Refco's British chief executive arrested, owing firm $430m

[emad]

Refco's British chief executive arrested, owing firm $430m
By Katherine Griffiths in New York
Published: 13 October 2005


A British University of Cambridge graduate, who was until Monday the chief executive of the futures trading firm Refco, was charged yesterday with hiding transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars from investors who bought stock in the company's initial public offering this summer.

Mr Bennett was arrested in New York after the US Attorney's office in Manhattan filed the charges just two days after Refco put its former head on indefinite leave amid discovery of the $430m (£246m) in an undisclosed related-party transactions.

Refco was floated by a consortium of advisers including Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse First Boston.

Refco's stock has lost more than half its value since Monday, when the company announced it had uncovered that Mr Bennett owed $430m to the firm. It said it would have to restate its financial statements since 2002.

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article319187.ece

[northzax]

1. Goldman? CSFB?

do you people not have accountants? damn. Why did he go to New York, I wonder? I hear Brasil is nice this time of year, without those pesky extradition treaties.

[damntexdem]

2. Hey, what happened? What went wrong?

I thought that if one stole enough, one was never punished!

[northzax]

4. in the immortal words of Fredrich Schiller

the blame diminishes as the guilt increases, it is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune and a mark of greatness to steal a crown.

[acmavm]

3. Everytime this shit happens I just get giddy thinking about the

pResident's plan to invest social security money in the stock market.

Just as any investor's in the Frist family's company HCA how safe that is. Especially with so many sticky fingered execs running around.