Madoff scandal ripples through Europe
European banks are reacting to the Bernard Madoff scam with potential losses in the billions. Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland and France's BNP Paribas are just two examples. Stephen Beard reports.
The London office of Madoff Securities International (Shaun Curry/AFP/Getty Images)
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TEXT OF STORY
Scott Jagow: It's bad enough that people lost billions of dollars because financial companies made awful decisions. But some people were flat-out defrauded by someone they trusted. That someone is Bernard Madoff, the former chairman of NASDAQ. His arrest last week for running a Ponzi scheme has opened a Pandora's Box of stories. A charity in Boston fired its whole staff because their money was invested with Madoff. New Jersey Senator Frank Lautenberg entrusted his family's foundation to this man.
And today in Europe, there was more fallout. Well-respected banks came forward and admitted they were duped. Our European correspondent Stephen Beard has more.
Stephen Beard: Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander in Spain and the French bank BNP Paribas are now on the list of potential victims. They or their clients stand to lose more than $4 billion. One of the world's biggest banks, HSBC, is another possible casualty to the tune of $1 billion. Many British-based hedge funds have also been affected.
One of London's best-known money managers, Nicola Horlick, had 9 percent of her fund invested with Madoff. Speaking to the BBC, Horlick attacked the U.S. regulators:
Nicola Horlick: It's very difficult for people to invest in things that are meant to be regulated in America, because they have fallen down on the job. And you know this is all through the credit crunch that this has been apparent. And this is the biggest scandal probably in the history of the markets.
She claims that the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated Madoff twice in recent years and gave his firm a clean bill of health.
In London, this is Stephen Beard for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Canaan, NH, 12/16/2008
The irony of this week's story on the Ponzi scheme is the transpareny of the perpetrator's name, as in "Bernie Made-off-with-the-money". His victims must be wondering how they could have missed it. Is this his real name? Could you research it?
From Bangalore, 12/15/2008
In India this so-called PONZY BUSINESS goes by the name CHAIN BUSINESS. Father of Chain Business is late BM Gopala Rao at whose hands even Sir CV Raman lost heavily. A few years earlier to this Mr. Raman had won the Nobel Prize. A journalist asked him, "Sir! Even you fell for it?" Pat came the reply- "In fact he deserves the NOBEL PRIZE!"
From Pottsboro, TX, 12/15/2008
One of the confusing things about these stories are the reports of losses. When the report says an investor "lost $50 million", does that imply an investment of $50 million that is now worthless and ignoring any dividends paid to the investor? Or does it mean the investor had a paper value of $50 million before the news about the Madoff scandal was revealed? How exactly are these losses calculated? If the investor reinvested any dividends, then the losses are accurate, but if they took payment for dividends their losses should be smaller than their total investment.
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