More bids may emerge for Madoff trading arm: lawyer (Reuters)

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Reuters - More potential bidders have expressed interest in buying jailed swindler Bernard Madoff's securities trading business, after another would-be buyer offered $15 million for the unit, a lawyer for a court-appointed trustee said on Tuesday.

The lawyer, Marc Hirschfield, told a bankruptcy court judge in Manhattan that "a number of new people have come forward" following news late last month that Boston financial firm Castor Pollux wanted to buy the trading unit for $15 million.

Revenue from the potential sale would be used by the trustee, which is liquidating Madoff's brokerage, to reimburse the swindler's defrauded clients.

After Hirschfield spoke, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland approved an auction process for the trading unit at the trustee's request, with new bids due by April 22 and a potential auction set for April 27.

The $15 million deal on the table is just a fraction of the $700 million at which Madoff had valued the business just a few months ago.

Madoff, a former Nasdaq chairman, has pleaded guilty to masterminding Wall Street's biggest-ever investment fraud, involving as much as $65 billion that his clients thought they had in their accounts. Authorities say little is remaining in those portfolios.

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