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List Of Entities Announcing Exposure To Madoff Investments-2-

Last Update: 1/6/2009 3:30:00 PM

The following entities have announced exposure to Bernard L. Madoff Investment
Securities LLC, the New York-based business that allegedly lost $50 billion in a
giant pyramid scheme.

Entity: Bard College
Exposure: $3 million
Date of disclosure: Jan. 6
The school said J. Ezra Merkin’s Ariel Fund invested the money with Madoff
without its knowledge. The losses on the investment include profits.

Entity: Martin Rosenman
Exposure: $10 million
Date of disclosure: Jan. 3
Notes: Rosenman, managing member of Rosenman Family LLC, wired $10 million
to Madoff via a JPMorgan Chase Bank account on Dec. 5, just six days before
Madoff’s arrest. The funds weren’t supposed to be touched until Jan. 1,
according to a suit filed in bankruptcy court, but Rosenman received a
statement Dec. 5 explaining the money was used to sell short $10 million in
U.S. Treasuries. There is no record that the Treasury short ever occurred.

Entity: Bank Medici AG
Exposure: $2.1 billion
Date of disclosure: Jan. 2
Notes: Bank Medici first reported its exposure Dec. 19. The bank is 25%
owned by Unicredit SpA (UCG.MI) and 75% owned by chairwoman Sonja Kohn.
Hedge funds run by the bank had almost all their money invested with
Madoff. Investor redemptions at the Herald funds have been suspended. The
bank has also stopped calculating net asset values. Austria’s government
named Gerhard Altenberger to manage the bank, but won’t supply it with
funds.

Entity: Henry Kaufman
Exposure: “several million dollars”
Date of disclosure: Dec. 31
Notes: The former Salomon Brothers chief economist had the money in a
brokerage account with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities for more
than five years. Kaufman said the amount was “no more than a couple percent
of my entire net worth,” estimated to be several hundred million dollars,
and “immaterial to my financial well-being.”

Entity: Genium Advisors
Exposure: nearly 6.7% of a EUR3 million ($4.2 million) fund invested in
Fairfield Sentry
Date of disclosure: Dec. 30
Notes: Roland Priborsky, Genium’s chief, said he was comfortable with the
Fairfield Sentry investment in part because it was included in a list of
funds on which Union Bancaire Privee said it had done due diligence.

Entity: Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick
Exposure: n/a
Date of disclosure: Dec. 30
Notes: The actors’ exposure was confirmed by Bacon’s spokesman, Allen
Eichhorn.

Entity: Union Bancaire Privee
Exposure: $700 million via funds of funds and client portfolios
Date of disclosure: Dec. 30
Notes: Half of UBP’s 22 funds of funds put at least some of their money
into Madoff-related investment vehicles, including one run by J. Ezra
Merkin. The principal fund, Dinvest Total Return, had about 3% of its more
than $1 billion of assets in Madoff-related funds. One fund of funds had as
much as 6.9% of assets in Madoff-related funds. UBP said total potential
Madoff-related investments amount to less than 1% of assets under
management. UBP also provided services such as investment advice and loans
to a division of Fairfield Greenwich Group. The bank managed $124.5 billion
as of June. The bank had most recently met with Madoff Nov. 25 as part of
an ongoing vetting process.

Entity: Rothschild & Cie
Exposure: n/a
Date of disclosure: Dec. 29
Notes: The investment bank has frozen its Elite fund, which had invested
nearly 23% of its assets in Access International Advisors’ Luxalpha fund.

Entity: Thierry Magon de La Villehuchet
Exposure: $50 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 29
Notes: De La Villehuchet put “the bulk of his wealth” with Madoff,
according to his brother. The French aristocrat was found dead of an
apparent suicide Dec. 24.

Entity: Access International Advisors
Exposure: $1.5 billion
Date of disclosure: Dec. 24
Notes: The investment-advisory firm’s co-founder, Thierry Magon de La
Villehuchet, was found dead Dec. 24 in an apparent suicide. Access
International Advisors oversaw Luxalpha Sicav, a fund with Madoff-run
assets. Investors included Rothschild & Cie investment bank and Liliane
Bettencourt.

Entity: Elie Wiesel Foundation For Humanity
Exposure: $15.2 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 24
Notes: The foundation, established to combat anti-Semitism, said
“substantially all” of its assets were invested with Madoff.

Entity: New York University
Exposure: $24 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 24
Notes: NYU filed a lawsuit claiming J. Ezra Merkin turned over his
investment responsibilities to Madoff’s funds and lost $24 million of the
school’s money. The suit names as defendants Merkin’s Ariel Fund Ltd.; the
fund’s investment manager, Gabriel Capital Corp.; and Fortis Bank. NYU had
invested $94 million in Ariel, a partnership between Merkin and Fortis.
Ariel plans to liquidate due to Madoff-related losses.

Entity: Tremont Group Holdings Inc.
Exposure: $3.3 billion
Date of disclosure: Dec. 23
Notes: Tremont is owned by Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. Tremont
said in a letter to investors that it believes it “exercised appropriate
due diligence in connection with the Madoff investments.” The loss is more
than half of all assets overseen by Tremont. Tremont and Mass Mutual were
named in a lawsuit Dec. 23.

