The Times demonstrates it can still do great reporting when it wants to. The most definitive coverage of the Bernie and Walt show, so far.
Here’s just a small part of that article, involving Greenwich’s own, Walter Noel and Fairfield Greenwich Group:
Walter M. Noel was the courtly public face of the Fairfield Greenwich Group, the investment firm he started in 1983. A native of Tennessee, Mr. Noel had spent time at larger firms, notably at Chemical Bank, where he started its international private banking practice, before setting out on his own.
From the beginning, the Noel family was built on access to prestigious social circles. Mr. Noel’s wife, Monica, was part of the prominent Haegler family of Rio de Janeiro and Zurich, and their daughters would marry into international families that provided additional connections for the firm.
In 1989, Mr. Noel merged his business with a small brokerage firm whose general partner was Jeffrey Tucker, a longtime New Yorker who had a law degree from Brooklyn Law School and a résumé that included eight years with the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Again and again, this pedigreed experience was emphasized by Fairfield as it built itself into a fund of funds, investing in other hedge funds. It boasted to its prospects that its investigation of investment options was “deeper and broader” than those of most firms because of Mr. Tucker’s experience in the regulatory ranks.
Though he is not nearly as prominent as the Noels, who move in the forefront of Connecticut society, Mr. Tucker benefited just as much from Fairfield’s success. Indeed, last year he led a coalition of thoroughbred racing interests that sought to bid for New York State’s horse-racing franchise.
But it was Mr. Tucker who introduced Fairfield to Mr. Madoff. In the early 1990s, Fairfield began placing money with him, according to George L. Ball, the former president of E. F. Hutton and Prudential-Bache chief executive who knows Mr. Noel socially.
That began a long partnership that helped the Fairfield firm earn enviably steady returns, even in down markets — and that lifted Mr. Madoff into a global orbit, one that soon extended his reach into some of the most fabled banking centers of Europe.
If the wealthy Jewish world he occupied was his launch pad, the wealthy promoters he cultivated at Fairfield Greenwich were his booster rocket.
The Fairfield Sentry fund was one of several so-called feeder funds that became portals through which money from wealthy foreign investors would could capitalize on Mr. Madoff’s investment prowess — collecting those exclusive, steady returns that had made him the toast of Palm Beach and the North Shore so many years ago.
The Sentry fund quickly became Fairfield’s signature product, and it boasted of stellar returns. In marketing materials, Fairfield trumpeted Sentry’s 11 percent annual return over the last 15 years, with only 13 losing months. It was a track record that grew increasingly attractive as markets grew more volatile in recent years.
