I was forwarded some information about the Kingate Euro and Global Funds this week that a mucker had received from Citi Hedge Fund Services literally minutes before it was announced that Bernard Madoff had been nabbed.
These funds, run by FIM Advisers, were apparently invested in Madoff’s made-up fund. Having looked at the reported returns, it is astonishing that anyone would have been so gullible as to believe them. Not only were the monthly performances simply too consistent, but the commentary of what transactions had been carried out appeared to have been written by Harry Hindsight and along the lines of: “The market went down, but we anticipated this and had bought a put and sold a call.”
There’s more to worry about here than just the gullibility of those with more money than sense. According to the information sheets, the funds’ custodian was Bank of Bermuda, their auditors were PricewaterhouseCoopers and the administrator was Citi Hedge Fund Services. Lump this lot in with a regulator that would appear not to know its arse from its elbow and a sorry mess was almost guaranteed.
