New York (HedgeCo.Net) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2011 opened a probe into New York hedge fund Fletcher Asset Management as three Louisiana pension systems raised questions about its liquidity. The firm received investments of $100 million from the pension funds in 2008 after promising a minimum return of 12 percent a year.
“In 2008, trustees of the pension plans — the Firefighters’ Retirement System, the Municipal Employees Retirement System, and the New Orleans Firefighters’ Pension and Relief Fund — invested the money, between 4 percent and 9 percent of their assets, in the flagship fund of the New York-based Fletcher Asset Management.” Bloomberg reports.
The lawsuit claims that the deal didn’t deliver as promised, the firefighters say that Fletcher invested in illiquid investments, failed to reinvest the money in new assets, and that “substantially all” of the firefighters’ $100 million went to paying out earlier investors, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Internal Revenue Service has also filed a $1.4 million income-tax lien against Fletcher.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu also announced plans to revamp the New Orleans Firefighters’ Pension and Relief Fund. A package of bills aimed at helping New Orleans rein in its fast-rising pension costs for firefighters has passed the Legislature and awaits the governor’s signature, local paper the Times Picayune reports.
In other news a hedge fund manager in Baton Rouge, Walter Morales, was charged in 2012 by the SEC with defrauding investors by hiding $32 million in losses. His firm, Commonwealth Advisors and the hedge funds they managed bought the lowest and riskiest tranches of a collateralised debt obligation (CDO) called Collybus, the SEC said. Morales then hid millions of dollars in losses suffered during the financial crisis from investments tied to residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS).
Alex Akesson
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