Quote from yip1997:
Don,
How can you guarantee it? Bright is a LLC and the members can take back their contribution anytime they want. Please tell me how we look at the balance sheet.
Even with 10 million from class A owners, I beg it is a lot smaller than the total contribution from class B (traders). If you have 500 traders with each one holding assets of over 1 million, the total holding in the company is over 500 million. Assuming the traders are holding random stocks, it is very likely that it will lose more than 10 million.
We have never had to use our traders money for "net capital calculations" - so, by definition, we have enough capital reserves to cover everyone's positions.
Below is our 2006 balance sheet, sorry about the formatting. As you can see, other than a small cash account, we keep over $100 million in the LLC. (Class 'A' is us, Class B is the trader's portion).
The "long stock" vs. "short stock" had a net difference of only about $15million. I think there were about 400 "active" members, including the Bright family (which is a big portion of the long and short stock). The bulk of the money is with Goldman Sachs (Receivable from Clearing Agent).
This is only the LLC, which is what we're talking about here.
Bright Trading, LLC
Statement of Financial Condition â December 31, 2006
Cash in Bank $ 6,416,566 Reserve for Payables $ 2,279,454
Long Securities 100,201,960 Short Securities 115,808,090
Receivable from
Clearing Agent 118,821,571 Accounts Payable 284,314
Other Receivable 163,646 Class B Member Capital (0)
Other Investments 476,700 Class A Capital 107,708,585
Total Asset $ 226,080,443 Liabies & Equity $226,080,443
(This report was audited by Romeo & Chiaverelli, Certified Public Accountants)
I think is pretty good as far as "full disclosure"and "transparency" goes, especially for a private company. And, since this is all family money (no investors or shareholders), we do a pretty good job of risk control, LOL.
"Could" anyone lose more than their account, sure..."could" they blow out the Firm....I can't see how that could ever happen, knowing the numbers.
We did the "guarantee" disclosure and amount ($10million) many years ago, just to give traders peace of mind...as you can see, we keep considerably more in the LLC. Even if someone happened to lose a few $million, do you really think we would risk our reputation for that amount, of course not.
This exemplifies the reason that I am may seem to be "down" on "Sub-LLC's" and other "pseudo" type firms...sure, we could form a sub llc and limit our risk to a $million or whatever (as some of the other guys do), but we believe in what we do, and keep a pretty good amount of money in the Main LLC.
As always, check balance sheets, and do your due diligence, regardless of what business venture you're engaging in. "Know your business partner."
All the best,
Don