Judging by what’s happening at MF Global (MF) today, it looks as if belonging to the ultra-exclusive Core Club may just be a contra-indicator. Footnoted regulars may remember that last month we footnoted about the sudden departure of CFO Amy Butte, whose parting gifts included continued Core Club access for the next 18 months.

On Jan. 4, when the company formerly known as Man Financial announced Butte’s sudden departure and her plans to “pursue other opportunities”, the stock was trading at around $29 a share. This morning, after the company announced that a rogue trader, who was fired immediately, was responsible for a $141.5 million in losses, the stock fell nearly 20% on the news.

Is a well-respected CFO, which by all accounts Butte was, leaving suddenly with little explanation, always a warning sign? How about excessive perks, like continued membership at a club that costs $55,000 a year to join? Not necessarily. But the two of them together seem to have created a pretty volatile cocktail. Even more interesting is if it turns out that Butte had an inkling of something unusual going on.

Dealbreaker has more here on the situation at MF, and as always, the comments are pretty interesting.

This entry was posted Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 1:23 pm written by Michelle Leder and is filed under Blog-reel, Perk city with the following tags: executive exits, high flyers, perks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.