Entity: M&B Capital Advisers
Exposure: Private clients have more than EUR37 million in exposure
Date of disclosure: Dec. 17
Notes: The firm is run by the son and son-in-law of the chairman of Banco
Santander SA (STD), which disclosed nearly EUR2.33 billion in Madoff
exposure. Through M&B, private and institutional investors bought more
than EUR150 million in Madoff’s funds.

Entity: Phoenix Holdings Ltd. (PHOE1.TV)
Exposure: Up to ILS48 million ($12.6 million)
Date of disclosure: Dec. 17
Notes: Phoenix’s insurance unit invested $15 million over the last three
years in funds managed by Thema, which made investments through Madoff. In
November, the company requested to redeem $10 million. The payment was due
Dec. 12 but Phoenix hasn’t received it.

Entity: Royal Dutch Shell (RDSB.LN) pension fund
Exposure: n/a
Date of disclosure: Dec. 17
Notes: The pension fund fund has an indirect investment that may be
affected. The fund originally invested $45 million. The alleged fraud won’t
affect the financial position and funding status of the fund.

Entity: Stanley Chais
Exposure: n/a
Date of disclosure Dec. 17
Notes: The money manager managed investments he called “the arbitrage
partnerships,” according to investors and firm correspondence. Chais’s
foundation, which focused on Jewish causes and gave about $12 million
annually to Israeli projects (including Bina and Melitz), will be closing.
A lawsuit was filed on behalf of individuals who invested through Chais or
his Brighton Co.

Entity: Aioi Insurance Co. (8761.TO)
Exposure: Y100 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: Aioi said it didn’t make a direct investment in the Madoff fund.

Entity: Ascot Partners LLC
Exposure: Substantially all of $1.8 billion in assets (figure as of Sept.
30) were invested with Madoff
Date of disclosure: Dec. 11
Notes: A lawsuit was filed against Ascot, J. Ezra Merkin and auditor BDO
Seidman Dec. 16.

Entity: Baloise Holding AG
Exposure: around $13 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: n/a

Entity: Carl Shapiro
Exposure: $545 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: The amount includes $145 million invested through the Carl & Ruth
Shapiro Family Foundation.

Entity: Credicorp Ltd. (BAP)
Exposure: Up to $4.5 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: Credicorp’s Atlantic Security Bank unit has $1 million in direct
exposure and up to $3.5 million in potential contingencies “related to
transactions secured by these investments.”

Entity: Fukoku Mutual Life Co.
Exposure: n/a
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: The company said it holds similar investments trusts to those held
by Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. but declined to specify the balance.
Sumitomo disclosed that it has about Y2 billion exposed via trusts.

Entity: Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation
Exposure: About $1.8 million in pledges have been affected by Madoff issue
Date of disclosure; Dec. 16
Notes: Gift of Life doesn’t have any money invested with Madoff but about
one-third of funds it spent on donor recruitment came from the Madoff
Family Foundation. The organization is trying to raise funds from other
sources.

Entity: Helvetia Holding AG (HELN.EB)
Exposure: Indirect exposure “limited”
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: No direct exposure

Entity: ING NV (ING)
Exposure: “No direct exposure”
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: “No significant indirect exposure” through clients. ING said none of
the funds its manages have invested money in Madoff’s enterprise.

Entity: JEHT Foundation
Exposure: n/a
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: The foundation stopped all grant-making and plans to shut down at
the end of January. Its major donors had essentially all their money
invested with the Madoff firm. Grant recipients had included Human Rights
First and the Michigan Department of Corrections, Make Voting Work and the
Innocence Project.

Entity: Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance
Exposure: Less than $10 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: “Any impact immaterial to financial condition.”

Entity: Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co.
Exposure: Y100 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: Meiji Yasuda didn’t invest directly in the Madoff fund.

Entity: Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co. (8725.TO)
Exposure: Y800 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: Mitsui Sumitomo didn’t invest directly in the Madoff fund.

Entity: New York Law School
Exposure: $3 million through Ascot Partners
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: The school invested the money through its endowment entity. The
school filed an investor lawsuit against J. Ezra Merkin, Ascot Partners and
BDO Seidman.

Entity: Nipponkoa Insurance Co. (8754.TO)
Exposure: n/a
Date of disclosure: The company said it holds similar investments trusts to
those held by Sumitomo Life Insurance Co. but declined to specify the
balance. Sumitomo disclosed that it has about Y2 billion exposed via
trusts.

Entity: North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System
Exposure: $5.7 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: Exposure represents less than 1% of the health system’s investment
portfolio. A donor agreed to reimburse the system for any losses.

Entity: Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation; Robert I. Lappin 1992
Supporting Foundation
Exposure: n/a
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: Programs run by the foundations have been discontinued, according to
a statement on the organizations’ Web site. Money used to fund the programs
was invested with the Madoff firm.

Entity: Sumitomo Life Insurance Co.
Exposure: About Y2 billion
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: Sumitomo Life didn’t invest directly in the Madoff fund but part of
its investment trust holdings were linked to it.

