Bearer bonds in the basement soaked by Sandy?

[pmbug]

I missed this story a few months ago:

It’s the biggest mystery on Wall Street.

Hurricane Sandy floodwaters inundated a 10,000-square-foot underground vault downtown, soaking 1.3 million bond and stock certificates — including bearer bonds that function like cash — and putting them in danger of turning to mush.

A contractor working for the vault owner, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., is feverishly working to restore the paper.

But the value of the threatened notes under 55 Water St. remains unknown to all but the innermost circle of Wall Street bankers.

One source said $70 billion in bearer bonds were in jeopardy.

DTCC — a depository controlled by the biggest financial firms on Wall Street — won’t say exactly what was in its vaults, how much the notes are worth, and who owns what.

Most of its member firms, including Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, UBS and Citi did not return calls.
...

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/sunken_treasure_R1WidDOAwSBvWbYgSIoflJ

 

[Jay]

I remember the story. "fishy". Kinda like WTC 7 that didn't exist, with all the SEC records, etc. Ask ten people on the street how many towers fell Sep 11, and they will all tell you 2. We are toast. I got called on the carpet at work for making stuff up. Everybody knows there were only two towers.