The same day that Senator Chuck Grassley announced he was stepping up his investigation into “suspicious” trades by Steve Cohen’s hedge fund, the Mets formally announced they would not be going with Steve Cohen as a preferred bidder. Grassley ramped up the pressure by demanding written explanations for every trade done by SAC Capital over the past eleven years that warranted a referral from FINRA to the SEC. He also demanded explanations for how the SEC resolved those referrals, how the number of referrals compared to other hedge funds, whether the agency ever considered enforcement action, and how he made so much goddamn money for so goddamn long, Goddamn it. In his letter to SEC chairwoman Mary Schapiro, Grassley assured that this was more of an investigation into the SEC’s abilities than a criminal probe, saying, “Looking into specific examples is essential for Congress to understand how effectively the S.E.C. pursues referrals such as these.”
But too late: The Mets looked elsewhere on Wall Street, choosing a group led by former commodities trader Ray Bartoszek and investor Anthony Lanza as the preferred bidder. Considering Cohen’s fine-art obsession started when a colleague showed Cohen his collection, somehow we get a feeling that Cohen is going to end up with more baseball teams than the other guys.
Mets, Bartoszek group close to deal [NYP via Dealbreaker]
Grassley Steps Up Inquiry of SAC Capital’s Trading [Dealbook]
