Morning Read

Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Reach Deal; UBS Whitsleblower Got Prison Sentence, $104 Million: Roundup

Morgan Stanley and Citigroup agreed to value Morgan Stanley Smith Barney at $13.5 billion, more than the outside bankers hired to mediate the deal said the joint venture brokerage was worth. According to Bloomberg, Perella Weinberg Partners priced the brokerage at the lower end of the difference between valuations submitted by Morgan Stanley and Citi, which would have resulted in a final price of less than $11.5 billion. The banks agreed on the higher value, however, fixing the price at which Morgan Stanley will acquire Citi’s stake in the partnership. Read More

Missing

Russell Wasendorf Sr.

Peregrine Financial Group Regulator Kicks in Fine Paid By Iowa Broker to Bankruptcy Trustee (Update)

There are lost assets and found assets in the bankruptcy of Peregrine Financial Group, the Iowa-based futures dealer than folded in July after the firm’s founder said in a note left before his attempted suicide that he’d used a color printer to hide that his company’s bank account was missing some $200 million in client funds.

Lost assets included 304 silver coins depicting characters from the children’s TV show SpongeBob SquarePants, valued at about $20,000; Found assets included a baseball glove signed by former New York Yankees manager Joe Torre and baseball hall-of-famer Johnny Bench, all of which may sounds strange if you haven’t been following the saga, which has included tales of Peregrine founder Russell Wasendorf’s shotgun wedding, wizardry with Adobe Photoshop and catastrophic experience in Romanian real estate. Read More