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Available Now: re: The Auditors: The Mystery of The MF Global Failure
This book is the fourth in a series of compilations from re: The Auditors. This volume focuses on the failure of MF Global on October 31, 2011. MF Global was a broker-dealer and futures commission merchant (FCM).
My first feature article for Forbes magazine is out on the newsstands today.
Most initial news accounts of the Facebook S-1 focused on CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Stalinist-like stranglehold on the stock, the strategy, and the board. Tim Carmody of Wired waited a while to file his story, after recording an hour of conversation with me on the phone a few Saturday afternoons ago, and Carmody got lucky. Apple announced some significant to changes in their corporate governance that contrasted sharply with Facebook and Zukerberg’s one-man band approach.
I do not believe the measure of a man or a woman is what they make. But in the case of the two MF Global CROs, the testimony they gave about their salaries, coming at the end in response to a question from a cranky Congressman from New Mexico, offered the perfect punchline.
Amazing but true, the MF Global story is still red hot, reason being $1.2 billion in customer funds is still missing. Here’s a recap of recent columns at Forbes and American Banker that have tracked new developments.
Lots of news and updates on MF Global, PricewaterhouseCoopers, JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon and the politics of money.
View the story “The Plot Thickens: The House Financial Services Committee MF Global Hearing ” on Storify]
Yesterday, The Financial Times asked me to comment on the Enron anniversary. Last week, it was the Houston Chronicle. So Arthur Andersen’s demise is ten years behind us. Today, I re-post one of my first, from October 13, 2006, which presents my thoughts from that time. As I re-read it today, how little has truly [...]
This post is reprinted from Thanksgiving Day 2008, November 27.
Every once and a while I have to take off my re: The Auditors hat and put on the fancy dress of a typical member of a large urban, Catholic, ethnic, up-from-the-working-class family.
We celebrate the traditional holidays like anyone else although, like anyone else, they [...]
Let’s not forget PricewaterhouseCoopers, MF Global’s auditors.
When it comes to hands-on access to private information, the auditor has more than any other regulator mentioned. And they are supposed to be experts in that client’s business and in the accounting and auditing standards for that industry. PwC also audits JP Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs. They are all large players in the futures brokerage industry.
 Francine McKenna (@retheauditors) has more than twenty-five years of experience in consulting and professional services including tenure at two Big 4 firms, both in the US and abroad. Look for my column, "Accounting Watchdog" at Forbes.com and "Accountable" at American Banker. For more information, click "About" at the bottom of this page. Your firm can sponsor this specialized news site. For more information contact Francine McKenna, fmckenna@mckennapartners.com |
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