'Shaughnessy, an analyst at Raymond James in Chicago, said his conversations with customers indicate there have been "significant departures."

There are rumors, too, that Corzine might get the boot sooner rather than later.  A one-termer, so to speak, just like this loser was in New Jersey.

But maybe MF Global was never on the up and up to begin with.  As I reported in August, there were some strange doings afoot with MF & Crooked Jon.

The New York Times:

MF Global is planning to sell five-year notes on Tuesday with an unusual twist: the notes will pay an extra 1 percent in the interest rate “upon the departure of Mr. Corzine as our full time chief executive officer due to his appointment to a federal position by the President of the United States and confirmation of that appointment by the United States Senate prior to July 1, 2013,” according to the offering. The higher possible rate reflects how important investors consider Mr. Corzine to be to MF’s prospects and pays them taking the risk that he might leave.

My question was:

Is Corzine really on the short list, as this disclaimer seems to imply, or is this just flypaper for suckers, luring them to think IMF Global must be all that as their CEO could likely be the nation's next Treasury Secretary?

Well, to be fair, there were plenty of rumors of a possible quid pro quo agreement between Barack Obama and Jon Corzine.  Crooked Jon was appointed as one of Obama's top Wall Street money "bundlers", and supposedly would be first in line for the coveted treasury spot, should Obama get re-elected, or need to fill the position even sooner.

But apparently, Corzine couldn't even convince his fellow crooks to pony up for man on top of the Syndicate, as Obama's Wall Street donations have dropped dramatically.  Of course, the "Occupy" movement - endorsed by the president - is having a dampening effect as well.

So to sum up - who has Jon Corzine screwed over in the last 18 months?

-The entire sate of New Jersey, which he left a fiscal shambles

-Investors in the MF  Group, thinking the CEO would eventually become the Treasury Secretary, and thus give their portfolio "most favored nation" status,

-The President of the United States, who trusted him to be a to fundraiser in what looks to be a challenging re-election campaign (and that's me being polite)

I don't think Crooked Jon has got a lot of friends left anymore, and has made some powerful enemies to boot..  Who's left for him to rob, besides innocent children and drunken call girls?

And I would put neither class past him...

1 comment:

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