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riverdeep Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 08:41 AM
Original message
Interesting list of Madoff investors.
Fairfield Greenwich Advisors

An investment management firm

$7,500,000,000

More than half of Fairfield Greenwich's $14.1 billion in assets under management, or about $7.5 billion was connected to Madoff.


Ascot Partners

A hedge fund founded by billionaire investor, philanthropist and GMAC chief J. Ezra Merkin

$1,800,000,000

The hedge fund had $1.8 billion under management as of Sept. 30, had substantially all of its assets invested with Mr. Madoff.


Access International Advisors

A New York-based investment firm

$1,400,000,000

The investment-advisory firm's co-founder Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet, 65, was found dead in his Manhattan office on Dec. 24, 2008, in an apparent suicide.


Fairfield, Conn.

town pension fund

$42,000,000

The town's employees board and police and fire board, which cover 971 workers, had $41.9 million invested with Madoff, said Paul Hiller, Fairfield's chief fiscal officer.


Richard Spring

individual investor

$11,000,000

A Boca Raton resident and former securities analyst, says he had about 95% of his net worth invested with Mr. Madoff. Mr. Spring said he was also one of the unofficial agents who connected Mr. Madoff with dozens of investors, from a teacher who put in $50,000 to entrepreneurs and executives who would put in millions.


Steven Spielberg

The Spielberg charity -- the Wunderkinder Foundation

N/A

N/A


Chais Family Foundation

A charity that gives away about $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes

N/A

The California-based charity group invested entirely with Madoff, and was forced to shut down operations on Sunday after years of donating some $12.5 million annually to Jewish causes in Israel and Eastern Europe.


United Association Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 267 in Syracuse

Local union pension and health care funds

N/A

The union is still trying to determine the extent of its losses. Its investments with Mr. Madoff go back 15 years.


(more)
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/st_madoff_victims_20081215.html

From sports owners, to foreign banks, to Hollywood big wigs, to Jewish charities, to pensioners. They all got taken in by this 'sure thing'.
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riverdeep Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 09:36 AM
Response to Original message
1. But after it's all said and done, there's going to be a lot more.
Many of the people and institutions that hooked up with this guy are keeping mum so as to avoid as many lawsuits as they can. Some of these people were the some of the richest citizens in the most exclusive locales a few months ago, and now they're broke just like the rest of us.
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earth mom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 09:55 AM
Response to Reply #1
3. There was a rich investor on the CBS morning show who lost 1.5M with Madoff
who said pretty much the same thing:

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4685599n
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mgc1961 Donating Member (874 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 09:49 AM
Response to Original message
2. A wealthy friend of mine lost...
about a third of his retirement money to Madoff
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Buns_of_Fire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 10:10 AM
Response to Original message
4. Madoff better hope a conviction comes quickly and he draws a nice solitary-confinement cell.
The streets ain't gonna be safe for that boy. Not with the enemies he's made.
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dysfunctional press Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 02:18 PM
Response to Reply #4
10. there was a clip of him on the news the other day where he was pushed by a reporter...
and he looked totally SHOCKED that someone would dare touch his person...he's going to have problems if he ever makes it to the iron bar hotel.
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riverdeep Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 10:22 AM
Response to Original message
5. Another thing this scandal does, is it absolutely demolishes
the credibility of the regulatory agencies. The SEC investigated this guy in 1992 and found him credible. They ignored requests to investigate by an executive in the securities industry in 1999 who said that he was running the world's largest Ponzi scheme.
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MindMatter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 12:18 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. Capitalism is in shambles
The most basic concepts of capitalism are broken. In theory it is a system that should work and should be very efficient. In theory capitalism rewards entrepreneurs, prudent risk-takers, and those who are simply smarter than the crowd.

In theory.

Not in practice. Not anymore. It only rewards the crooks like Madoff, Enron, AIG, the list is practically endless.

The most basic breakdown is that the theory of capitalism says that shareholders ultimately wield the control. That is BS. It probably never was true, but it most certainly hasn't been true for 50 years.

Everybody knows that a wise investor (as opposed to these greedy Madoff Ponzi players) diversifies his investments. In the beginning, this meant holding shares of many different companies. But now it means doing everything through funds that are far more diversified than one can be holding individual stocks.

That's great for limiting investor risk, but it has destroyed the fundamental premise of capitalism -- that boards and managements are accountable to shareholders. With diversification -- and ultra-diversification through mutual funds -- the shareholders are spread so far and wide that they never, ever, have any say over anything any company does. Show me the last time shareholders of a large publicly traded company forced a major change on them.

It never happens. And without that, capitalism is a bankrupt philosophy -- literally bankrupt.
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riverdeep Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 01:46 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. Good point about shareholders being a theoretical rather than actual
regulatory force. Many boards are simply made up of well-connected friends all selecting each other.

I think the downfall of capitalism was planted a bit earlier, when the corporation was made a person.
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robcon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 01:02 PM
Response to Original message
7. Another loser, the Hollywood writer of "Forrest Gump" and "Benjamin Button"
Eric Roth is wiped out.

I'm sure we'll hear about a lot of the assholes who were separated from their money because they couldn't resist putting all their money in one basket - where Madoff promised big returns.
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riverdeep Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 02:03 PM
Response to Original message
9. People are asking how the heck he could've gotten away with this.
Here's a short history from what I've gathered reading.

He actually started off largely legitimate and was known and respected for predicting the change to electronic communication in the stock market. He had a legitimate business initially based on his insights and gained his initial reputation that way; and then there was this other, more lucrative business on the side. He started out by recruiting wealthy Jews into his scheme by making it seem like it was an exclusive deal only a few people would be allowed access to. As one investor said, "it was like he didn't even need your money, that helped build your confidence since he wasn't hungry and trying to pitch you."

He then stopped dealing with people face to face at country clubs or whatever, and set up funds that were middle men. Eventually, all kinds of people and organizations wound up investing, from prominent celebs to foreign banks.

The SEC apparently only investigates actors that have a certain 'risk profile' of investing, including derivatives, short selling, etc. He wasn't doing any of that, so he stayed out of their radar. They still fell down on the job because they had warnings about him since the late ninties.

Perhaps one of the biggest clues, he only had a tiny company of three people auditing his company. For audits that are as complex as auditing billions in investment assets, only a handful of companies are available. The SEC, and his investors, should have seen that this company wasn't one of them.

So the combo of an early good rep, a sense of upstanding reassurance within an ethnic community, staying out of the spotlight, creative book keeping, and of course, the fact that the investors asked no questions as long as the money was coming in.

However, basic investing principles would've made it impossible to pull off, but those principles had to be followed and they weren't.
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MindMatter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-27-08 09:55 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. The same way Enron did
Tell everybody that you are the smartest guy in the room. Make everything so complicated that nobody really wants to try to figure it out. Line the pockets of politicians so they will stop any efforts to shine a light on the activities.

Simple, really.
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