【英语生活】马多夫和他的后来者

There are various similarities between Bernard Madoff and Sir Allen Stanford, the “flamboyant Texan billionaire” – never a reassuring combination – accused by the US Securities and Exchange Commission of an $8bn (£5.6bn, €6.4bn) fraud at his Antigua bank.One is that Sir Allen, who denies wrong-doing but refused to co-operate with a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry, made oddly steady investment returns at Stanford International Bank. In 1995 and 1996, he achieved the remarkable – in fact, near-impossible – coup of identical 15.71 per cent returns.

During the same years, Fairfield Sentry, one of Mr Madoff's main “feeder funds”, declared investment returns of 12.04 and 12.08 per cent respectively, which was shockingly volatile by comparison.

A second is that SIB, like Mr Madoff's advisory business, was a strange hybrid. Mr Madoff was in effect running a hedge fund but did not charge hedge fund fees. SIB was not really a bank, for it took in deposits but did not make loans.

A third is that both were audited by tiny firms, rather than big accounting practices. Mr Madoff's auditor was Friehling & Horowitz, a three-person outfit, while SIB's accounts were handled by CAS Hewlett & Co, an Antiguan accounting firm.

The fourth similarity strikes me, however, as just as significant: both Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities and the Stanford Financial Group, SIB's parent, bear the names of their proprietors. That matters because it signifies something else – the degree to which both were dominated by one person. When a single figure not only controls a financial institution but embodies it, investors should be wary.

There are many sound eponymous institutions. One or two of the most successful merchant banks were founded by, and named after, one person – for example, J.P. Morgan & Co and S.G. Warburg & Co.

But there is a reason why most investment banks flourished as partnerships, and why a team of equals who not only encourage but also restrain each other has been the enduring model. Dominance by one man is risky for a bank, its depositors and its shareholders.

That is true even if a bank is run in compliance with laws and regulations. Being led by a single person who is hard to challenge is a recipe for a financial institution slipping into unrestrained risk-taking. The opposite approach can be seen at Goldman Sachs, which is the most consensually run of investment banks (or whatever one calls them now). Goldman's partnership culture helped to restrain it from risking its balance sheet in the era of subprime mortgage lending.

It is unusual for dominance to shade into criminality, as the SEC alleges against Mr Madoff and Sir Allen. But it occurs more often than investors can safely ignore, especially when a bank is built in the image of one charismatic leader.

Charles Ponzi, whose name is given to frauds involving recycling money, was led astray by working at an eponymous bank. His first employer in Canada was Banco Zarossi, a bank for Italian immigrants started by Luigi Zarossi, who used deposits to cover bad property loans.

Alex Dalmady, the financial analyst who drew attention to Sir Allen's bank, and accused him of running a Ponzi scheme, noted that one trait of financial frauds is that: “There are few people (or only one person) overseeing everything.”

A glaring example of charismatic dominance leading to criminality was Robert Maxwell, who ran a media company rather than a bank, but renamed it Maxwell Communication Corporation. He descended into fraud in the 1980s by taking money from his newspapers' pension scheme.

We do not know what occurred at Stanford Financial Group, but one thing is indisputable: Sir Allen is a flashy egomaniac. Anyone who descends on Lord's cricket ground in a gold-leafed (or perhaps painted) helicopter bearing millions of dollars to launch his sponsorship of a cricket tournament likes attention.

Sir Allen, who got his knighthood from Antigua and Barbuda, behaved like that in business. The Stanford Eagle, his magazine, compared the “Stanford Investment Model” to the “Markowitz and Efficient Frontier” models of portfolio diversification.

This is a stretch. According to the SEC, only two people knew where most of the depositors' money was placed: Sir Allen and James Davis, the chief financial officer of SIB. Even those on its “investment committee” were not let in on the secret.

Everything about the group was one big toot on Sir Allen's horn, from the chairman's letter, with its bland assurance that “there has never been, and there will never be, an easy way to make money”, to the repeated minting of the Stanford name.

It was a one-man show and all the talk of extensive safeguards and risk management and the “expert team of approximately 20 analysts from various cultural backgrounds who have hands-on regional experience and licensure” was, according to the SEC, gold-leafed nonsense.

Most frauds are hard to detect from the outside. If someone is determined to conceal malfeasance, and is intelligent, he can fix the figures and concoct a cover story that works for a long time. Mr Madoff managed to pull it off – and maintain a glowing reputation – for decades.

But, as well as observing indicators such as volatility of returns, investors should bear in mind human foibles. Banks that keep the ambitions and egos of individuals in check by making them work with, and under the eyes of, others have a fair chance of detecting fraud.

When everything is run by one person, and his name is on the door, you have to hope for the best.