Entity: Swiss Life Holding AG (SLHN.VX)
Exposure: CHF90 million, ($78.9 million)
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: Swiss Life said it is exposed indirectly through fund of funds. The
loss is less than 0.1% of Swiss Life’s assets under management.

Entity: Swiss Reinsurance Co. (RUKN.VX)
Exposure: indirect exposure less than $3 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: Exposure is through hedge fund investments; no direct exposure.

Entity: Taiyo Life Insurance Co. (6252.TO)
Exposure: Y20 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: Taiyo Life didn’t invest directly in the Madoff fund.

Entity: UBI Banca SpA (UBI.MI)
Exposure: EUR60.4 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 16
Notes: UBI Pramerica and Capitalgest Alternative Investments, the assets-
under-management units, have no exposure. The bank estimates EUR400,000 in
customer exposure in assets under custody. The bank said EUR450,000 in
exposure is registered in customers’ discretionary portfolios at UBI Banca
International SA Luxembourg.

Entity: Aozora Bank Ltd. (8304.TO)
Exposure: Estimated Y12.4 billion ($137 million)
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Aozora entrusted Y12.4 billion to investment funds, which invested
with Madoff. Cerberus Capital Management LP owns a majority stake in
Aozora. Aozora doesn’t expect the loss’s impact on its financial condition
to be material.

Entity: AXA SA (AXA)
Exposure: Less than EUR100 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentina SA (BBV)
Exposure: EUR300 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: BBV reiterated it doesn’t have direct exposure to Madoff, but
would face losses of EUR300 million if Madoff funds were found not to
exist.

Entity: Banco Espanol de Credito SA (BTO.MC)
Exposure: EUR2 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Banesto said the EUR2 million is included in the EUR2.33 billion
already disclosed by its parent company, Banco Santander SA (STD). Of the
EUR2 million, EUR400,000 corresponds to hedge fund customers and EUR1.6
million corresponds to structured deposit customers.

Entity: Banque Benedict Hentsch
Exposure: CHF56 million ($48.8 million)
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Banque Benedict Hentsch bought back its capital from Fairfield
Greenwich after disclosing its exposure. The deal unwinds a three-month
partnership.

Entity: Barclays PLC (BCS)
Exposure: “minimal”
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Barclay’s exposure is “fully collateralized.”

Entity: Bramdean Alternatives
Exposure: 9% of portfolio invested in Madoff funds
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Investments were in Madoff’s Defender and Rye Select Broad Market XL
Portfolio.

Entity: Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd. (CLIS.TV)
Exposure: ILS12 million, or $3.1 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: CNP Assurances (12022.FR)
Exposure: No direct exposure; indirect exposure of EUR3 million via a fund
of funds
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: Credit Agricole S.A. (4507.FR)
Exposure: Less than EUR10 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: Credit Suisse (CS)
Exposure: “No material direct exposure”
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Credit Suisse is reviewing if any client funds affected.

Entity: Dexia S.A. (DEXB.BT)
Exposure: No direct investments; private banking clients have EUR78 million
exposure to funds primarily invested in Madoff funds. Dexia has gross
EUR164 million indirect exposure through partially collateralized lending
operations to funds exposed to Madoff funds.
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: If the value of the assets managed by Madoff Investment Securities
were nil, the above mentioned lending operations could trigger an after tax
loss of about EUR85 million for Dexia.

Entity: EIM SA
Exposure: $230 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: Fortis (NL) NV (30086.AE)
Exposure: Up to EUR1 billion
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: Groupama S.A.
Exposure: Less than EUR10 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: Harel Insurance Investments & Financial Services Ltd. (HARL.TV)
Exposure: ILS55 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles
Exposure: $18 million via Common Investment Pool
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Investment represents less than 5% of foundation’s assets.

Entity: KBC group NV (KBC.BT)
Exposure: No direct exposure; some indirect exposure through collateralized
loans, but the exposure is very limited and immaterial to KBC’s earnings.
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: KBC has also made some loan advances to institutional customers who
have invested in funds managed by Madoff Investment Securities, but this
shouldn’t have any material impact either, the company said.

Entity: Man Group PLC (EMG.LN)
Exposure: $360 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Invested in funds directly and indirectly sub-advised by Madoff
Securities and for which Madoff acts as broker-dealer. Madoff investment
represents 1.5% of the company’s RMF fund-of-funds business’s funds under
management and 0.5% of funds under management for Man Group itself.

Entity: Mediobanca SpA (MB.MI)
Exposure: $671,000 via its Compagnie Monegasque de Banque unit
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: Natixis (12068.FR)
Exposure: Estimated indirect net maximum EUR450 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Natixis says it didn’t make direct investment in Madoff-managed
funds; some investments made on behalf of customers could have ended up
being managed by Madoff.

Entity: Neue Privat Bank
Exposure: Around $5 million invested in a certificate based on a hedge
fund with exposure to Madoff.
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: Nordea Bank AB (NDA.SK)
Exposure: EUR48 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Exposure is through Fairfield Greenwich’s Fairfield Sentry; amount
represents 0.2% of assets under management.

