[ad_1]
DEY Asset Administration is suspending its flagship hedge fund as traders pull cash out of the agency within the wake of the assault allegations in opposition to founder Crispin Odey.
Odey, as soon as a giant wheel within the Metropolis and maybe the best-known fund supervisor, is dealing with claims that he sexually assaulted 13 ladies over 25 years of misconduct.
The Monetary Conduct Authority is investigating the claims, which Odey, a distinguished donor to the Conservative Celebration, denies.
Immediately Bloomberg reported that the Odey European Inc hedge fund and in addition the OEI Mac have acquired hefty calls for from traders seeking to get their cash out.
The agency, which is breaking itself up and will definitely be renamed if not disbanded, mentioned in a word to purchasers: “Given the extent of requested redemptions, investor focus and liquidity profile of the fund, the fund board has decided that it will not be in the perfect pursuits of the fund and its shareholders as an entire to proceed to allow points and redemptions of shares.”
Odey European is Crispin Odey’s best-known automobile. At instances its efficiency has been stellar, at others returning far beneath the inventory market.
Final yr it made a return of greater than 150% as Odey wager in opposition to UK authorities bonds which he thought can be eroded by inflation.
He efficiently wager in opposition to the excessive road banks within the run as much as the 2008 monetary crash.
Odey himself has been paid many million over time for working the cash, together with at the very least £5 million in 2022. Again in 2019, the Sunday Occasions Wealthy Checklist mentioned the non-public wealth of him after which spouse Nichola Pease was £775 million.
The pair cut up in 2021 after 30 years or marriage simply after Odey was cleared of groping a junior banker. She mentioned then that, “public humiliation shouldn’t be one thing any lady ought to take”.
The choose instructed Odey that he left that courtroom with “your good character intact”.
Whereas no prison proceedings have but been introduced following the recent allegations, it’s arduous to see how his profession can proceed.
High banks together with Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley have reduce ties along with his agency.
Odey Asset Administration, which didn’t reply to a request for remark, has halted buying and selling in a number of different funds, together with LF Odey Portfolio and Brook Absolute Return.
Odey nonetheless has property of greater than $4 billion. It’s in talks to maneuver at the very least a few of these funds to different teams, which it has not but named.
Some within the Metropolis assume Odey’s funding strategies had been outdated in any case.
Alan Miller of SCM Direct.com mentioned: “Had his purchasers chosen a low-cost index tracker of world shares, they might have acquired double the returns during the last 10 years, paid a fraction of the charges, had a a lot much less unstable trip and would now be capable of promote their funding comfy.”