Well think about it ...... Phil Bennett pledges his shares to BAWAG bank as collateral for a 430mm loan to "payback" Refco for the bad loan his co "owned" knowing full well that the stock was going into the toilet as soon as the breadth of his wrongdoing came out ...... Nice guy.... 430 million for shares of a worthless company ......
The real question is why did BAWAG do this? Wasnt the problem with Refco already in the news... the fact of the news coming out being the cause of Bennett's need to approach BAWAG?
The loan was made before the company released the news to the public. So the stock still had a nominal price of $25 or so. Bennett probably downplayed any negative implications from the loan, and the officers at bawag must have believed him. If Bennett manages to beat the charges in the US somehow, I would expect austria to prosecute him for fraud as well.
Perhaps using the word "newbie" was a bit harsh, but your statement that this was a "brief adventure" for REFCO on the CBOT was completely FALSE. And that statement was quickly refuted by Pabst, a veteran CBOT trader.