Entity: RAB Capital PLC (RAB.LN)
Exposure: $10 million, according to a person familiar with the situation
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: The source said RAB’s exposure represents less than 0.5% of assets
under management.

Entity: Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC (RBS)
Exposure: GBP400 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Exposure to Madoff is through trading, collateralized lending.

Entity: Societe Generale SA (13110.FR)
Exposure: Less than EUR10 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: UBS AG (UBS)
Exposure: “No material exposure”
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: “Limited and insignificant counterparty exposure;” “Global asset
management doesn’t have material exposure.”

Entity: UniCredit SpA (UCG.MI)
Exposure: EUR75 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: Dublin-based Pioneer Alternative Investments indirectly
exposed to Madoff via feeders; Italian clients have zero exposure.

Entity: Wunderkinder Foundation
Exposure: Steven Spielberg confirmed the foundation sustained losses.
Date of disclosure: Dec. 15
Notes: n/a

Entity: Banco Santander SA (SAN.MC)
Exposure: Clients have EUR2.33 billion exposure; bank has EUR17 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 14
Notes: EUR2.01 billion belongs to institutional investors and international
clients of the private banking business; EUR320 million belongs to private
banking customers in Spain. The bank invested EUR17 million of its own
funds in Madoff products. The bank’s Portuguese unit reported a EUR16
million impact.

Entity: BNP Paribas (BNPQY)
Exposure: EUR350 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 14
Notes: BNP Paribas said it has no investment of its own in Madoff-managed
hedge funds but it does “have risk exposure to these funds through its
trading business and collateralized lending to funds of hedge funds.”

Entity: HSBC Holdings PLC (HBC)
Exposure: Potentially about $1 billion
Date of disclosure: Dec. 14
Notes: HSBC provided financing to a small number of institutional clients
who invested about $500 million with Madoff; some clients in its global
custody business have invested with Madoff, but the company doesn’t believe
these arrangements should be a source of exposure to the group.

Entity: Nomura Holdings Inc (8604.TO)
Exposure: About Y27.5 billion
Date of disclosure: Dec. 14
Notes: Nomura says impact on its financial capital is limited.

Entity: Reichmuth & Co.
Exposure: Clients have exposure of CHF385 million ($327 million)
Date of disclosure: Dec. 14
Notes: Reichmuth Matterhorn, a fund that invests in other edge funds, faced
a potential loss of about 8.6%, representing about 3.5% of Reichmuth &
Co.’s CHF11 billion under management.

Entity: Banco Popolare (BP.MI)
Exposure: Up to EUR8 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 13
Notes: Indirect exposure; maximum lost on funds distributed to
institutional, private clients EUR60 million.

Entity: Maxam Capital Management LLC
Exposure: $280 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 12
Notes: n/a

Entity: Yad Sarah
Exposure: $1.5 million invested with J. Ezra Merkin
Date of disclosure: Dec. 23
Notes: The Israeli nonprofit, with a $21 million budget in 2008, likely
won’t expand operations or develop any new services or projects in 2009.

Entity: Caisse d’Epargne
Exposure: Under EUR8 million indirect exposure, excluding investment bank
Natixis (12068.FR)
Date of disclosure: Dec. 22
Notes: Caisse d’Epargne said EUR1 million was for Caisse Nationale des
Caisses d’Epargne, the central hub, and “under EUR7 million” was from its
regional level. Natixis reported exposure around EUR450 million on Dec. 15.

Entity: UBS AG (UBS)
Exposure: Funds-of-funds for clients had Madoff exposure; credit exposure
“very insignificant,” though UBS did lend to Madoff
Date of disclosure: Dec. 22
Notes: UBS declined to comment on press reports that the funds contain $1.4
billion in client assets.

Entity: J. Gurwin Foundation Inc.
Exposure: $28 million charity invested heavily in Madoff funds
Date of disclosure: Dec. 20
Notes: Gurwin said, “We got a body blow. We did not get killed.” He has
donated to the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York, the United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Society for Technion-Israel
Institute of Technology and the Gurwin Jewish Nursing & Rehabilitation
Center.

Entity: EFG International AG (EFGN.EB)
Exposure: “limited” client exposure
Date of disclosure: Dec. 19
Notes: EFG clients have $130 million invested in Madoff through third-party
funds sold by EFG. In addition, 0.3% of the bank’s total invested assets,
held in custody, are invested in Madoff.

Entity: Fire and Police Pension Association Of Colorado
Exposure: Had $60 million invested with Fairfield Greenwich until six
months ago
Date of disclosure: Dec. 19
Notes: The pension fund has $2.5 billion under management.

Entity: International Olympic Committee
Exposure: $4.8 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 19
Notes: The IOC’s exposure represents about 1% of its total investment
portfolio. Organizing committee confirmed they will be able to meet their
obligations.

Entity: Support Organization for the Madison Cultural Arts District
Exposure: $18 million invested with Fairfield Greenwich until September
Date of disclosure: Dec. 19
Notes: A spokesman for the Overture Center in Madison, Wis., built with
SOMCAD funds, said, “Speculation that SOMCAD could be on the hook is not
outlandish.”

