Money and Finance
- Links
Seth Alexander and Joel Cohen of MIT Investment Management Company talk to Sanjay Bakshi's class (LINK) Warren Buffett and the Great Salad Oil Swindle [H/T Linc] (LINK) Related book: Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder...
- A Con Man Who Lives Between Truth And Fiction - By Andrew Ross Sorkin
Found via Santangel’s Review. “I’m a proven liar. Don’t believe anything I say.” That was what Samuel Israel III told me last week. He is the hedge fund manager convicted of running a $450 million Ponzi scheme who faked his own suicide in the...
- Bofa Lawyer Says Settlement Challenger Is Baupost
(Reuters) - Walnut Place, a group of undisclosed investors who oppose Bank of America Corp's (BAC.N) $8.5 billion mortgage bond settlement, is the Baupost Group, a distressed debt fund, according to an attorney for the bank. "Walnut Place is actually...
- Fortune: How Bernie Did It
There were other mysteries, as we shall see. But even after it detonated five months ago in a fireworks display of betrayal and recrimination, Madoff's scheme -- possibly the biggest investment fraud in the nation's history -- has remained among...
- Influence In The Madoff Case
Before getting to the two articles below, consider this quote from Warren Buffett: “An argument is made that there are just too many question marks about the near future; wouldn’t it be better to wait until things clear up a bit? You know the prose:...
Money and Finance
The Great Baupost Madoff Claim Trade That Made A Big Madoff Feeder Fund A Loser Again
Thanks to Matt for passing this along.
In the summer of 2010, James Mooney, a partner at Baupost Group, the massive $24 billion Boston hedge fund run by investment legend Seth Klarman, sensed there was money to be made acquiring customer claims of Bernard Madoff’s bogus investment firm. Mooney believed the Madoff claims represented a classic distressed debt situation, where “sophisticated participants in the market” who were “aided by their advisors, such as legal counsel,” could better understand the complex dynamics at play, according to a court-filed declaration Mooney made last year.
In particular, Mooney thought it was possible that Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee of Madoff’s investment firm, could reach a favorable settlement with Barbara Picower, whose late husband, Jeffry, had extracted $7.2 billion from Madoff’s Ponzi scheme before it collapsed. Mooney also felt it was very possible that the trustee’s net equity process of reimbursing Madoff’s Ponzi scheme victims would survive court challenges. All Baupost needed was to find someone willing to trade their Madoff claim at the right price.
Baupost found that trading partner in the British Virgin Islands and now the hedge fund is currently sitting on a fat estimated return of 116%–although it still needs to finish getting through a long legal fight over the trade.
- Links
Seth Alexander and Joel Cohen of MIT Investment Management Company talk to Sanjay Bakshi's class (LINK) Warren Buffett and the Great Salad Oil Swindle [H/T Linc] (LINK) Related book: Dear Chairman: Boardroom Battles and the Rise of Shareholder...
- A Con Man Who Lives Between Truth And Fiction - By Andrew Ross Sorkin
Found via Santangel’s Review. “I’m a proven liar. Don’t believe anything I say.” That was what Samuel Israel III told me last week. He is the hedge fund manager convicted of running a $450 million Ponzi scheme who faked his own suicide in the...
- Bofa Lawyer Says Settlement Challenger Is Baupost
(Reuters) - Walnut Place, a group of undisclosed investors who oppose Bank of America Corp's (BAC.N) $8.5 billion mortgage bond settlement, is the Baupost Group, a distressed debt fund, according to an attorney for the bank. "Walnut Place is actually...
- Fortune: How Bernie Did It
There were other mysteries, as we shall see. But even after it detonated five months ago in a fireworks display of betrayal and recrimination, Madoff's scheme -- possibly the biggest investment fraud in the nation's history -- has remained among...
- Influence In The Madoff Case
Before getting to the two articles below, consider this quote from Warren Buffett: “An argument is made that there are just too many question marks about the near future; wouldn’t it be better to wait until things clear up a bit? You know the prose:...