Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Hedge fund collapse? Why not banks and brokerages instead? Why not cities and towns?

Florida Holds $2.2 Billion of Debt Cut to Junk Status
This article goes over the how mortgage-backed securities are threatening some cities and towns that invested in them. But buried at the end is a little history on the collapse of banks and brokerages. Not exactly the hedge funds I was looking for, but tragic enough:

Potential losses by states are part of the subprime meltdown that shook up Merrill Lynch & Co., the world's biggest brokerage, in October. The firm reported a $2.24 billion third- quarter loss and an $8.4 billion write-down, leading to the firing of CEO Stan O'Neal.

Executives Step Down

The next week, subprime losses reported by Citigroup Inc., which at the time was the largest U.S. bank by market value, led to the departure of CEO Charles Prince.

In June, two bear Stearns Cos. hedge funds holding subprime debt reported losses of $1.5 billion. Bear Stearns fired Warren Spector, the firm's co-president for fixed income and asset management and the bank's stock lost 30 percent of its value in the following two months.

No comments: