West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) – In a bizarre hedge fund story sent to me by a reader, an ex JP Morgan Director and ex trader for hedge funds Tudor and Brevan Howard has been traced by his ex wife’s investigators to Singapore where he allegedly has done work for JP Morgan.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Simon Sywak, who now lives in a Sydney suburb, was caught on video working in Singapore for the investment bank. Sywak had gotten out of paying maintenance for his children in Britain by saying he was a trainee bus driver and so poor he was forced to live with his mother-in-law.

Sywak’s ex wife, Helen Sywak, has started bankruptcy proceedings in Australia for $250,000 of court costs he failed to pay.

"If he doesn’t pay this amount in the next few weeks, it will bankrupt him and he will have to drop his case suing Westpac Bank for $1.3 million and upwards." Helen said in a letter to the Editor.

Sywak is suing derivatives trader Westpac in Sydney in the Federal Court, arguing that it still owes him a $1.3 million sign-on bonus that it had promised him, however he never started work with the bank because he failed its probity checks, according to the Herald.

His side of the story has yet to surface.

Tags: accredited-investors, bankruptcy proceedings, brevan-howard, bus driver, derivatives, hedge fund, hedge funds, hedgeco, investment-bank, jp-morgan, morning-herald, mother in law, palm-beach, probity, sydney suburb, sydney-morning-herald, west palm beach, westpac bank, wife helen, working in singapore

Sydney Morning Herald – The Westpac-controlled BT Investment Management delivered grim season’s greetings to retail investors when it froze withdrawals from a $1.2 billion fund days before Christmas.

The funds manager suspended all redemptions from its Global Return Fund, which has invested in international hedge funds since 2001 and into which investors have each poured a minimum $50,000.

"BT Investment Management has decided to suspend redemptions from the fund … as we believe, because of unstable market conditions, assets cannot be realised at prices that would be obtained in a stable market," Dirk Morris, the chief executive of BT Investment Management, wrote to investors. "At this point, we are unable to ascertain when the suspension will be lifted."

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Tags: assets, chief-executive, christmas, days before christmas, dirk, greetings, hellip, investment-management, morning-herald, redemptions, retail investors, stable market, sydney-morning-herald, unstable market, westpac, withdrawals

The Australian – Hedge funds who invested in Channel Nine’s owner PBL Media are unhappy about a rescue package to refinance the group’s $4.3 billion in debt, The Asian Wall Street Journal has reported.

Private equity group CVC Asia Pacific, the owner of 75 per cent of PBL Media, is "scrambling" to prevent PBL Media from defaulting on its $4.3 billion in debt, the paper said. If the group did default, PBL Media (the owner of Channel Nine and Australia’s largest magazine group ACP) could be placed in the hands of its bankers.

The Australian last week revealed CVC was trying to negotiate a rescue package, which included raising an extra $325 million from its banks, of which about $250 million would go towards repaying PBL’s debt.

PBL Media’s debt is held by nearly 40 creditors, including global banks and hedge funds.

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Tags: alan-greenspan, asia, journalism, last-november, private-banking, sizeable-investments, sydney-morning-herald