The Kitty Ain’t Kosher at AA Capital

This has all the makings of a great The-Sopranos-meets-Private-Equity-Fund movie: over $10 million in missing moolah, union pension funds, political pay offs, private jets, a horse farm, super bowl tickets, even a strip club..The SEC says one of the partners alone helped himself to over $5 million Best of all, it takes place in Chicago, home of Al Capone.  What more could you ask for?  We’re sure it’s going to be a major motion picture..

Things Not AA-OK at Chicago Firm [DailyII.com]

Is the glass half full?

Now that the value of housing has dropped for the first time in years, is the Repo man just around the corner?  Do figures show that more people have taken out mortgages they can’t afford?  Is the country is about to be thrown into financial turmoil?  According to Seeking Alpha, there are signs that trouble may be around the corner: the decline in commodity prices, the pullback in manufacturing, and the aforementioned decline in the price of housing.  You can see where they’re going with this.

Recession Around the Corner [Seeking Alpha]

Enron Convictions Against Merrill Four Vacated

Better late than never for the four ex-ML bankers (James Brown, William Fuhs, Daniel Bayly and Robert Furst) who had been going down with the Enron ship until yesterday when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed their convictions. While calling the conspiracy and wire fraud charges against the four men for their involvement in barge-gate “flawed”, the Appeals Court did uphold a conviction of perjury and obstruction of justive again Brown.
4 Ex-Merrill Execs’ Convictions Overturned [Chron.com]

Goldman Serves Up UK Property Derivative

All you need to participate in the latest offering from Goldman Sachs is 10 pounds and a bullish view of Britain’s real estate market. The Wall Street giant announced yesterday that it had launched a London Stock Exchange-listed derivative product that would track the returns of Investment Property Databank’s (IPD) benchmark UK All-Property Index. The bank is targetting an initial issuance of 25 million pounds. Whether investors will have an appetite remains to be seen given the UK real estate market’s performance over the past year or so.
GS Launches Listed UK Property Tracker [Reuters]

Specialist’s Rates A Little Too Special

A New York Stock Exchange investigation into stock loan misconduct has resulted in Van Der Moolen Specialists agreeing to pay a $3.5 million fine. The firm’s transgression? Certain employees allegedly borrowed securities at rates “significantly below” market and then loaned them at much higher rates. The firm also paid out $2.65 million in unjustified finder’s fees to 29 friends and family members. The admission of wrongdoing by VdM shouldn’t have much impact on the firm’s business--it closed the naughty unit last year anyway.
Van Der Moolen Settles Probe [Crain’s]

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