MF Client Funds Said to Be Located at JPMorgan

By Cristina Alesci and Matthew Leising - Nov 5, 2011 4:52 AM GMT+0700

MF Global Holdings Inc., the bankrupt futures brokerage, has located $658.8 million in customer funds in a custodial account at JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The account contained a total of $2.2 billion as of Oct. 31, including both the firm’s own money and customer funds, according to one of the people, who declined to be identified because the information is private.

About $593 million of MF customer funds remain unaccounted for, according to another person with knowledge of regulatory probes into the firm’s collapse. That amount has decreased from the shortfall of $633 million the Commodity Futures Trading Commission cited Nov. 2, the person said. People familiar with deliberations inside MF said earlier today that they believed the money located at JPMorgan included the missing customer funds.

JPMorgan does not have “any information” about whether the account balances are “related in any way to the ‘missing’ customer funds,” Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokeswoman for the New York-based lender, said in response to questions from Bloomberg News. “What we can confirm is that the accounts and their balances have been and continue to be wholly transparent to MF Global” and the trustee appointed to locate customer assets.

Jon Corzine, the former co-chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), quit as chairman and CEO of New York- based MF Global, the firm said today in an e-mailed statement. Corzine, 64, who was paid more than $4 million since joining the firm 20 months ago, won’t seek severance pay, the company said.

Corzine’s resignation came four days after the bankruptcy filing as the company’s bets on European sovereign debt rattled investors.

The CFTC has been investigating the missing funds. The regulator sent a subpoena seeking information about the money to MF Global’s auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, a person briefed on the matter said yesterday, asking not to be named because the matter isn’t public.

MF Global received a statement today from JPMorgan that showed the funds in the account, one of the people said.

Tiffany Galvin, an MF Global spokeswoman, declined to comment.

To contact the reporters on this story: Cristina Alesci in New York at calesci2@bloomberg.net; Matthew Leising in New York at mleising@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Otis Bilodeau at obilodeau@bloomberg.net