如何拯救明富環球

????期貨經紀公司明富環球（MF Global）命懸一線。公司高管們正努力說服客戶相信，它不會成為下一個貝爾斯登（Bear Stearns）或雷曼兄弟 （Lehman Brothers）。但在經紀交易商的世界中，信心和認知是至關重要的。如果有足夠多的人認為你即將倒下——無論這種看法是對還是錯——這場游戲就會飛速終結。倘若外界對這家公司償付能力的看法在未來幾天內沒有改觀，該公司雄心勃勃的首席執行官，華爾街響當當的人物喬恩?柯賽就只得面臨兩個選擇：減價出售或破產倒閉。

????明富環球正迅速采取行動，以避免危機。一位知情人士向《財富》雜志(Fortune)透露，該公司董事會上周二早上決定聘請精品投資銀行Evercore幫助其探索“戰略選擇”。這則由《華爾街日報》(Wall Street Journal)于上周三早上率先披露的消息似乎穩住了股價。此前，關于該公司償付能力的謠言如野火般在市場上瘋狂蔓延，導致公司股價在上周早些時候下跌了50%。

????為恢復市場信心并繼續獲得信貸支持，明富環球亟需利用一切可利用的途徑迅速募集一些新鮮的資本。如果手頭沒有現金，它就無法為其客戶促成交易，也無法滿足其自營業務追加保證金的要求。雖然MF Global聲稱在第三季度末依然擁有約37億美元的可用流動資金，但后來這筆錢可能已經消耗殆盡。

????看看這家公司的杠桿率，保留資本的緊迫性就變得格外明晰。過去一年中，公司損失了9千多萬美元，市值下跌了近80%，跌至2.8億美元。據評級機構伊根?瓊斯（Egan Jones）測算，MF Global的歐洲主權債務敞口為63億美元，再加上所有的美國政府債務敞口，該公司的整體杠桿率約為40比1。這個數字甚至比雷曼兄弟公司于2008年破產時的杠桿率（約為35比1）還要高。如此高的杠桿率使得投資者極度緊張，即使其中很大一部分是相對良性的政府機構債務。

????8月份，明富環球開始減少自營交易活動，以降低風險，籌措資金。但它很可能正坐在一個定時炸彈上，但是沒有人知道它何時會爆炸。對于一家經紀交易商來說，這種不確定性是致命的。

潛在買家

????但盡管存在這種高杠桿率和不確定性，明富環球繼續生存下去的救贖之道還是有的。首先是被動獲得外界的資本注入，代價是交出公司的部分權益。源自石油資源豐富的國家（如迪拜)和煉油中心（如新加坡）的主權財富基金此前就曾投資過陷入困境的金融公司。明富環球在石油交易領域頗具影響力的大宗商品交易平臺可能會對這些基金產生吸引力。喬恩?柯賽曾在上世紀90年代執掌高盛公司（Goldman Sachs），并在本世紀頭十年擔任美國參議員和新澤西州長，他與這些海外基金關系良好，有可能會迅速行動促成一筆交易。

????The fate of MF Global hangs in the balance as the firm's executives scramble to reassure customers that it won't be the next Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers. But in the broker-dealer world, confidence and perception are critical, and if enough people believe you're going under, rightly or wrongly, the game is over – fast. Unless perceptions about the firm's solvency change in the next few days, Jon Corzine, MF Global's ambitious and Wall Street-famous chief executive, will face just two options: fire sale or bankruptcy.

????Acting quickly to avert a meltdown, MF Global's board retained the boutique investment bank Evercore Tuesday morning to help it explore "strategic options," a person with knowledge of the situation tells Fortune. The news, first reported in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday morning, seems to have stabilized the company's stock, which had fallen earlier in the week by as much as 50%, as rumors to its solvency spread through the market like wildfire.

????To restore confidence and to keep its credit lines open, MF Global (MF) needs to quickly raise some fresh capital by whatever means available. Without cash on hand, the firm can't facilitate trades for its clients or meet margin calls for its own proprietary trades. While the firm claims it had some $3.7 billion in available liquidity as of the end of the third quarter, that cash may have since dried up.

????The urgency to retain capital becomes clear when you look at the firm's leverage ratio. In the last year the company has lost over $90 million while its market capitalization fell around 80% to around $280 million. Taking into account its $6.3 billion in European sovereign debt exposure, along with all its US government agency debt exposure, the firm has a leverage ratio of around 40 to 1, according to Egan Jones, a rating agency. That's even higher than the approximate 35 to 1 leverage ratio Lehman Brothers was sporting when it fell from grace in 2008. Such a high leverage ratio makes investors extremely nervous, even if a large portion of that leverage ends up being relatively benign government agency debt.

????In August, MF Global began to wind down some of its prop trading activities to reduce risk and raise cash, but it could be sitting on a time bomb that no one knows about. Such uncertainty is a killer for a broker-dealer.

Possible buyers

????But despite the high leverage ratio and uncertainty, there are options available to MF Global to continue as a going concern. The first would be some sort of passive capital infusion in exchange for a piece of the company. Sovereign wealth funds from oil-rich countries like Dubai and oil-refining hubs like Singapore have made investments in struggling financial companies before and may be tempted to get their hands on MF Global's commodity trading platform, which has a strong presence in oil trading. Corzine, who was the head of Goldman Sachs (GS) in the 1990s and a U.S. Senator and Governor from New Jersey in the 2000s, has strong relationships with foreign funds and could move quickly to seal a deal.