Refco

From MarketsWiki

Refco was a $4 billion commodities and futures trading company that suddenly melted down in October 2005 after its CEO revealed he had hidden a $430 million debt to the company. Refco's assets were sold one month later to Man Financial - now MF Global - for $282 million in cash and $41 million in liabilities.^[1]

Contents 1 Background 2 Points of Interest 3 Latest News 4 References

Background

Refco filed for bankruptcy on October 2005, one week after it was revealed that former chairman and CEO Phillip R. Bennett^[2] had covered up $430 million in customer losses impacting the company since the late 1990s. Bennett hid the losses from auditors and investors by arranging regular multiple transactions between related Refco companies.

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Well-known investment company Thomas H. Lee Partners had bought a 38 percent stake in Refco in 2004 for $500 million as Refco was preparing for its IPO the following year.^[3] That offering, in August of 2005 just two months before the company collapsed, saw Refco shares rise 25 percent on the first day's trading.

Bennett and former Refco CFO Robert Trosten both pled guilty in federal court in February 2008 to fraud charges stemming from the collapse of Refco. They face sentencing in May of 2008.

Points of Interest

• Barely a month before it sank, Refco announced it had completed its $208 million cash purchase of brokerage firm Cargill Investor Services. It was to be rebranded under the Refco Investment Services banner.

• An accountant who'd been working for Refco less than two months discovered the fraud in August 2005 when he noticed abnormally large interest payments being made to Refco on debt servicing.^[4]

• Neither Refco's auditor, Grant Thornton LLP, nor its IPO underwriters Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America picked up on Bennett's $430 million concealment.^[5]

• Refco was Hillary Clinton's broker during her famously profitable 10-month period of rookie cattle-futures trading in 1978-79, when she turned an initial $1,000 into a profit of over $60,000.^[6]

Latest News

Former Refco president Tone Grant, 64, was found guilty in federal court on Apr. 18, 2008 of five criminal counts related to the scheme and faced a possible sentence of life in prison.^[7] Grant was alleged to have hidden losses topping $2.4 billion.^[8]

On October 30, 2008, Grant reported to the US Federal prison camp in Duluth, Minnesota to begin serving a 10-year sentence.^[8]

References

1. ↑ Court Approves Man-Refco Sale. HedgeWorld. Retrieved on April 19, 2008.
2. ↑ Inside the Shadowy World of Phillip R. Bennett. Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved on April 19, 2008.
3. ↑ A lingering question about Refco. Houston's Clear Thinkers. Retrieved on April 19, 2008.
4. ↑ Mystery at Refco: How Could Such a Huge Debt Stay Hidden?. New York Times. Retrieved on April 19, 2008.
5. ↑ Refco: The Reckoning. Business Week. Retrieved on April 19, 2008.
6. ↑ Hillary Clinton Futures Trades Detailed. Washington Post. Retrieved on April 19, 2008.
7. ↑ Ex-Refco Boss Guilty of Fraud in Losses Scam. Reuters. Retrieved on April 19, 2008.
8. ↑ ^{8.0 8.1} Refco's Tone Grant Begins 10-Year Sentence for Fraud. Bloomberg News. Retrieved on November 04, 2008.