Entity: Fairfield Greenwich Group
Exposure: About $7.5 billion through Fairfield Sentry fund
Date of disclosure: Dec. 18
Notes: Fairfield Greenwich said in a letter posted on its Web site that it
is still assessing the extent of potential losses. It initially announced
its exposure on Dec. 15. $7.5 billion is slightly more than half of total
assets. Investors sued the Fairfield Sentry Fund Dec. 18.

Entity: St. Galler Kantonalbank’s (SGKN.EB) private Hyposwiss bank
Exposure: $50 million, roughly 0.1% of its overall assets, was invested in
Madoff products through managed accounts. Another $100 million is exposed
through clients invested in Madoff funds.
Date of disclosure: Dec. 18
Notes: St. Galler Kantonalbank first announced the exposure on Dec. 15 and
said its financial situation and liquidity aren’t hurt by Hyposwiss’
exposure. Hyposwiss said Dec. 18 that 25% of of 2,000 clients at its Geneva
branch had products sold by Madoff in their portfolios.

Entity: Yeshiva University
Exposure: $110 million invested with Ascot Partners LP.
Date of disclosure: Dec. 18
Notes: Yeshiva had no direct investment but 8% of its endowment was
invested for 15 years with Ascot Partners LP, which had “substantially all
its assets invested with Madoff,” a letter sent by the university said.
Madoff was also on the school’s board but has resigned.

Entity: Banco Espirito Santa SA (BES.LB)
Exposure: EUR15 million indirect exposure
Date of disclosure: Dec. 17
Notes: The amount represents about 0.1% of assets under management.

Entity: Credit Industrial et Commercial SA (12005.FR)
Exposure: EUR90 million
Date of disclosure: Dec. 17
Notes: The bank has no direct exposure to Madoff but could be affected
through an intermediary.

Entity: Genevalor, Benbassat & Cie.
Exposure: n/a
Date of disclosure: Dec. 17
Notes: Genevalor distributes the Thema fund family. An investor document
for one Thema fund shows a return-on-investment chart that corresponds
closely to Madoff’s performance. A summary of the fund’s investment
strategy describes a process consistent with Madoff’s activity. Genevalor
said in a statement on its Web site that it “has been reviewing the
potential damages caused to its clients” by the alleged Madoff fraud. A
statement from the Thema fund said it had assets with Madoff that were now
frozen.

Entity: Great Eastern Holding Ltd. (G07.SG)
Exposure: S$64 million through some Fairfield Greenwich funds
Date of disclosure: Dec. 17
Notes: Great Eastern said S$7.7 million of its exposure is invested from
shareholder funds and S$56.3 million is from its Life Fund. The total
represents 0.14% of the group’s total assets as of Sept. 30. Great Eastern
is 87% owned by Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. (O39.SG). Great Eastern’s
Lion Global Investors unit separately invested S$350,000 in one Madoff-
related fund.

(MORE TO FOLLOW) Dow Jones Newswires

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Technorati Tags: Asset Values, Bankruptcy Court, Bard College, Brokerage Account, Chairwoman, Chief Economist, Henry Kaufman, Hundred Million, Investment Securities, Jpmorgan Chase Bank, Madoff, Medici, Merkin, More Than Five Years, Pyramid Scheme, Redemptions, Rosenman, Salomon Brothers, Treasuries, Ucg

To address the problem of banking panics
To serve as the central bank for the United States
To strike a balance between private interests of banks and the centralized responsibility of government
To supervise and regulate banking institutions
To protect the credit rights of consumers
To manage the nation’s money supply through monetary policy to achieve the sometimes conflicting goals of
maximum employment
stable prices, including prevention of either inflation or deflation
moderate long-term interest rates
To maintain the stability of the financial system and contain systemic risk in financial markets
To provide financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation’s payments system
To facilitate the exchange of payments among regions
To respond to local liquidity needs
To strengthen U.S. standing in the world economy

Doesn’t sound to me like the Federal Reserve has been doing a very good job. Perhaps the market doesn’t care what they think about 2009. Most of their semi-annual reports reflect backwards on the past. And it is only conjecture as to what the future holds. I am not sure why we allow 12 men to control our monetary policy, especially when we see the recent failures which require taxpayer bailouts.

Source from Wikipedia

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NEW YORK (Dow Jones)–U.S. investment-grade companies seized the opportunity to
sell debt Tuesday, including a $4 billion 30-year bond offering from General
Electric Capital Corp. that will not carry a government guarantee.

The bonds launched carrying a risk premium of 400 basis points over Treasurys,
which would give them a yield of approximately 7.07%.

On Monday, GECC, the financing arm of General Electric Co. (GE), sold $10 billion
of bonds backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Some of those bonds
carried yields of just 1.66% and 2.22%. Since December, GECC has sold $16.5
billion in U.S. dollar-denominated bonds and EUR1.75 billion under the FDIC’s
temporary program that expires in June.

“GECC needs to raise capital, and if the market is willing to accept it, they are
content to issue,” said Scott MacDonald, director of research at Aladdin Capital
Holdings in Stamford, Conn.

GECC’s offering was expected to price later Tuesday.

This combined with other deals in the market brought total issuance to nearly $10
billion Tuesday.

