Each business day HedgeCo.Net keeps you informed with the top hedge fund industry news, opinion and insight from around the globe. From the latest hedge fund launches, to the impact of regulation, competition, and investor activism - we track the topics and people that make a difference to you.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – The Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday recieved permission to freeze the assets of Mohit A. Khanna, who alledgedly raised as much as $70 million from 300 investors though his fund, MAK 1 Enterprises Group, LLC.
The SEC says he solicited investors in Southern California and several other states, as well as a charitable foundation, through word-of-mouth referrals and a website. The defendant claimed to pool investor funds to invest in commercial paper, foreign currency trading products, and other investments, which the SEC believes to be non-existent. Instead, Khanna misused investor funds to pay for several luxury cars and residential properties, including those now owned by his wife, Sharanjit Khanna of San Diego, Calif., who was also named as a relief defendant.
The complaint alleges Khanna fabricated and gave to an accountant a “screen shot” of MAK 1′s online banking activity purporting to show a balance of over $50 million in its bank account, in reality, the average daily balance in that account never exceeded $197,000.
The SEC seeks preliminary and permanent injunctions, disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and financial penalties against Khanna and MAK 1. Court will hold a hearing on August 31, 2009.
The SEC had help from the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, National Futures Association, and the Better Business Bureau – San Diego.
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
Times Online – John Ho, the head of The Children’s Investment Fund’s (TCI) operations in Asia, is poised to resign over what sources describe as a “clash of minds” with Chris Hohn, its notoriously abrasive founder.
The same sources said that the two had fallen out over investment strategy and changes in the way the £6.5 billion fund is run. The hedge fund invests on behalf of a charitable foundation run by Mr Hohn’s wife.
The alleged disagreement follows a year of terrible investment losses during which Mr Hohn’s master fund is understood to have shed more than 40 per cent of its value. The fund has also lost several key figures in quick succession and its appetite for shareholder activism appears to be dwindling with the recent sale of most of its stake in Deutsche Börse.
Dallas Morning News – An Amarillo charitable foundation is suing Dallas-based Highland Capital Management LP to recover more than $1.8 million from a Highland hedge fund that was shut down in October after heavy losses.
The Mary E. Bivins Foundation, which focuses on helping the elderly, had asked to withdraw its investment from a fund called Highland Credit Strategies in March.
Highland agreed to return more than $1.9 million as of July 1 but said it would pay the money back over nine months, the foundation said in a lawsuit filed last month in Amarillo. It has given back only $80,000 so far, the lawsuit said.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - In a letter scheduled to be released today, January 26th, Bill Gates is offering insight to the world both about the current financial crisis as well as what his foundation has been able to do despite it.
Matthew Bishop, New York Bureau Chief and American Business Editor for The Economist conducted the interview, where Gates said his foundation’s assets may be shrinking, but it is increasing its giving in 2009, from $3.3 billion last year to $3.8 billion—the biggest ever annual budget for a charitable foundation.
Much of this will go towards finding ways to reduce deaths from the 20 diseases that kill the most people in poor countries, according to the Economist. Gates has high hopes that the number of children who die each year can be cut by half, to 5m, within 20 years, just as it was cut by half in the past half-century. Polio will soon be eradicated, he believes, and deaths from malaria can fall by half by 2015.
In a year of economic distress and record losses, optimism and generosity are still central to Gates, he says in the interview. With projected increases in giving in 2009, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will continue to focus on healthcare issues around the world as well as education reforms.
Similarly, he says he is optimistic that Barack Obama’s administration will make progress on school reform, pointing to the extra spending on schools contained in Obama’s economic stimulus package and the fact that the new education secretary, Arne Duncan, welcomed Gates-funded charter schools in Chicago.
HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds!
