Debt threatens MF Global, and Corzine

MF Global, run by Jon Corzine, is losing investors concerned about the firm’s ties to $6.3 billion in European debt.

Jon S Corzine’s return to Wall Street has run into a wall of turbulence.

Shares of his firm, the commodities and derivatives brokerage house MF Global, have plummeted 54 per cent so far this week amid concerns about the firm’s exposure to European sovereign debt. On Wednesday, the price of its five-year bonds slumped to 66.5 cents on the dollar, and the upfront premium of insuring $10 million of its debt annually climbed to $4.7 million, from about $3.9 million on Tuesday.

Worries about Europe have buffeted other American financial firms in recent months, but MF Global is showing signs of becoming the first to face a full-blown panic. Investors began running to the exits after Moody’s Investors Service on Monday cut its ratings on the company to one notch above junk status and Standard & Poor’s on Wednesday threatened a downgrade.

Both ratings agencies said they were concerned about MF Global’s capital position given its exposure to $6.3 billion in debt from Italy, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and Portugal — among the most troubled economies that use the common currency of the euro.

S&P, noting that the debt amount is 5.2 times the company’s total equity, said, “We consider this exposure to be very high, compared to the company’s loss absorbing capital base.” Earlier this month, MF Global disclosed that a regulator, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, had ordered it in August to set aside additional capital. Moody’s said the debt exposure and the need to inject capital highlighted “the firm’s increased risk appetite and raises questions about its risk governance.”

While investors have been fleeing, it is not clear whether its clients are staying put. After the Moody’s downgrade on Monday, MF Global’s chief financial officer, Henri Steenkamp, sent a note to customers discussing the firm’s financial stability.

The firm’s woes pose a huge test for Corzine, who joined it only last year with a grand vision: to remake the four-year-old brokerage into a smaller version of his former employer, Goldman Sachs.

©2011 The New York
Times News Service