New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo yesterday accused hedge-fund firm Ivy Asset Management of hiding “disturbing facts” about Ponzi king Bernard Madoff from clients on fears the truth would crimp their business’ revenue.
Cuomo in a civil lawsuit said Ivy, its former CEO Lawrence Simon and ex-Chief Investment Officer Howard Wohl, were aware for at least 10 years that Madoff’s operation was suspect, but rather than sound the alarm, Simon and Wohl deliberately “kept clients in the dark,” opting instead to pocket $40 million in advisory and due-diligence fees collected between 1998 and 2008.
Their silence, Cuomo claims, led hundreds of investors, including dozens of New York union pensions and welfare plans, to lose a combined $227 million.
Madoff was busted in late 2008 after confessing to having run a $65 billion Ponzi scheme that has wiped out scores of investors. The 72-year-old Queens native is currently serving a 150-year sentence in a North Carolina federal prison.
In response to the allegations, Ivy said it informed clients that it “had questions about Madoff that it could not answer” and recommended they reduce their exposure. Ivy also said the clients left exposed to Madoff “were primarily professional investment advisers who chose to maintain Madoff exposure for their own clients.”
The Jericho, LI-based firm is owned by BNY Mellon Asset Management, which bought the company in 2000 and is currently in the process of liquidating it.
According to the attorney general’s lawsuit, Simon and Wohl discussed their concerns about Madoff as far back as 1998, following a meeting with the fallen financier that left Wohl concerned about Madoff’s options-trading strategy.
In one e-mail to Simon, Wohl, according to Cuomo, recommended that Ivy “withdraw all of the funds they personally managed from Madoff.”
“It remains a matter of faith based on great performance — this doesn’t justify any investment, let alone 3 percent,” Wohl allegedly wrote in an e-mail to Simon.
However, Simon argued against an immediate response, saying that to do so could harm their revenue and trigger unwanted legal repercussions, the lawsuit claims.
“Are we prepared to take all the chips off the table, have assets decrease by over $300 million and our overall fees reduced by $1.6 million or more, and, one wonders if we ever ‘escape’ the legal issue of being the asset allocator and introducer, even if we terminate all Madoff related relationships?” Simon responded.