Westridge Fraud Keeps Getting Bigger ($667m)

[girl gone mad]

John Carney, http://www.businessinsider.com/westridge-fraud-keeps-getting-bigger-2009-3">Clusterstock


We're sorry there are so many frauds to keep track of but that's the way things are. The alleged scam at hedgefundsbasics.jpgWestridge Capital Management, run by Paul Greenwood and Stephen Walsh, involved a commodities trading pool that took in institutional investors such as university endowments and pension funds. The latest victims figures have 26 institutional investors with a total of $667 million.

The exact mechanics are a bit tricky here. The institutional investors had that money invested with a strategy marketed by Westridge Capital Management but actually run by WG Trading Co and passed through another company, WG Trading Investors LP. We're not sure exactly why they needed all those entities--most likely some tax avoidance thing--but they probably did prevent a bit of anti-transparency screens that would have kept investors in the dark about how their funds were being used.

Here's a (partial) list of victims from industry paper Pensions & Investments:

* CBS Corp., with pension assets of $3.2 billion;
* the $18 billion Iowa Public Employees' Retirement System; $2.5 billion Kern County Employees’ Retirement Association;
* $3.5 billion North Dakota State Investment Council;
* $5.5 billion Sacramento County Employees’ Retirement System;
* the $313 million Viacom Inc. plan;
* the $4.6 billion Wells Fargo & Co. plan;
* $1 billion endowment of Carnegie Mellon University;
* the $2.8 billion endowment of University of Pittsburgh.

[hobbit709]

1. The way to cure all these bastards

Is a long drop on a short rope. Then leave them dangling as an object lesson.

[Wilber_Stool]

2. $667 million

Chicken feed.