Other corporate bond deals include $2 billion in 10- and 30-year notes from
TransCanada Pipelines and a $1.2 billion offering in five- and 10-year notes from
Devon Energy Corp. (DVN). Anheuser-Busch Inbev NV (ABI.BT), the world’s biggest
brewer, is also in the market with a three-part benchmark deal. Generally, use of
the proceeds was listed as going toward corporate purposes.

The fact that companies can access both the corporate market and the FDIC-backed
sector shows conditions are easing, said Daniel Sheppard, director at Deutsche
Bank Private Wealth Management.

“Anything that can be brought to market at reasonable rates can be considered a
victory,” he said. “It means funding is being made available to these firms.”

Corporate bonds, with yields ranging from 7% to 10%, are appealing to a “broad
swath of the investor universe” from pension funds to funds that buy several
kinds of assets such as stocks, said Wilmer Stith, vice president and portfolio
manager at MTB Funds in Baltimore.

But risk premiums, or spreads, will drop as more investors weary of low Treasury
yields jump in and as sentiment improves, he said.

“Once the new administration comes in, once we get the stimulus package going,
investors will be more aggressive in adding risk to their portfolios,” said
Stith.

Already, option-adjusted spreads on a benchmark Merrill Lynch corporate bond
index have tightened to 596 basis points as of Monday, compared with a peak of
656 basis points Dec. 5.

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WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–As the House Financial Services Committee conducted its
first hearing Monday into the failures of the Securities and Exchange Commission
to uncover Bernard Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme, the U.S. Senate Banking
Committee began its own probe into the matter.

In a three-page letter sent to the SEC chairman, Senate Banking Committee
Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Ranking Member Richard Shelby, R-Ala.,
requested a list of documents that they hope will help the committee examine the
“regulatory performance” of the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory
Authority, or FINRA. FINRA is a non-governmental regulator for securities firms
that do business in the U.S.

“The Banking Committee is examining this case to determine how so many people
could have been deceived and how such a massive fraud could have gone undetected
for so long,” said Dodd in a statement. “American investors deserve an
explanation and the responsible parties must be held accountable.”

Among the documents requested include any complaint letters that market
participants may have submitted regarding Madoff and his business practices and
all documents pertaining to the various FINRA and SEC examinations of the Madoff
firm over the years.

The committee also wants internal e-mails from the SEC and FINRA that pertain to
Madoff, e-mails between SEC staff and Madoff’s firm and a list of positions that
Madoff employees held on SEC or FINRA-appointed advisory boards, among other
things.

The SEC came under withering criticism Monday as House Financial Services
Committee members sat through a five-hour hearing and blasted the agency for
failing to uncover the alleged fraud.

The agency’s inspector general, H. David Kotz, told lawmakers he is investigating
why the agency never uncovered the truth about Madoff, and hopes to issue reports
on his findings on a rolling basis to keep them informed. He also said he had
broadened his investigation by looking at whether or not the agency’s enforcement
and examination divisions are effective.

The kinds of documents Kotz said he is reviewing as part of his internal
investigation are the same types of documents requested Monday by the Senate
Banking Committee.

The committee asked the SEC to provide the documents by Jan. 22.

“It is critical that the Banking Committee fully understand what happened in the
Madoff affair,” Shelby said in a statement.

“Why was this not caught sooner? Who is responsible? Could the massive harm that
investors suffered have been prevented? The documents we are requesting will help
us get to the bottom of this and inform our efforts at regulatory restructuring
going forward. The American people expect accountability, and that is exactly
what they should get,” he said.

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Special Report: Global Financial Crisis

BEIJING, Jan. 6 (Xinhua) — Amid waves of job cuts worldwide, China has embarked on active measures to minimize job cuts and has pledged to boost employment this year.

The financial crisis continues to hurt the fourth largest economy and pushed many enterprises to cut their headcounts.

The following provinces are among the many in the country that have striven to stabilize their job markets.

South China’s Yangtze River Delta, a major manufacturing center, has been hit unexpectedly hard. Job vacancies in the manufacturing sector stood at 41.43 percent of the total in the eastern Zhejiang Province in the third quarter, a record low in recent years.

The same situation occurred to manufacturers in the eastern Jiangsu Province with job vacancies in the sector accounting for 50.15 percent of the total, down 0.94 percent over the same period last year, and down 4.16 percent from the second quarter.

To cushion the regions from the effects of the global crisis, the Yangtze Delta has set up an early warning system to conduct monitoring of the job situation. At present, six cities including Nanjing, Hangzhou and Ningbo are the trial areas.

The system is designed for regional labor and social security offices to collect employment information, such as the possible job cuts and the planned new recruits in the following week and the actual cuts.

Zhejiang Province will do this in 11 cities this year.

At the end of November, Zhejiang also cut back enterprises’ payments of social security funds for employees to mitigate their burden.

Another focus of most cities in the region is to encourage people to start businesses. Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces pledge to kick in favorable measures including free skill training for laid-off workers.

Officials and experts said the region expects a tougher job picture in the first quarter of this year as the global financial turmoil continued to spread.

