A woman leaves the office complex where MF Global Holdings Ltd have an office on 52nd Street in midtown Manhattan October 29, 2011. Members of MF Global Holdings Ltd's board of directors were meeting on Saturday to discuss options for the sale of the brokerage, Bloomberg News reported. The talks were said to have begun in New York to discuss apparent offers from five potential buyers of the company. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly (UNITED STATES - Tags: BUSINESS) (Reuters)
NEW YORK -- The 1,066 employees terminated from the bankrupt trading house MF Global were left without severance and benefits and on Saturday they blamed only one man for their woes -- former CEO Jon Corzine.
"Happy holidays, Corzine, from all your employees who've been fired without severance packages!" a worker fumed at the former chief as she left the firm's midtown New York building.
"I have two little kids, it's almost Christmas, the economy stinks -- how am I gonna find a job?" said another worker who just cleaned out his desk.
The 1,066 employees will be paid through next Tuesday, and health benefits will run out at the end of November. Bonuses and other financial perks won't be paid, workers said.
"It ended like this because of one man," said Anthony DiMatteo, who worked for MF for 16 years. Corzine is "selfish, greedy," he said.
If Corzine were around, DiMatteo told Bloomberg News, "I would punch him in the face."
The pink slips -- which went out in New York, Chicago and other MF offices -- were court-mandated in the wake of the Oct. 31 Chapter 11 filing of its parent firm, MF Global Holdings Ltd.
The $41-billion firm collapsed after Corzine's disastrous high-stakes investment in foreign debt blew up in his face.
The former New Jersey governor and Goldman Sachs chief took the helm at the venerable trading firm in 2010. He resigned last week, saying he would not seek about $12 million in severance.
Yesterday, his furious former troops blamed the onetime financial rainmaker for playing fast and loose with their livelihoods.
"Corzine went to the blackjack table and took a 100 percent bet," said Pierre Yvan Desparois, a credit department vice president who worked at MF Global for more than three years.
"He placed bets with people's lives."
Bankruptcy trustee James Giddens is still trying to find about $600 million in missing customer money. Forensic probers are trying to account for the brokerage firm's assets, and federal agencies are investigating whether MF mixed company funds with money missing from customer accounts.
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