Nature of Operations

3 Months Ended

Feb. 28, 2022

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

Nature of Operations

Nature of Operations

Jefferies Financial Group Inc. ("Jefferies," "we," "our" or the "Company") is engaged in investment banking and capital markets, and asset management. Our strategy focuses on continuing to build out our investment banking effort, enhancing our capital markets businesses and further developing our Leucadia Asset Management alternative asset management platform, while returning excess capital to shareholders. Jefferies Group LLC ("Jefferies Group"), our largest subsidiary, was established in 1962 and is the largest independent U.S.-headquartered global full-service integrated investment banking and securities firm.

Jefferies Group operates in two business segments: Investment Banking and Capital Markets, and Asset Management. Investment Banking and Capital Markets includes investment banking, capital markets and other related services. Investment banking provides underwriting and financial advisory services to clients across most industry sectors in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific. Capital markets businesses operate across the spectrum of equities and fixed income products.

Within Asset Management, we manage, invest in and provide services to a diverse group of alternative asset management platforms across a spectrum of investment strategies and asset classes. Asset Management offers institutional clients an innovative range of investment strategies through its affiliated managers.

We own a legacy portfolio of businesses and investments that we historically denominated as our "Merchant Banking" business and are reflected in our consolidated results as consolidated subsidiaries, equity investments, securities or in other ways. We are well along in the process of liquidating this portfolio, with the intention of selling to third parties, distributing to shareholders or transferring the balance of this portfolio to our Asset Management reportable segment over the next few years. Our Merchant Banking reportable segment primarily includes Linkem (fixed wireless broadband services in Italy); Vitesse Energy, LLC ("Vitesse Energy") (oil and gas production and development); real estate, primarily HomeFed LLC ("HomeFed"); Idaho Timber (manufacturing) and FXCM Group, LLC ("FXCM") (provider of online foreign exchange trading services).

On December 1, 2021, we made a $477 million contribution of net assets, including both Merchant Banking and Asset Management investments, to Jefferies Group. The transferred Merchant Banking investments are now being managed by a different management team, while the Asset Management investments continue to be managed by the co-Presidents of Asset Management who oversee all asset management activities across the Company. As a result, we transferred $194 million of net assets out of our Merchant Banking segment: $139 million of these net assets, including $48 million of net assets relating to Foursight Capital LLC ("Foursight"), were transferred into our Investment Banking and Capital Markets segment; the remaining $55 million of net assets transferred are now managed by the co-Presidents of Asset Management and are included in our Asset Management segment. Prior year amounts have been reclassified to conform to current segment reporting.