Hedge fund manager fraud through PIPEs

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to draw lessons to investors from the conduct of a hedge fund manager who according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) complaint made false and misleading statements before and after an auditor’s reports, misappropriated for personal benefit over $1m, misappropriated clients’ assets, failed to conduct due diligence on third-party buyer, instructed an employee to mislead investors and satisfied some investors’ redemptions with other investors’ subscriptions (Ponzi scheme) without disclosing it to investors. Ironically, the scheme was unveiled by the economic crises and not the investors, their advisers or third-party hedge fund vendors. Corey Ribotsky set up the investment adviser NIR Group to manage four AJW Funds that invested in private equity in public companies in 1999. Through manipulation of financial statements, he also managed to collect about $136m in management and incentive fees over an eight-year period. The SEC complaint alleged the AJW Funds’ assets to be $876m in 2007, yet this figure was not verified, and no assets were traced. Ribotsky did not pay any monies to SEC, as ordered by court settlement, and hence the victims did not recover any of their monies. The SEC could not produce criminal charges; hence, Ribotsky did not go to jail. This case highlights sterility of law enforcement when confronted with brazen fraud. Findings - Investors fail to monitor hedge fund managers. Fraud was detected late and not through investors. Fraud was unraveled by the economic crises of 2008. The SEC had sued the fund manager. The fund manager consented to making payment to the SEC but did not make any payments. The SEC could not bring evidence to criminally charge the fund manager. Research limitations/implications - The findings based on the case study are valuable to investors and hedge fund industry stakeholders. The findings are not based on an empirical study. Practical implications - Investors need to carefully vet all hedge fund managers before allocating and funds and understand how managers make money through the claimed strategy. Also, there are limitations to law enforcement even with confronted with profound fraud schemes. Originality/value - The case was built up from public sources to benefit investors considering making allocations to hedge fund managers. The public information about the case is of either legalistic or journalistic in nature.