Did Madoff Dealings Hurt the Wilpons?

[MFS62]

Here's an article that says they may not have.
http://www.newsday.com/business/mets-owner-strikes-out-with-madoff-trustee-1.1502744

Can someone with a financial and/ or legal background please translate this for those of us who don't?

Later

[Benjamin Grimm]

The Wilpons claimed from the beginning that the Madoff thing didn't hurt the club's finances.

Nobody wanted to believe it. (I didn't have an opinion either way.)

[metirish]

What is there to translate? , the article seems to imply that Sterling Equities may have in fact made $50 million overall.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Guess I better be nice to Jeff Wilpon's kid.

[MFS62]

What is there to translate? , the article seems to imply that Sterling Equities may have in fact made $50 million overall.[/quote:13kvx4h8]
Because of the multiple accounts mentioned, I'm not sure if they were just moving the same money around, or if there was a real profit made.
Edgy, the heck with "be nice". If they really made a $50 million profit, I want them to adopt me.
Later

[soupcan]

Sterling Equities believed (and were shown by brokerage statements issued by Madoff's firm) that they had assets of approximately $700 million as a result of returns on monies they invested with Madoff.

Picard (the Trustee, not the spaceship captain) states that the $700 million figure was a fantasy and that the $50 million that they took out of their statements over the years represented more total dollars than they actually put in. Sterling had been putting money into Madoff's hands for about 20 years so while they may have actually put in less than they took out, they probably kept reinvesting the returns they were told they were making, so their account value kept growing. This, coupled with Madoff's stated spectacular return rate doesn't make the total of $700 million sound beyond belief. It would be an excellent return but still, together with those aforementioned factors - believable.

So while the $700 million may have been 'fictitious', Sterling operated on the belief that it had those assets. Banks made loans to them, projects were funded, companies owned by Sterling (the Mets) were budgeted based probably in large part on that belief.

The whole thing then falls apart and Sterlings accounts are wiped out. Well, no they didn't actually lose $700 million because they never really had it, but the fact that they had loans and the like outstanding based on those numbers makes it like they did lose the actual dollars.

[soupcan]

Also - people I know that have dealings with the Wilpons and Sterling, state affirmatively that the fact that they lost close to a billion dollars absolutely, without a doubt has affected the day-to-day operations of every single entity that falls under the Sterling umbrella.

I can't imagine that a parent company could lose that kind of money and not have it affect the entire organization.

[metirish]

Mets made munny

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4581715

[metsmarathon]

they put in $520M, and got out $570M.

what that misses, of course, if how much money they thought they had.

if i buy $10 of stock, and it goes up to $100, well, i've made $90. and if it goes back down to $15... have i lost $85, or gained $5?

[Guest Edgy DC]

You've gained $5.

[metsmarathon]

You've gained $5.[/quote:2xa6m3am]

now that's the kind of thinking that's preventing me from claiming a loss on all my old '87 topps baseball cards...

[Farmer Ted]

Perhaps the Wilpons didn't know if the end result was profit or loss with this guy. The investigation continues, tho.

[Guest Kong76]

The last paragraph of the ESPN link is dead on.

They should be out the initial investment like everyone else.