Shanghai has launched programs to provide graduates and migrant workers with subsidies for skill training. On Dec. 30, the first employment service base was set up in Shanghai for graduates to gain internship experiences.

The Shanghai government also encouraged business start-ups to increase jobs. The city pledged to limit the registered unemployment rate to below 4.5 percent.

Hong Kong posted its registered unemployment rate at 3.8 percent between September to November, up from 3.5 percent between August and October, an extra 4,600 jobless.

Donald Tsang Yam-kuen, chief executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, said the current government work aimed at guaranteeing stability of job markets.

In early December last year, the Hong Kong government took a series of steps to create more than 60,000 posts in 2009. For example, the spending on infrastructure would be raised to about 40 billion Hong Kong Dollars, which would provide 55,000 jobs, 12,000 more than last year. The government would also add 7,700 public servant jobs.

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I’ve been poor and never once considered throwing myself in front of a train or stealing to get the job done. the richest are often the most fragile and hollow. Rich people dont know how to live like a poor person. in his case ‘ SHAME DOES KILL’

German billionaire said to commit suicide after VW losses

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Adolf Merckle committed suicide following millions of euros in losses over a bet the German billionaire placed against Volkswagen shares, according to published reports on Tuesday.

The newspaper Die Welt said the 74-year-old Merckle was hit by a train near his home in southwestern Germany.
Police have ruled out any third-party involvement, the report said.
His family said Merckle ended his life after the financial crisis “broke” him, according to other reports.

Merckle was reported to have lost 400 million euros on the bad VW trade. He also was struggling to finance his roughly 80% stake in Heidelbergcement.
Last week, his holding firm, VEM, had reached a deal with 40 banks to give him more time to repay debt.
Shares of Heidelbergcement dropped 6% in late trading in Frankfurt.

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It would be interesting to see how the price difference relates to what the artist / songwriter ultimately gets for the song purchased.

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Apple Inc. on Tuesday made its last appearance at the annual Macworld conference, releasing a new version of its MacBook Pro notebook and announcing pricing and copy protection changes for songs available on its iTunes store. Apple senior vice president of marketing Phil Schiller delivered the conference’s keynote address in place of Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs, who earlier this week disclosed that he’s been suffering from a hormone imbalance. Apple, which traditionally uses the conference to announce its most high-profile products, said songs on iTunes will begin costing between 69 cents and $1.29 in April, based on their popularity. In addition, the company said all songs will be free of copy protections by the end of the quarter.

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We have been in an overly optimistic mode since Obama was elected, and this has been global. Toyota announces an 11 day plant closure in Japan and the Nikkei rises. Stocks rise here on individual company good news, but don’t fall on systemic bad news. Government bailouts go to banks to give them money to make loans, but pitifully little goes to the overextended borrowers. This is trying to spend our way out of a recession caused by overspending. Oh, really? This will come back to haunt us soon. Historically we are at or near the bottom of the stock market fall. Historically, for the past 70 years, we have not had such a systemic, global failure of the most basic element of any economy, the financial sector. We have yet to hear from commercial mortgages and credit card defaults. Consumers are NOT going to spend our way out of trouble this time, and I don’t have a clue as to why anyone would think so.

——————————

With the change in the calendar, companies are busily compiling their end-of-year financial reports, and the truth is that no one is really sure what they will say.

Last fall’s financial crisis and steep downturn scrambled the expectations of analysts and investors. Weak third-quarter results left many executives unwilling to predict how the fourth-quarter holiday season or 2009 would play out. Economic data heighten fears of a deep slowdown, but economists disagree on how bad conditions will get or when a recovery begins.

Analysts have made their guesses, however. According to Thomson Reuters (TRI), earnings for companies in the broad S&P 500 index are expected to decline 1.2% in the fourth quarter of 2008.

That might seem like a minor decline amid so much economic carnage and financial turmoil. But consider that at the beginning of the fourth quarter, earnings were expected to rise 46.7% from a year ago.
Profits in the Financial Sector

The only reason earnings remain close to breaking even now is that the financial sector is expected to manage a small profit after huge losses at the end of 2007. “Financials are actually going to help earnings,” says Ashwani Kaul, Thomson Reuters director of research.

Outside of financials, there is plenty of economic pain in analyst forecasts. Consumer discretionary firms’ earnings are expected to fall 54%, reflecting the weak holiday season and a slowdown in consumer spending. Energy earnings should fall 17%, Thomson Reuters says, while industrials are slated to drop 18%, the materials sector to fall 66%, technology should be off 15%, and telecom should drop 14%.

Sectors like consumer staples, health care, and utilities should see single-digit profit increases if analysts are correct.

But will the Street seers get it right this time? Conversations with professional investors and market strategists reveal a lot of skepticism.

“Nobody really believes ‘company X’ is going to earn what the consensus forecast is,” says John Buckingham, chief investment officer at Al Frank Asset Management. He believes analysts are still too optimistic.

Earnings reports from Goldman Sachs (GS) and Best Buy (BBY) in mid-December might have been harbingers of how the market will react to earnings reports. Although both the investment bank and consumer electronics retailer reported mixed results, the market reacted by sending their stocks rocketing higher by double-digit percentages.
Bad News Already Factored In?