被美国证监会(SEC)指控在其安提瓜银行欺诈80亿美元的艾伦·斯坦福爵士(Sir Allen Stanford)，被形容为“个性张扬的得克萨斯亿万富翁”，这个称号从来不是一个令人放心的组合。事实上，斯坦福与伯纳德•马多夫(Bernard Madoff)有各种相似之处。其中之一是，斯坦福的斯坦福国际银行(Stanford International Bank)的投资回报率稳定得离奇。在1995年和1996年，他连续两年取得年15.71%的相同回报率，这在现实中几乎不可能。斯坦福否认存在不当行为，但拒绝配合美国证监会的调查。

同样在那两年，马多夫的主要“支线基金”(feeder fund)之一Fairfield Sentry宣布的投资回报率分别是12.04%和12.08%，而同期市场波动之大则令人震惊。

第二个相似之处是，斯坦福国际银行和马多夫的顾问公司一样，是一个奇怪的混合体。马多夫实际上经营着一家对冲基金，但不收取对冲基金费用。斯坦福国际银行不是真正的银行，因为它吸收存款，但不发放贷款。

第三个相似之处是，两者都由小公司而不是大型会计事务所进行审计。马多夫的审计机构是Friehling & Horowitz——一家只有三个人的公司。而斯坦福国际银行的账目由安提瓜一家会计事务所CAS Hewlett & Co审计。

第四个相似之处在我看来同样意义重大：伯纳德•马多夫投资证券公司(Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities)和斯坦福国际银行母公司斯坦福金融集团(Stanford Financial Group)都以它们所有人的名字命名。这至关重要，因为它意味着其它一些东西——两家公司被一个人控制的程度。当一个人不仅控制着金融机构，而且还代表着该机构的时候，投资者应该予以警惕。

有许多正当的以个人姓名命名的机构。一两个最为成功的商人银行是由个人创立并以其名字命名，例如，摩根大通(J.P.Morgan & Co)和华宝银行(S.G. Warburg & Co)。

但大多数投资银行以合伙企业形式经营而兴旺发达，一组不仅彼此鼓励，还彼此限制的成员平等组成的团队一直是经久不衰的模式，这是有理由的。一个人说了算的模式，对银行、储户和股东都是有风险的。

即使一家银行合法经营，情况也是这样。对金融机构而言，由一个难以受到挑战的个人领导，是陷入不受控制的冒险的处方。高盛(Goldman Sachs)采取了不同的方法。高盛是在经营中最注重达成共识的投资银行（或不论这类机构现在被叫做什么）。高盛的合伙文化有助于其在次级抵押贷款时代自我克制，不拿自己的资产负债表去冒险。

由控制逐渐演变为犯罪（就像证监会对马多夫和斯坦福的指控）是不寻常的。但它的发生相当频繁，以至于投资者不能忽视，尤其是在一家银行建立在一个领导人魅力形象的基础之上的时候。

查尔斯•庞齐(Charles Ponzi)就是在一家以所有者名字命名的银行工作时误入歧途的。他在加拿大工作的第一家公司是由Luigi Zarossi创立的为意大利移民服务的Banco Zarossi银行。该行使用存款来填补房地产贷款坏账。庞齐的名字成为循环资金诈骗的代名词。

金融分析师亚历克斯•道尔毛迪(Alex Dalmady)指出，金融诈骗的一个特征是，“很少有人（或仅有一个人）监督所有事情”。道尔毛迪提醒人们关注斯坦福银行，指控其从事着一个庞氏骗局。

一个魅力四射的主导人物最终走向犯罪的明显例子是罗伯特•马克斯韦尔(Robert Maxwell)。他经营着一家媒体公司，而不是银行。但将公司改名为马克斯韦尔通讯公司(Maxwell Communication Corporation)。上世纪80年代，他拿走了报纸的养老金计划的资金，滑向了诈骗的深渊。

我们不了解斯坦福金融集团的情况，但有一件事情不容置疑：斯坦福极度自大。任何人乘坐一架镀金（也可能是涂色）的直升飞机，抵达伦敦贵族板球场(Lord's cricket ground)，为一场板球锦标赛提供数百万美元赞助时，都表明他渴望关注。

从安提瓜和巴布达获得爵士身份的斯坦福，做生意也是如此。旗下的杂志Stanford Eagle将“斯坦福投资模式”和“马科维茨效率前缘”(Markowitz and Efficient Frontier)的多样化投资组合模式相提并论。

这话说得过头。美国证监会称，只有斯坦福和斯坦福国际银行的首席财务官詹姆斯•戴维斯 (James Davis)两人知道大多数储户的资金被放在什么地方。即使那些“投资委员会”的人也毫不知情。

该集团的一切都是斯坦福的自吹自擂，从平实地保证“以前没有，将来也不会有容易赚钱的方法”的董事长信函，到反复利用“斯坦福”这个品牌。

这是一场独角戏。根据美国证监会所言，所有关于全面防范和风险管理措施以及“来自不同文化背景、拥有地区操作经验和执照的将近20名分析师专家团队”的言论，都是经过粉饰的一派胡言。

大多数诈骗行为都难以从外部察觉。如果某人决定隐瞒不法行为，并足够聪明的话，他可以操纵数据，并编造一个长期有效的幌子。马多夫几十年来成功地做到了这一点——并维持了显赫的名声。

但是，在观察回报率波动性等指标的同时，投资者应该牢记人类的弱点。那些通过合作和监督来控制个人野心和自负的银行，有较好的机会发现诈骗行为。

当一切都由一个人管理时，而且他的名字刻在门上时，你只能求上天保佑。

译者/君悦