Jefferies & Company

Jefferies & Company, Inc., the principal operating subsidiary of Jefferies Group, Inc. is an American global investment bank and institutional securities firm. It is the largest independent bank in the U.S. The firm provides clients with capital markets and financial advisory services, institutional brokerage, securities research, and asset management.

Jefferies & Company offers mergers and acquisitions (M&A), restructuring, and other financial advisory services. Jefferies has coverage groups spanning across all industries including Aerospace & Defense, Business Services, CleanTech, Consumer & Retail, Energy, Financial Institutions Group, Financial Sponsors, Gaming & Leisure, Healthcare, Industrials, Maritime, Media, Public Finance, Real Estate & Lodging, Technology, and Telecommunications. The firm also provides investors fundamental research and trade execution in equity, equity-linked, and fixed income securities, including corporate bonds, United States government and agency securities, repo finance, mortgage- and asset-backed securities, municipal bonds, whole loans, and emerging market debt, as well as commodities and derivatives. In addition, Jefferies provides asset management services and products to institutions and other investors.

Headquartered in New York City, Jefferies has over 30 offices worldwide including Boston, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Silicon Valley area as well as in leading financial centers around the world that include London, Frankfurt, Zürich, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Mumbai. Shareholders are employees and board members (24%), Leucadia National (29%), and MassMutual.

Jefferies & Company was named one of the World’s Most Admired Companies by Fortune magazine in 2011, Best Place to Work in the Financial Industry by Here Is The City News in 2012. 2011 and 2010, and one of the best companies to work for in the UK by The Sunday Times

In November 2011, immediately after the failure of MF Global, Jefferies was accused by Egan-Jones of having 77% of its shareholder's equity tied up in the same illiquid sovereign debt securities that toppled the firm run by ex-Governor/Senator Jon Corzine. This was accompanied by a concurrent large scale short seller attack and a campaign of what turned out to be mis-information. Handler and the management team responded with unprecedented immediacy and transparency, collapsed 75% of the position to prove the bonds were hedged and highly liquid, sharply reduced the rest of Jefferies balance sheet and publicly addressed every false accusation. This aggressive and unconventional respsonse resulted in an evenutual 100% increase in Jefferies share price from the November lows. Leucadia, a 29% shareholder called this event Jefferies "finest hour."

On April 24, 2012, Sean Egan, the founder of Egan-Jones was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission for numerous offenses including: making false and misleading statements in his application to become a Nationally Recognized Rating Agency, violations of conflicts-of-interest and record keeping, and falsely stating that he was unaware if his paid clients were long or short specific securities Egan-Jones was rating.

On April 26, 2012 Jefferies CEO Richard Handler and Chairman of the Executive Committee Brian Friedman formed the Jefferies Global Senior Advisory Board which includes James D Robinson III, Lord Hollick, Michael Goldstein, Bernard Bourigeaud, Dennis Archer, Gilles Pélisson and Sir David Reid.

On August 1, 2012 Knight Capital took a pre-tax loss of $440m due to a trading glitch. On Sunday Aug. 5 the company raised capital of $400 million from investors led by Jefferies. Jefferies CEO Richard Handler and Executive Committee Chairman Brian Friedman structured and led the rescue and Jefferies purchased $125 million of the $400 million investment to became Knight's largest shareholder.

On November 12, 2012 Jefferies announced its merger with Leucadia, their largest (28%) shareholder. Leucadia is often referred to as a Baby Berkshire because of its simalarities to Berkshire Hathaway. Jefferies was valued at $3.8 Billion and the newly combined company will have $9.4B of shareholder's equity, over $5 Billion of cash, and $4 Billion of NOL tax credits. Jefferies will remain independent and be the largest operating company within Leucadia. Richard Handler will become CEO of Leucadia while retaining his position as CEO of Jefferies. Brian Friedman will become President of Leucadia while retaining his duties at Jefferies. Ian Cumming will retire as CEO of Leucadia and remain a Board Member and Joe Steinberg will become Chairman of Leucadia. The deal is expected to close in March 2013.