How Madoff finished off the Jews

“What Hitler didn’t finish, he did! To the community!” a doyenne of Palm Beach Jewish society who had lost double-digit millions told me in her beautiful home, surrounded by a sizable staff and priceless art.

great article in VF

Recommended reading

Commercial real estate in the USA in deep problems (Economist)

Polands economy not as bad as its neighbors’ (Economist)

How Bernie did it (Fortune)

At the technical heart of the Ponzi an IBM AS/400 from 1980!

Why the Economist is a class of its own (Silicon Alley Insider)

The best reason Matt comes up with, is that those magazines „they can’t match the snob appeal“of the Economist:

“The Economist is like that exotic coffee that comes from beans that have been eaten and shat out undigested by an Indonesian civet cat, and Time and Newsweek are like Starbucks — millions of people enjoy them, but it’s not a point of pride.”

It’s a family thing: Anil and Mukesh (Times of India)

Watch your back once your father is dead.

Dubai – when you build on sand (Economist)

Onkel Bernie und Österreichs Medici

Auszug aus einem herrlichen Stück für’s Wochenende:

„Bank Medici sold the funds to investors around the world from its offices in New York, Vienna, Gibraltar, Zurich and Milan. About 93 percent of the funds’ investors are outside Austria. Just last month, the Herald USA fund won Germany’s annual Hedge Fund Awards for “proving consistency in turbulent times.“

Peter Scheithauer, chief executive of Bank Medici since September, accepted the award, saying Bank Medici’s products “should represent mainly one thing: security and returns in good as well as bad times.“

But as he prepared to brief his management board on potential losses connected to the Madoff investments on Friday, he sounded downbeat. “It’s a real tragedy,” Mr. Scheithauer said. “It’s not just us, it’s so many other people as well. If only we knew, but he was paying out fine until just recently.”

Bank Austria, which is now owned by UniCredit of Italy, owns a stake in Bank Medici and also wound up investing with Mr. Madoff through a range of different funds offered under the name Primeo by its hedge fund unit, Pioneer Alternative Investments.

Mr. Madoff was not a well-known presence on the social circuit in Switzerland. Instead, Swiss money managers would go to him, visiting his offices in the Lipstick Building in Midtown Manhattan. Seeing Mr. Madoff there was a bit like visiting the Wizard of Oz: despite his unerring success in generating smooth returns, he seemed quite ordinary, lacking the flamboyance of other well-heeled money managers.

“He did not look like a huge spender; seemed like a family man,” said one veteran Geneva banker, whose firm had money with Mr. Madoff but insisted on anonymity because of the likelihood of lawsuits from angry clients. “He talked about the markets.”

The only thing that struck the Swiss banker as odd was the bull memorabilia strewn about his office. “It seemed strange for a guy to have all these bulls, little sculptures, paintings of bulls,” he recalled. “I’ve seen offices with bears. This was bulls.”

But the aura of exclusivity was the constant, he said. “This was the usual spiel: ‘It’s impossible to get in, but we can get you some if you’re nice.’ He made it look difficult to get into.”

Der elegante Gang eines Mannes mit 50 Milliarden

Bernie Madoff seen shopping orange tux

Our NYC  STREET reporter Giacomo Corleone reports that he has seen Bernie the Mad Off shopping for an orange tux on 5th Avenue. Bernie was wearing a wig and his trademark Zero ‘00′ glasses. Bernie was apparently pretty tightlipped and only ventilated as much as that the tux was „for special occasions in closed circles in the years to come.“

Madoff’s Fraud of Fraud Fund

Es gibt Umstände, da kann ,an selbst bei einem (noch nicht bestätigten) Totalverlust von 50 Milliarden Dollar nur in Schüttellachkrämpfe ausbrechen. Hier einer unter vielen Fonds, die bei Mad Bernie investiert haben. Oder wie es Warren Buffet sagte, ‘nur wenn die Ebbe einsetzt, sieht man wer nackt schwimmt.’ Köstlich das Folgende aus Naked Shorts:

„Bramdean, a closed end fund listed on the London Stock Exchange in both USD and GBP share classes, had two positions with Madoff:

• In its ‘strategic hedge funds’ portfolio, 4.3 per cent of Bramdean’s assets at Sep. 30 was invested in the $342 million Rye Select Broad Market XL Portfolio Ltd, a three-times levered Madoff vehicle provided by Tremont , the Rye, NY, based hedge fund unit of Oppenheimer Funds. According to Bramdean, which characterized the holding as a derivative arbitrage position: 

The manager operates a split-strike conversion strategy, which consists of the purchase of a basket of equities, the purchase of a put option and the sale of a call option. The strategy has provided relatively consistent performance for the reported period. During the months that the manager felt there were no sufficient investments to take advantage of, it invested in Treasury Bills, which protected the Fund…The strategy employed by the manager has worked well over the period.

• At the same date, its aptly-named ‘Transitional’ portfolio had another 4.9 per cent aboard the less aptly-named Defender Ltd as a “relative value” holding. At pixel-time, NakedShorts had not been able to establish Defender Ltd’s lineage. Again, over to Bramdean:

The majority of Defender’s assets are traded by Bernard L. Madoff Securities LLC, based on a trading authorisation agreement with the Fund.

Madoff Securities is a leading international market maker in all of the S&P 500 stocks. Madoff Securities implements a strategy that consists of a long position in a basket of S&P 100 shares and an index option strategy against these shares (bull spread). Madoff Securities will only enter into this trade if it believes that it can profit. Otherwise, the money is invested in U.S. Treasury Bills. The Fund is providing solid, steady returns.“

voller Post

Und hier ist die Idiotenliste:

HSBC with reported potential exposure of close to $1 billion

Man Group’s RF division

Tremont Capital with potential exposure of $1 billion

Pioneer Investments

Maxam Capital Management LLC

Fairfield Greenwich Group’s Fairfield Sentry invested a whopping $7.3 billion, according to Bloomberg

Fix Asset Management

New York Mets owner and Sterling Equities co-founder Fred Wilpon

Chairman of GMAC Services Ezra Merkin

Former Philadelpia Eagles owner Norman Braman

Hedge fund Fairfield Greenwich Group 

Swiss bank, Banque Benedict Hentsch Fairfield Partners SA

Sterling Equities co-founder Saul Katz

French bank BNP Paribas SA

Spain’s Grupo Santander SA

Mort Zuckerman, the chairman of real estate firm Boston Properties and owner of the New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report, had a significant investment, according to The Wall Street Journal

My name is Bernard Madoff, just call me Berny …

and see 50 bill. buckeroos swooshing by.

Madoff, 70, was arrested today at 8:30 a.m. by the FBI. Charged in a criminal complaint with a single count of securities fraud, he was granted release on a $10 million bond guaranteed by his wife and secured by his apartment. 

“It’s all just one big lie,” sagte Grossvaterken Madoff. The firm, Madoff allegedly said, is “basically, a giant Ponzi scheme.”

Gewöhnlich gut unterrichteten Gonzos zufolge soll Berny Baby seine Investment Funds intern als „Naked Shorts“ liebevoll genannt haben. Berny hat, so sagt er, NICHTS mehr.

Wenn die Zahl 50 Milliarden wirklich stimmen sollte – er nannte sie selber! -, dann muss es sich um ein bislang nicht gesehenes Mega-Ponzi Modell handeln. Es unglaublich, wo er die Gelder für periodische Auszahlungen hergenommen hat ohne das irgend etwas auffiel.

Naked Shorts BVI High Growth II