Eurozone crisis claims MF Global

MF Global became the largest US casualty of the eurozone crisis on Monday as it filed for bankruptcy protection after making big and bad bets on the European sovereign debt market, reports the FT. It was a repo-to-maturity failure, too, writes FT Alphaville. The broker-dealer, run by Jon Corzine, an ex-chief executive of Goldman Sachs and former governor of New Jersey, admitted defeat in its attempt to stay in business after an 11th-hour deal to sell itself to Interactive Brokers Group fell apart. It is the largest failure of a US financial firm since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Corzine was bullish until the end, telling the FT three weeks ago that he was aiming to surpass Goldman within a decade.