At least in these sectors—hard-hit by the economic crisis and stock market sell-off—dismal expectations might already be reflected in the stock price, says Doug Roman, managing director and senior vice-president of PNC Capital Advisors (PNC). By merely beating the “worst case” scenario, Best Buy and Goldman actually impressed investors.

Expectations are very low for fourth-quarter earnings season, says Richard Sparks of Schaeffer’s Investment Research. “Even terrible news, if it’s not as bad as expected, might be seen as a positive,” he says.

The traditional start of earnings season is the release of Alcoa’s (AA) report, scheduled for Jan. 12. It’s the first major company with a fiscal year ending Dec. 31 to report results.

Before that, companies with fiscal years ending in November continue to unveil results. Monsanto (MON), Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY), and Family Dollar Stores (FDO) earnings are due on Jan. 7.

Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at Robert W. Baird, believes “earnings will be significantly under pressure for the next two quarters.”

“Investors are expecting the worse in terms of the economy and earnings,” Bittles adds. But, the stock market may begin to look ahead to an expected recovery in the second half of the year.
Fuzzy Math

With the market in turmoil and an economy in crisis, looking ahead will be especially difficult.

“This is a very difficult time because the normal metrics you usually rely on don’t work,” Buckingham says.

Indeed, the market’s preferred signpost of stock valuations may be harder to read this time around. Earnings are important to investors as a reflection of a company’s fundamental value, with many relying on the price-earnings ratio as a basic measure of a stock price’s reasonableness. With few market participants sure where earnings are headed, calculating those p-e ratios has become an exercise in fuzzy math.

When earnings season begins, investors will be listening to executives’ commentary very carefully for insight into future earnings trends, Sparks says. In the last quarter, many execs seemed befuddled by the changing environment, and many refused to predict future results.

That spooked the market, Sparks says. “That lack of news worries the market more than bad news,” he says.

If investors get their wish, earnings seasons will give investors a bit more confidence in the future — even if that future is rather bleak and depressing.

But the stock market’s recent rally could be stopped in its tracks by the opposite outcome. Yearend results could be as bad or even worse than feared, but investors could get no more insight into how long the economic pain will last. And as the old saw goes, there’s nothing Wall Street hates more than uncertainty.

By Ben Steverman

http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/jan2009/pi2009015_056432.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index+-+temp_news+%2B+analysis

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While most of America was busy trading home equity for a TV, RV, and SUV, I was busy renting apartments and driving an economy car. I refer to it as “living beneath your means”.

When I saw things going down in 2006, I sold everything and “de-leveraged” into one house (which is now completely paid for). The only boat I got was a boatload of taxes, which are currently sitting in a 5% CD waiting for April 15.

All the freaking financial geniuses in New York apparently couldn’t do as good a job as I did “timing” this bubble, and yet they expect me to listen to them now. Maybe they should listen to me instead.

Those who don’t pay attention to history (you know the rest). I see no “great depression” in our future, but the last “real” recession is so far in our past (1970’s) that no one seems to have any perspective on how bad it was. My father once said “I got a 21% rate on my loan, and I was glad to get it.” We may be headed there, so buckle up. This is going to get worse before it get’s better.

End of lesson.

Here are your glossary terms for this week:
“beneath your means” - How you should always live - good times or bad. If you can’t stop using your credit card, get rid of it. An easy check to see if you are meeting this criteria is: can I pay for it in cash? If not, don’t buy it. I will make an exception for a modest house (remember that lovely mantra “buy as much house as you can afford?). If you absolutely can’t get buy without a car, buy one that is small and gets good gas milage (in the event gas goes to 150 again).

“de-leveraging” - as in don’t get 3% into a house when RE prices are topping or dropping. Many “brilliant” people failed to remember that leverage = risk (and just as many people who knew better failed to remind the public). The most brilliant move I saw was a friend who sold out, and moved into an apartment for a year. He saved 250K in equity loss. 1031 exchanges are no excuse. Pay the taxes and get the heck out.
Reading assignment: “living the dream” - page 196

We are seeing our system for what it is and not what it could or should be.

If we don’t come to a full stop at a deserted traffic intersection we risk being issued a ticket and having to pay a fine. “It’s the law” we are told. There is so much graft and corruption in our system that they can’t even afford to prosecute all of the wrongdoers. Would it be unfair to only prosecute a few while the others get off Scot free?

Is it possible we will have another Civil War or The New American Revolution? Some Russian recently predicted this same thing. Is there even a remote chance of it?

All of these oaths that elected officials take in which they pledge to serve our country soon end up forgotten and too many of these politicians end up just serving their own selves.

As more and more people face hardship for themselves and their family the dissatisfaction and resentment will continue to grow.

The bottom line is that we are powerless to do anything about it besides post worthless messages on forums like this. Whoop de doo.

Bernie Madoff, may he rot in hell, is accused of running the biggest Ponzi Scheme in the history of our United States. What do you call the US Govt? Now there is the biggest Ponzi Scheme ever. We are talking tens of TRILLIONS which dwarf the measly 50 Billion.

Remember everyone, pay your taxes. IT’S THE LAW.

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