It’s a given, I believe, that Walter Noel and his Fairfield Greenwich Group will soon be history – no one who saw how he handled $7.5 billion of other people’s money will trust him to keep hold of the remaining $7.5 billion, surely. Especially as news gets out about the skill sets possessed by his sons in law handling that money; being playboys and children of wealthy Colombian “exporters” does not necessarily translate into financial acumen.
But every silver lining has a cloud, and one such cloud is this prediction that the legitimate hedge funds that FGG placed other money in are going to get hit hard when FGGinvestors pull the rip cord. Yes, it’s an article by Henry Blogett, but he does provide a list of funds that hold FGG money and that might be useful. Your call – the link is here for you to click on, or not.
Link is wrong.
Fixed now. Thanks!
All rational investors will flee FGG, but I am not sure Walter Noel will close it down. He and his family still have many hundreds of millions and they can pretend to be in business with their own money. Noel and the son-in-laws will want to avoid the stigma of being quitters. Having earned substantially all their money by being the sales force of the largest Ponzi Scheme in history does not seem to embarrass them very much, so why not hang in there? It can be marketed as a learner, meaner, family focused FFG.
yeah, wasn’t that Madoff’s pitch? “The family’s name is on the door”. That worked for decades, and Walt’s already 78, so how long will he have to continue the sham before heading for Rio?
Maybe Noel will walk the retirement plank, but the son-in-laws can carry on. If Noel can still walk through the doors of the Round Hill Club, why should they shut the doors to the office? It is not as if the Noels have any shame or self-respect like the French guy who resigned from his Yacht Club before he suicided out.
Those sons-in-law are in trouble. They took Colombian and Brazilian money – money that its owners really, really didn’t want to lose.
I would say it is more likely that the Noel sons-in-law – and their families – will be under witness protection than they will be running a fund-of-funds again.
There have been plenty of articles written on how the FGG partners only had, maybe, $60 mil with Madoff. And that was deferred-2008-fees-owed, before the blow up. The vast majority of the hundreds of millions in fees they got from their Madoff relationship were not invested with Bernie. You think Mr. Colombian Who Lost $25 mil will think FGG was playing straight with him, putting the Colombian money with Madoff and none of FGG’s?
The sons-in-laws are fools, their backgrounds more that of pale, soft-palmed sons of the rich rather than of hard-working professionals who did their jobs well. They were either complicit (and turned a blind eye), lazy (in their due diligence), or plain incompetent.
And Monica? Putting your family in a puff piece in Vanity (how apt!) Fair, titled “Golden in Greenwich”, with pictures of your family and how we should all aspire to be like them? Putting your house in Mustique and family in Town & Country, with pictures and again – how perfect your life? You put yourself out there – you better make sure your glass house has nothing untoward happening inside.
CEA, very well said. FGG is finished, case closed. If you want a good laugh read Harry Markopolos’ 2005 letter to the SEC “The worlds largest hedge fund is a fraud,” then have a look at FGG’s website and see what due diligence they allegedly carried out. It is pathetic, and they are the epitome of pond scum. I despise the Noels and I hope they lose everything right down to the last penny, pound, peso and euro.