PFG Best

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

PFG Best was the public-facing name of Peregrine Financial Group, Inc., a futures commission merchant and commodities brokerage associated with founder Russell R. Wasendorf Sr. The firm’s documented PFG history reaches to 1992, although its predecessor operation, Wasendorf & Associates, began earlier. PFG Best offered futures, options and foreign-exchange trading—serious market machinery with a very early-internet-friendly “Best” bolted onto the badge.

Chicago was the company’s earlier headquarters, with offices at 311 South Monroe Street. In 2007, Peregrine announced plans to move its downtown Chicago headquarters and jobs to Cedar Falls, Iowa. By 2009, the company had established its principal identity in a distinctive new Cedar Falls headquarters at One Peregrine Way, a conspicuously polished home for a brokerage serving customers around the world.

The glossy run ended abruptly in July 2012. On July 9, the National Futures Association restricted PFG’s operations and froze its assets; on July 10, Peregrine filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy as the Commodity Futures Trading Commission brought an enforcement action alleging misappropriation of customer funds and false statements. The collapse ended PFG Best’s run and left a very large crater in the futures-brokerage landscape.

Our PFG Best collection celebrates the ambitious, buttoned-up visual language of commodity trading: the crisp initials, the peregrine motif, the Midwest-meets-LaSalle-Street confidence—and the reminder that even the sleekest corporate plumage can molt spectacularly.