Crime and (mostly lack of) punishment in the financial world
Justice on Wall Street is such an oxymoron – like "postal service" or "jumbo shrimp"...
Sadly, the norm is that wealthy people can use their connections and hire the best lawyers (who, of course, used to be regulators) to get away with almost anything with little more than a slap on the wrist.
It reminds me of Shakespeare's famous words uttered by King Lear: "Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks."
The result, far too often, is a rigged game for the rest of us...
We've seen all sorts of news in recent days about financial/business crime and (mostly lack of) punishment. I've previously written extensively about many of these cases, so I wanted to give my readers an update on four of them...
1) In 2021, billionaire investor Bill Hwang's family investment office Archegos – which had $36 billion in capital – leveraged into $160 billion in stocks, collapsed in spectacular fashion, and saddled various global banks with $10 billion in losses.
A year later, Hwang was indicted on securities fraud, racketeering, and market manipulation charges.
To get an idea of how slowly the wheels of justice turn, the trial, which is expected to last eight weeks, only got underway earlier this month. If Hwang is found guilty, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
All of Wall Street is fixed on the dramatic testimony, which reveals that many banks were lazy, sloppy, incompetent, and complacent.
This in-depth Bloomberg article from last week has many of the juicy details: The Last 72 Hours of Archegos. Excerpt:
Weeks of testimony have exposed cringeworthy misjudgments and costly blunders in various camps throughout the crisis – hardly Wall Street's preferred image of calculated risk-taking.
Bankers, for example, painfully acknowledged how they relied on sometimes-vague or evasive trust-me's from Archegos while doling out billions in firepower for Hwang's bets. That confidence melted into confusion that's been replayed in the courtroom of a 90-year-old judge. Prosecutors are trying to make the case that Hwang manipulated the market and defrauded lenders.
As a jury prepares to decide whether it was reckless investing or something more sinister, Bloomberg has reconstructed the mad scramble of Archegos' last three days, based on evidence admitted throughout the trial, including tapes, internal messages and emails.
As the article continues, Goldman Sachs (GS) got lucky with this:
A Goldman vice president answers a frantic call from Archegos, pleading with her to send back almost half a billion dollars that had just been mistakenly wired to the bank by one of the family office's junior employees. The Archegos staffer was supposed to request that amount from Goldman, not send it. Goldman refuses. The mishap illustrates the state of Archegos' controls at a moment when massive transfers of cash were zipping in and out of its hands.
For three years, an enduring mystery of the firm's implosion was how a major lender such as Goldman managed to escape unscathed. It turns out there was some luck mixed in with its diligence.
And Jefferies (JEF) CEO Rich Handler is one of the few bankers who looks smart – the instant he heard that Archegos wasn't answering calls, he instructed his traders to immediately liquidate all Archegos positions. Here's more from the article:
Jefferies calls CEO Rich Handler, who is on holiday in Turks and Caicos with a spicy margarita on the way. They tell him Archegos isn't answering their calls. Handler says he's going to get his cocktail and he wants Archegos positions gone and a tally of losses by the time he comes back. It was one of the few banks that escaped with minimal losses.
Meanwhile, the Bloomberg article also notes that Credit Suisse took its time – and paid a steep price:
Credit Suisse begins to carefully unwind Archegos' positions, starting with a $1.25 billion block trade – a fraction of the bank's total exposure...
Credit Suisse trader Josh Lukeman responds to a text message from his boss on his day off: Can he deal with the unfolding Archegos calamity? This is how Lukeman learns about the client's distress. He jumps on a Citi Bike and coasts through Manhattan to the office. He follows orders to offload Archegos positions slowly to avoid panic in markets. It's a stark contrast to his peers at Goldman and Morgan Stanley. And it proves costly.
Until the bitter end of the Archegos saga, Credit Suisse bankers focused on a managed liquidation – and wound up taking the biggest hit – after rivals exited faster to minimize losses. The Swiss bank's $5.5 billion loss eventually contributed to the lender's emergency takeover by UBS.
I'm not buying Hwang's feeble defense that the banks' losses are their fault, not his.
Yes, they were lazy, sloppy, incompetent, and complacent... but that doesn't change the fact that Hwang deceived them and manipulated many stocks.
I think it's highly likely – and good news – that he will be convicted and given a long sentence.
2) Kudos to the Supreme Court for rejecting a bankruptcy settlement that would have shielded the Sackler family from civil lawsuits and allowed them to keep billions of dollars of their money earned from addictive opioids.
Here's the Wall Street Journal with the story: Supreme Court Rejects Purdue Pharma Deal to Shield Sackler Family. Excerpt:
The Supreme Court rejected a bankruptcy plan for OxyContin-maker Purdue Pharma that would have allocated billions of dollars from members of the wealthy Sackler family to combat opioid addiction in exchange for shielding them from civil lawsuits over their alleged role in fueling the drug epidemic.
The 5-4 decision marks a victory for the minority of opioid victims who voted to reject the settlement plan because they want to continue pressing lawsuits against the Sackler family members who own Purdue, and a loss for the majority of opioid victims and state and local governments who voted to accept it.
I've read many books and have written in more than two dozen of my daily e-mails (archive here) about this tragic, outrageous story...
