|
Re: شنو يا قولدن ساكس ؟ خليتى الريح تنوح فوق النخل (Re: Osman Musa)
|
30, 2010
Goldman Sachs has arguably been the most successful firm on Wall Street for decades, with some of the world's biggest private equity and hedge funds and investment bankers and traders who practically minted money.
The bank was humbled along with the rest of Wall Street in 2008 when the financial markets crashed, turning itself into a commercial bank holding company and surviving the meltdown with federal assistance. In 2009, it led the Street's resurgence and was the first to seek to pay back its bailout money. But its hardball tactics and supersized profits drew new scrutiny and criticism. And in April 2010, the bank was accused of securities fraud in a civil suit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission that claimed the bank created and sold a mortgage investment that was secretly devised to fail.
The move marked the first time that regulators have taken action against a Wall Street deal that helped investors capitalize on the collapse of the housing market. Goldman itself profited by betting against the very mortgage investments that it sold to its customers.
The instrument in the S.E.C. case, called Abacus 2007-AC1, was one of 25 deals that Goldman created so the bank and select clients could bet against the housing market. Those deals, which were the subject of an article in The New York Times in December, initially protected Goldman from losses when the mortgage market disintegrated and later yielded profits for the bank.
As the Abacus deals plunged in value, Goldman and certain hedge funds made money on their negative bets, while the Goldman clients who bought the $10.9 billion in investments lost billions of dollars.
The suit charged that while Goldman told investors that the mortgage bonds pooled together in Abacus had been selected by an independent manager, they had really been chosen by John A. Paulson, a prominent hedge fund manager who earned an estimated $3.7 billion in 2007 by correctly wagering that the housing bubble would burst. Goldman let Mr. Paulson select mortgage bonds that he wanted to bet against - the ones he believed were most likely to lose value. Goldman denied the S.E.C.'s allegations.
On April 29, 2010, people familiar with the matter said the S.E.C. had referred its investigation to prosecutors for the Southern District of New York, which has now opened its own inquiry. While the investigation was said to be in a preliminary stage, the move could escalate the legal troubles swirling around Goldman.
Federal prosecutors would face a higher bar in bringing a criminal case against Goldman, whose role in the mortgage market came under sharp scrutiny this week during a marathon hearing in the Senate.
Goldman vigorously denied the charges by the S.E.C. and insisted that it had done nothing to mislead their clients. A spokesman for the company said it would cooperate with any investigators’ requests for information but would defend itself against the accusations.
Read More...
| |
|
|
|
|