|  | | 2010 News and Press Releases | | |
HEADLINE NEWS:
IN's Cooper: Mark Madoff An American tragedy
Evan Cooper
InvestmentNews. December 15, 2010
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EXCERPT: In this age of millisecond attention spans and minimally talented celebrity demigods, it will take about two weeks before everyone forgets Mark Madoff. […] The 46-year-old eldest son of Bernard Madoff — who, with his brother, turned his father over to the authorities two years ago after hearing the Ponzi mastermind's confession of guilt — committed suicide Saturday, leaving four children from two marriages. Although he spent most of his career as a trader at his father's firm, he claimed he never knew about the swindle. We'll probably never know if he did or didn't. While it strains credulity that a multibillion dollar fraud can be going on within the confines of a small family-run firm with only one man knowing about it, there's no doubt it can happen. The personalities behind family businesses are just as weird and bizarre as those in corporate America, so it's entirely possible that Dad did his thing (the scam) while Uncle Peter and brothers Mark and Andrew did their thing (trading) with little or no interaction. The fact is, Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was a lot like other successful and idiosyncratic family businesses. While it may have been “Wall Street” in the eyes of the public, the company was a lot more Seventh Avenue in its origins than people realized. The company started by trading New York Stock Exchange-listed stocks away from the exchange, making a few cents here and there on every trade — sort of like a clothing manufacturer who knocks off designer dresses. The firm grew as trading volume soared in the 1980s, and was providing a nice living for Bernie, his brother and their families before the Ponzi scheme began. (How sad that Bernie didn't stop at that point instead of feeling compelled, for whatever twisted reason, to pursue even bigger dreams of wealth.) |
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