The Sacklers' privately owned drug company, Purdue Pharma, developed a powerful opioid-based painkiller, OxyContin, and then marketed it to the masses while deceiving patients, doctors, and regulators about its addictive properties.
I see a direct line from their self-enriching deeds to the opioid epidemic that has killed hundreds of thousands and devastated large swaths of middle America.
When it all came crashing down, to evade long-overdue accountability, the Sacklers filed for bankruptcy in the courtroom of a carefully selected sympathetic judge, who engineered a deal that let them off scot-free in exchange for a fraction of their ill-gotten gains.
Thankfully the Supreme Court, in an unusual alliance of four conservative justices plus liberal Ketanji Brown Jackson, overruled this miscarriage of justice.
As a result, I hope the Sacklers will now have to disgorge their entire fortune to their millions of victims. Why the leaders aren't going to prison for the rest of their lives is beyond me...
3) I've also written a dozen columns (archive here) warning my readers to avoid any stock Canadian entrepreneur and activist investor Ryan Cohen is involved with...
He founded e-commerce company Chewy (CHWY) in 2011 and was the company's CEO until 2018. He is currently the chairman and CEO of GameStop (GME), a stock I've warned my readers about nearly 100 times (archive here).
But my biggest criticism of Cohen relates to what smells like a pump-and-dump scheme engineered with Bed Bath & Beyond, which subsequently filed for bankruptcy – wiping out shareholders. Nearly two years ago in my August 18, 2022 e-mail, I wrote:
Cohen's trading patterns stink to high heaven, and may be a classic pump and dump. Here's why...
First, on Monday, Cohen filed a Form 3 showing that he had bought far-out-of-money call options that expire in January with strike prices of $60, $75, and $80 per share, multiples of the $10 to $15 share price at the time.
This highly aggressive, bullish-seeming bet caused the stock to soar on Tuesday: Bed Bath & Beyond soars as much as 70% as meme traders talk up Ryan Cohen's call options purchase.
Then, Cohen added fuel to the fire by filing an amended 13D showing that he owned 9.45 million shares of BBBY's stock. But this was unnecessary because it was unchanged from his previous 13D filing on March 25, so I think he filed it to cause a further run-up in the stock.
Having successfully pumped the stock up 100% to 200% in a couple of days, Cohen is dumping/has dumped it on the unsuspecting retail investors who foolishly got caught up in the hype he generated.
It was so outrageous, in fact, that I did something I had never done before:
I reported Cohen's actions to the SEC using its website to "Report Suspected Securities Fraud or Wrongdoing" and checked the boxes for "manipulation of a security" and "pump and dump scheme." I hope the SEC investigates...
While the SEC appears to have done nothing, a group of investors have sued Cohen for fraud, insider trading, and misleading investors about his trading plans.
They've discovered a shocking new allegation, revealed in the WSJ last week: Some Bed Bath & Beyond Board Members Worried Secrets Were Passed to Ryan Cohen Before His $60 Million Gain. Excerpt:
A board member of Bed Bath & Beyond was concerned that some of her fellow directors shared inside information with Ryan Cohen before the investor abruptly dumped his stake in the company two years ago, according to newly revealed excerpts of testimony provided for a lawsuit.
"I certainly had questions about that," Sue Gove said in a deposition provided for a shareholder lawsuit. When asked how many other members had concerns about Cohen's board allies "signaling" information to him, she added: "I would, you know, venture to say that probably most of them."
We'll have to wait and see if this lawsuit succeeds and the SEC takes action...
4) My friend, activist short seller Gabriel Grego of Quintessential Capital Management, gave a presentation at my short-selling conference on May 3, 2018 exposing massive fraud at international jewelry retailer Folli Follie.
His research was so thorough and his conclusion that the company was a house of cards was so obvious (I've posted his 78-slide presentation here) that Folli Follie collapsed into bankruptcy six months later.
Just last week, a Greek court (the company was headquartered there) sentenced five top executives to 10-17 years in prison for their roles in the fraud. This Athens-based newspaper Kathimerini has the story: Folli Follie company founder, top execs get multiyear prison sentences. Excerpt:
Five top executives of troubled jewelry maker Folli Follie were convicted to 10-17 years in jail by a three-member Court of Criminal Appeals in Athens on Thursday, for falsifying balance sheets and other financial offenses, ending a monthlong trial plagued by delays.
The court imposed the longest sentence on the founder of the Folli Follie Group, Dimitris Koutsolioutsos, announcing a 17-year prison sentence for the 83-year-old defendant.
As Quintessential Capital quoted Gabriel in a LinkedIn post last week:
This verdict is a victory for transparency and integrity in the financial markets. We have long advocated for stringent measures against corporate fraud, and today's decision underscores the importance of vigilance and accountability.
It's not just Folli Follie – Gabriel has an extraordinary track record of uncovering fraud all over the world. So I e-mailed him last week to ask what he's most bearish on right now. As he replied:
We are still bearish (and short) Cassava Sciences (SAVA) given our extreme skepticism on the ongoing clinical trials. The stock is trading around $18, 85% below its peak and 55% below our initial short call. But, in our opinion, that's $18 too expensive...
I've written many times warning about Cassava (archive here), starting on November 3, 2021, just after Gabriel released his initial short report.
I think he makes a compelling case, so avoid this stock at all costs!
Best regards,
Whitney
P.S. I welcome your feedback – send me an e-mail by clicking here.