How sweet it is. Former barred Bond Underwriter Merrill Lynch was just authorized to do business with Orange County after the long lock out due to their participation in the Orange County Bankruptcy.
Bloomberg just covered that story and included some rough numbers. If Merrill Lynch is selected to handle Bonds they will earn approximately $5.46 for every $1,000. No big deal.
Oh, but wait a minute. Didn’t we just approve Measure M to the tune of $11.86 billion dollars?
Let’s see. Their fees for $one billion dollars worth of Bonds would be $5,460,000. Not exactly chump change. How much is 12 times five and a half million dollars anyway?
Just thought we could have some fun with current events.
This should show us all that these guys (Moorlach & Norby) are dirty. Why else would you approve a firm that lost you 1.7 billion, to get back into the mix?
I have a great idea John! Ask Merrill Lynch to wave all fees until it reaches 1,700,000,000. Oh…we can deduct the 430,000,000 they already paid us back, so it would only be only 1.2 billion or so. Would they go for that?
I think the other 22 firms could take care of this county just fine. You have some problems John!
If the reason to contract with ML is save some money on fee’s.
Then I guess what is being said is that the other brokers the county is using is riping then (us) off with fees that are to high.
I think the answer should be to fire the rip off brokers, not rehire one everyone knowns is crooked.
For several years John Moorlach has advocated doing business again with ML. His argument was that they often have the best deal (lowest cost) on investment deals, so why not go with the best deal and save the taxpayers some money? The counter view has been that doing business with a firm that you believe was unethical (or worse) in a major way in the past, and is in the business pages periodically since then reported to have made multiple million dollar settlements with the SEC and others while “admitting no wrong doing”, is not a service to the taxpayers but really a disservice. Looks like John finally got the Board votes he was seeking, his being one of them. Some think it is another roll of the investment dice – time will tell.
Moorlach wants to erode this counties law enforcement group of their benefits, but he has no problem rewarding Merrill Lynch for what they helped do to this county.
You award anything to Merrill Lynch Moorlach and there will be hell to pay!
Change the law.
Instead of requiring a ML broker (and others) to be the middleman between the county/state/local government selling bonds and the county/state/local retirement systems who buy them.
Have them bonds pass charge free.
Why pay the brokers somthing for nothing?
Do the brokers make campaign donantions?