According to multiple reports, almost $700 million in customer money has gone “missing” from MF Global, the brokerage firm helmed by former New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Monday. And no one seems to know where it went.
Did MF Global use its own customers’ money to support its faulty trades? Were they just sloppy? Are banks simply refusing to send the troubled firm its own money?
Regulators don’t know. What is known is that the sale of a large part of MF Global to Interactive Brokers Group — a deal that seemed all but completed on Sunday — collapsed because of the missing money.
MF Global hasn’t been accused of anything sinister, and neither has Corzine. But as investigations continue, that could change.
