What the financial crisis, subsequent taxpayer bailouts, zero prosecutions of financial industry participants and further consolidation of the economy by oligarchs has taught us more than anything else is that the super rich and politically connected are not allowed to fail. Apparently, this may also apply to the head of one of the largest firms in what is quickly becoming the most despised “industry” in the nation.
By now, pretty much everyone in America knows about Michael Lewis’ book Flash Boys, which exposes the high frequency trading (HFT) industry for the money-sucking parasite it is. However, what will really get your blood boiling, particularly if you live in Florida, is how the CEO of one of the biggest players in the HFT space, Virtu Financial, is looking for taxpayers to bail-out his poorly performing investment in the Florida Panther NFL hockey franchise. This takes having “some nerve” to a whole new level of absurdity.
From Bloomberg:
Vincent Viola, whose high-frequency trading firm plans to raise millions of dollars in an initial public offering next month, is seeking tax dollars to help cover the bills for the Florida Panthers hockey team he bought six months ago.
Viola asked lawmakers in South Florida’s Broward County to use $64 million in taxpayer funds for arena bond payments owed by the team, which says it’s losing money as attendance has fallen to a 14-year low. Officials in Broward, which encompasses Fort Lauderdale on the Atlantic Coast, disagree on how to proceed, with some saying that if they don’t pick up the tab, the team may move and leave taxpayers with $225 million in debt and an empty arena.
Sounds a lot like the nonsense we all head that went something like “we must bail-out and not regulate banking criminals otherwise they will leave the U.S.” Oh the horror, these crooks might take their organized crime elsewhere…
What’s unfolding in Florida shows how team owners seek an advantage in negotiating stadium deals with municipalities banking on the venues to help power their economies. Localities from Atlanta to Glendale, Arizona, have given out more taxpayer money when facing the prospect that teams may relocate.
All we need now is Hank Paulson to come out, roll up his sleeves and warn of martial law if the Panthers relocate.
At least 10 professional sports franchises are pursuing taxpayer-backed stadium deals in Florida, including the billionaire owners of the Miami Heat basketball team and Miami Dolphins football team.
A “sports team” is just another oligarch trophy asset.
Virtu, which announced plans last month to sell shares, won’t start marketing the offering until after April 20, later than anticipated, two people with knowledge of the matter said this month. The delay came amid scrutiny of high-frequency traders. “Flash Boys,” the Michael Lewis book released last month, argues that high-speed traders, Wall Street brokerages and exchanges have rigged the $23 trillion U.S. stock market.
The team, in its current location since the 1998-99 season, was sold to Viola and Douglas Cifu, Virtu’s chief executive officer, in September for $250 million, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Team Chief Executive Officer Rory Babich declined to comment on the sale price.
The team is losing $25 million annually, according to a county review.
Broward projected at the time that profit-sharing would have returned $76.6 million to taxpayers by now. The county has received $331,000.
With more tax money, the Panthers could recruit better players, said Babich, the team CEO. The county could share the profits, he said.
Yeah, and if it doesn’t work out who cares, it’s just the stupid taxpayers’ money anyway.
In addition to taking over bond payments, which would be made over the next 14 years, the team wants concessions that would cost county taxpayers another $14 million in the same period.
Apparently, selling tickets to ice hockey games in an area with an average daily high temperature of 83 degrees is just slightly more difficult than the 100% success rate you can achieve by rigging stock markets. Thanks for playing Vincent.
Full article here.
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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I agree with your sentiment about subsidizing the rich handouts to sports teams, but you are way off on HFT. HFT displaced the old-guard Wall Street-fat-cat-trust-fund-babies with hard working, meritocratic, and smart outsiders. True, HFT abuses big, dumb institutional traders (like RBC and Brad Katsuyama was), but the net effect on Mom and Pop is lower execution costs.
Wrong.Its in the settlement pricing that is all MoMo. If you inflict settlement pricing over time even buy a dime. Over 6 years everyday. What do you get?. If I only could front run Tom Baldwin I wouldn’t be talking here. If you don’t know who that is you haven’t worked on a real trading floor. Every real trader I have known and that’s a lot I am 45 has taken huge risks. Had huge ups and downs. Now risk is skewed to a bunch of criminals.Order Book should be called Alpha Book. They aren’t better than the last bunch but please don’t say it is neccesary to quote apple 8000 times per second as if that’s how things should be.Firm bid firm offer and NO not taking trades when its cancelled in an nanosecond. HFT will eventually destroy itself the only thing is what will replace it. you have a bunch of people that are clueless as to normal market operations. A fed that is so inflexible to realities it is stunning.Regulators Bart Chilton that warns then lobbies.BLS that feeds these machines bogus data.Then they react. You don’t think they figures that out. Its pretty simple input 125k unemployment output 15 pts in emini.That is what this has become and its no more real than the easter bunny. Why not just input 0 and take the market to 25k in the Dow. Is that really any different? I dare the BLS To do that and you will see what a farce all this is.
I am sick of the sports craze in this country. I don’t give a damn about football, baseball, hockey or – please! – basketball. Let these overgrown children buy their own stadiums. I am also sick of professional sports being treated with reverence by our knuckleheaded population. Grow up and read a book or go to the gym. Playing sports for exercise or fun is fine. Paying to watch sports is pathological.
there we go! great article. my apologies if i was overly harsh on last article on homielessness.
also, i thought you might find the hillary clinton shoe throwing video worth a first or second watch.
i watched that video of hillary clinton having a shoe thrown at her for a second time and the thing that really bugged me about the video is how clinton tries to deflect by ‘asking’ the audience if it was a ‘bat’ flying on stage. as if anyone could make this mistake. when bush had a shoe thrown at him in iraq, i don’t think he asked if it was a bat.
and i think the fact that bush and clinton had the same thing happen to them——–speaks loudly as to who these people are.
man. i mean i could care less about the respect or disrespect of someone throwing a shoe, at this female oligarch but it really says something about how she thinks when she deflects by pretending she is either confused , or that something that happened (a angry person throwing a shoe in disgust) didn’t happen (oh it’s bat, how cute/gross?!) . you can hear it all in the tone of her voice and in the pregnant pause of a second or two that she took to think up the ‘bat’ remark.
it’s basically just a reflexive form of deception. it’s like her instincts are to decieve. i wonder if at some level she’s not just decieiving the world, but that these oligarchs are decieving themselves into believing their own bullshit.
perhaps this is what makes them so dangerous? worth a watch.
are we to believe she is actually blind or that incompetent? a bat?
have you ever seen a bat? i have seen many! a bat ! hahahahahhaa.
i just couldn’t stop laughing and crying. a bat. oy.
One year ago, when HFT powerhouse Virtu launched its first attempt to go public and finally gave the world a glimpse into its trading perfection engine, we were stunned to learn that through the “miracles” of frontrunning, momentum ignition, quote stuffing, subpennying and all those other market manipulation techniques that have made HFT a staple – if extremely profitable – parasite of fragmented, broken “markets”, in its S-1 it wrote that “as a result of our real-time risk management strategy and technology, we had only one losing trading day during the period depicted, a total of 1,238 trading days.” We urged readers to “let that sink in: one trading loss day and 1237 days of profits.” To paraphrase: one losing day in five years of trading. We said that “that, ladies and gentlemen, is the Holy Grail of the New Normal broken, manipulated markets.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-21/holy-grail-trading-crosses-twilight-zone-hft-firm-virtu-has-lost-money-once-1485-tra
Tell the CEO to eff off…