Hhmmm, curious how Refco is soooo defended here. As a trader, if any other company's CEO was arrested, a bunch of Fed investigations launched and the stock halted and quickly de-listed from NYSE, and customers heading for the hills, would anyone touch the corp with their own trading money or defend it?
NEW YORK (Reuters) - .........Wed Oct 19, 2005 7:27 PM ET..... "......Interactive Brokers Group is also interested, according to company's attorney Gary Mennitt of Drechert LLP, who appeared at the hearing. Interactive Brokers Group is the parent of market-making and specialist firm Timber Hill and agency broker Interactive Brokers LLC." Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) .... Possible Buyers ".....Other potential buyers, including Volume Investment Group, representing the government of Dubai, and Interactive Brokers Group LLC, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based electronic brokerage, will be able to bid against Flowers for any or all of Refco's units. Interactive Brokers has $2 billion of cash and ``significant liquidity'' to finance a bid, Gary J. Mennitt, a lawyer for Interactive, said in an interview yesterday. ...."
Here you go... http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticleSearch.aspx?storyID=148311+20-Oct-2005+RTRS&srch=refco ...."Before Refco can sell the business, Drain must approve the sale. If approved, an auction resumes, in which other bidders can seek due diligence and confidentiality agreements. The time frame of the auction suggested in court on Wednesday was 10 to 12 days. An auction is likely to be competitive, as Milmoe said Refco received more than 30 inquiries over the weekend from parties interested in buying the futures brokerage. Dubai Investments, the investment arm of Dubai's government, has expressed interest in making a potential $1 billion bid for the business. Interactive Brokers Group is also interested, according to company's attorney Gary Mennitt of Drechert LLP, who appeared at the hearing. Interactive Brokers Group is the parent of market-making and specialist firm Timber Hill and agency broker Interactive Brokers LLC. Also present in the packed courtroom on Wednesday were members of Alix Partners, a turnaround and crisis management firm, recently retained by Refco."...
:eek: :eek: :eek: well that shuts me up!! seems like a massive difference in both culture and attention to customer service in these 2 customers. merging the 2 (if thats the intention) could be difficult. tomcole - i agree, but its important to distinguish between refco inc and refco llc. one is bust, and riddled with risk, the other isnt and is regulated and still open for business.
Yep, it would be a shame if IB buys REFCO - REFCO is much betterin evry way especially customer service. The only area I think IB is superior to RECO is in fees/electronic execution of equities...but fo rfutures/FX, REFCO is MUCH MUCH better. Personally, I would be dleighted if Calyon or the Dubai Group (Volume Investment Group) buys ALL of REFCO.
I'd prefer Flowers or Dubai Investments, all I've ever read about IB is complaints, they sound pretty useless. Whichever firm backs the biggest use of leverage for Mac traders Hopefully the Dubai government could leverage us to the hilt. On a more serious note Flowers has an impressive history of turning things around.
In my opinion, you obviously have an axe to grind . . . as do many of the people on this thread who are representing competing futures firms . . . creating fear, uncertainty, and distrust ( FUD ) in an effort to attract new accounts. I have no time for your politics.
You obviously have not been reading this thread from the beginning . . . There has been very little defense of REFCO here on ET and in my opinion a lot of opportunists have come on to bash the company with highly inflammatory rhetoric in order to attract accounts to competing firms. I myself have tried to tow the middle-ground here because most of the people that have segregated futures accounts like myself have been unaffected by the holding companies demise. Unfortunately, I have been highly criticized by the bashers and opportunists that couldn't careless about doing anything other than creating an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty, and thus grabbing new accounts. I hasten to add that because REFCO is not an advertiser on this website, it has born the brunt of bashing to no end with little oversight by the moderators . . . How else could one explain seeing a header of a thread that claimed that REFCO's futures unit filed for bankruptcy, even though that particular headline by REUTERS had been retracted due to it having been incorrect.
Maybe I could threaten to sue you but unlike some I don't really have the desire to massage my ego and pretend that I will carry out something that would not be worth the effort or hassle. For clarification though I do not work for any futures brokerage or act as an IB for any. If anyone chooses to read this thread from the start they can make their own judgement over who has been misleading and who has not. May I wish you luck in your trading activities and hopefully you may have learnt a few things in the past week or so about how an accouting problem at a Holding Company can have serious implications for the rest of a Group. It might not be right that these things escalate so quickly but it is Sadly the reality. I also hope that all the people who currently have their accounts frozen with Refco FX do eventually get their funds repaid.