I wonder what this means. I am sure that Man tried to sell the Chicago / NY / Miami operations to local entities, and frankly I am surprised that other prop firms didn't just buy up the entity. I am wondering (and this is pure speculation) if this means that, one, Refco overpaid for MacFutures, two, there are no takers for RTS, and three, the market value of Prop firms as a whole is dropping. Feel free to disagree / argue. I am just wondering.
it was my understanding that the chicago and new york offices were money losers. the miami office is/was merely a satellite and not really worth anything. the london shop is the flagship and they got guys there who print cash.
Wow, I'm surprised it took this long, but obviously Refco had more important issues (i.e. their fraud). Fraud and new ownership aside, RTS US was destined to be shut. I'm surprised the underwriters didn't kill this cash hog ages ago. It's a shame. RTS in theory could have been one of the powerhouse shops. some great traders in London (and a star that moved to Montreal). A larger balance sheet than any arcade/prop shop around. Access to more markets and information than any of these shame shops. But what did they do. They tried to commoditize trading. They weren't selective in choosing traders. Set up a poor training program. Had no vested interest in their traders and provided no support. Worst of all, they relied on one antiquated model, which was to make all their money figures trading. Initially this was a great strategy, but as markets became efficient, they had no back up plan. And before anyone questions me, do I have an axe to grind? Yes, I admit it. I traded for them (a member of their first US grad class) after being suckered in by a good marketing pitch (the only thing management was successful at). I paid my dues and finally this past summer decided to move on (just as I had turned the corner). It was fun for a while though, and want to send a shout out to my boys at RTS and my friends in London.
Great situation at RTS. The love trio in management ended up starting their own firm, after preaching to everyone that the MAN deal would go through or they would help everyone get jobs through their contacts. After the proverbial s*it hit the fan the head of RTS didn't even have the balls to tell his traders that they were fired. Apparently he was on a scheduled vacation. Adam Sandler is the MAN! New gig is in the CBOT if anyone wants to join up with that crew. Good luck.
I hope everyone lands on their feet. I also hope everybody planning to go with Adam and Mark evaluate their options first. Those two have demonstrated a complete lack of integrity. I know I'm better off parting company with those two dopes. Good luck to all of the *unofficially* fired RTS Chicago traders.
rumor floatin round is that the chicago office has been completely cleared out (furniture and all and the even if Refco didn't declare bankruptcy, they were planning to ax the US RTS operation anyway. In my opinion, I think expansion and operational/setup costs were spent too freely in North America - suppossedly Chicago had room for about 200 traders and only had about 20 in the end and supposedly the Miami office pretty much had a blank check to set up their offices). What I think is crap by the management is the fact throughout this whole process, they always painted a rosy picture of the future and stability of RTS - even the main guy running the whole show came over the sqwak saying that everything would be fine and that there are multiple offers to buy RTS - what he failed to mention is that this statement only applied for the London operation and not the North American operation. Basically, I don't understand why management was so deceptive and not completely truthful of the whole situation especially for the North American operation. At least give somewhat of a heads up to the remaining traders in the U.S. so that they can explore other options.
I was in the office on Friday. All computers have been removed from their trade stations and placed in the far northwest office. It looks like Comp USA in there. Flat screens, phones, televisions and furniture are still there. Sandler and his cronies were no where to be found when I was there (around noon).