It’s a Small World: GLG Edition

As reported in these very pixels Tuesday, GLG Partners Inc (GLG), the London-based but New York-listed $20 billion-plus hedge fund manager, admitted overstating its GAAP earnings by the razor-thin margin of $600 million over the last couple of years. Please follow along for the latest edition of connect-some-dots:

• GLG’s New York Stock Exchange listing in Dec. 2007 was accomplished by reverse merger with Freedom Acquisition Holdings Corp (original trading symbol FRH), a special acquisition company [SPAC].
• GLG’s trouble-making auditor is Ernst & Young.
• FRH was controlled by, among others, Marlin Equities II LLC, “an investment vehicle majority owned by its managing member, Martin E. Franklin, the chairman of [FRH’s] board of directors...”.
• Franklin’s day job is chairman and chief executive of Jarden Corp (JAH), possibly a “world-class consumer products company with a diverse product array that are the brands of everyday life.” Or, as a NakedShorts’ correspondent put it, “an over-levered pig of a consumer products company.'”
• On Feb. 29, JAH announced that its audit committee had fired Ernst & Young.

Reached during his birthday celebrations in Washington DC yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI said “Was für ein zufall!” Which is pretty much what NakedShorts said last June about the flagrantly suspicious trading in FRH on the last business day before the GLG transaction was announced.

It’ll be interesting to see how long it is before E&Y gets dropped off the GLG bus. The under/over at this book is 15 minutes.

Earlier on NakedShorts
Convicted crooks restate results
Apr. 15 2008