Como recuperar el dinero de Mad-Off y la lista con todos:

The more we learn about the Bernie Madoff affair, the more clear it becomes that many extremely well-compensated advisers and firms who steered money to Madoff failed their clients by not examining his returns and strategy more carefully. Specifically, firms such as Tremont, Fairfield Greenwich, Banco Santander and others that exist solely to evaluate and select third-party fund managers like Madoff apparently took way too much on faith.

Madoff himself has presumably been wiped out, so investors looking to recoup losses probably won't get much there. The funds-of-funds and other firms that sent client money to Madoff, however, are a different story. These firms are still in business, and, in most cases, Madoff was just one of many third-party managers they used. So there are likely plenty of assets remaining for lawyers and victims to go after.

The defense of firms and advisers who sent client money to Madoff will presumably be that they are as shocked as those who got swindled directly. But there's a big difference. Funds of funds and other professional asset allocators are paid enormous sums to evaluate managers like Madoff, and there were enough red flags here that they have a lot to answer for.

Remember: The Madoff bust did not come as a shock to many on Wall Street. What came as a shock was that he was running a Ponzi scheme (most people who suspected he was a crook--and there were many--thought he was front-running. Presumably advisors wouldn't want to invest their clients' money to someone who was front-running, either, so this was yet another reason to give Madoff a proctology exam).

Given the concerns raised about Madoff's returns over the years (see this Barrons' article, for example, and this note from an advisor who steered clients away from Madoff), firms like Tremont should have gone the extra mile to be certain they knew exactly what Madoff was doing and how he was generating his claimed returns. This will create fertile opportunities for clients to claw back capital.

See our embedded "fact sheet" and private placement memorandum for a Tremont fund that invested with Madoff here. Note that Tremont brags about its own management and lists its own (big name) auditors and attorneys, without ever once mentioning Madoff (it simply says it allocates all of its assets to "one manager who uses a 'split-strike' strategy" and then provides a cursory de******ion of this strategy). Needless to say, Tremont doesn't mention that Madoff itself was audited by a tiny auditor in Rockland Country, New York, that no one had ever heard of (did it even know this?).

If a fund-of-funds or other professional asset allocator isn't supposed to do the type of detailed research that caused other advisers to steer clients away from Madoff, what exactly is it supposed to do? That's the question we expect that more than a few client attorneys will be asking in the coming months.

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Bernie Madoff's Victims (So Far)

HSBC "has emerged as one the largest victims of Bernard Madoff’s alleged fraud with potential exposure of about $1bn to the investment manager’s collapsed venture...HSBC’s exposure stemmed from loans it provided to institutional clients, mainly hedge funds of funds, that wanted to invest with Mr Madoff. HSBC’s direct exposure is believed to be about $1bn in loans provided to clients who invested some $500m of their own funds in Mr Madoff’s venture. Under the typical terms of these deals, if the US authorities recover any funds from Mr Madoff, HSBC will be paid first, with its clients suffering the first tranche of losses." (FT

Man Group’s RMF division has about $350m invested in funds which outsourced their management to Madoff securities, although this is a tiny fraction of the division’s $25bn of assets. (FT)

Tremont Capital. Fund of funds. More than $1bn invested. (FT)

Pioneer Investments, an arm of Italy’s UniCredit, had “substantially all” of $835m invested with Madoff. (FT)

Maxam Capital Management LLC. Combined loss of $280 million. "I'm wiped out," said Sandra Manzke, Maxam's founder and chairman. The Darien, Conn., fund of hedge funds will have to close as a result of the losses, she said. (WSJ)

Fairfield Greenwich Group. Bloomberg: The biggest loser may be Walter Noel’s Fairfield Greenwich Group, whose $7.3 billion Fairfield Sentry Ltd. invested with Madoff’s eponymous firm, three people familiar with the matter said... Fairfield Sentry has a record of more than 15 years with an annual return of 4 to 6 percentage points above benchmark interest rates, according to a marketing document dated this month that was prepared by Zurich-based NPB New Private Bank Ltd. On an absolute basis, returns exceeded 10 percent every year from 1991 through 2000. Since then, they ranged from 6.4 percent to 9.8 percent...The strategy is a “split-strike conversion,” where the investment manager buys shares of large U.S. companies and enters into options contracts to limit the risk, the document says.

Fix Asset Management. Bloomberg: Fix Asset Management, which had an account worth at least $400 million with Madoff Investments. The firm said it’s checking with lawyers about the holdings. “We are very shocked,” John Fix, the son of founder Charles Fix, said by phone from Greece. “We put in redemptions in the past few months and got our money back no problem. We are just so surprised about all this.”

Kingate Management Ltd. Bloomberg says $2.8 billion Kingate Global Fund Ltd. invested with Madoff.

Santander. WSJ: The eurozone's largest bank by market value, said its clients had an exposure of €2.33 billion ($3.1 billion) to Madoff's investment funds, mainly through its Optimal Strategic US Equity fund. More than €2 billion belongs to institutional investors and international clients of its private-banking business, which provides services to wealthy individuals, it said. The remaining €320 million belongs to private-banking customers in Spain, where Santander is based.

Thyssen Family. Source sends the amowing: Thybo Investments grew out of a family office for Thyssen. They have been in fund of funds it seems since 1989. Thybo International is a "proper" fund of fund but it's newer share class G invests only in one manager - and i'm 99% sure it's Madoff as the returns are almost the same. Some more info. The fund started in Jan 2007. Ernst & Young. Luxembourg are the auditors. UBS Luxembourg is the administrator. Thybo states on their webpage: "Our track record incorporates audited financial statements at both a composite firm-wide and individual portfolios level."

Ira Roth's family. WSJ: Ira Roth, a New Jersey resident, who says his family has about $1 million invested through Mr. Madoff's firm, is "in a state of panic." He said his 86-year-old mother-in-law has been living on the investments' returns, and he has been using the funds to pay college tuition.

Sterling Equities. Fund controlled by Fred Wilpon, co-owner of the NY Mets, confirms it had money with Madoff.

Stephen Abbott, a San Francisco lawyer. WSJ: [Abbott] and two siblings had several hundred thousand dollars invested with Mr. Madoff. They inherited the trust from their father, who had befriended Mr. Madoff years ago. Performance remained steady through the current bear market, he said. "People were floored," he says. "We were making money in this lousy market." He says he is concerned about recovering the money but "you have to get philosophical about this stuff. It could be worse; we still have our health."

Palm Beach Country Club. Source: CNBC's David Faber

Lawrence Velvel, "69, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, said he and a friend may have lost millions of dollars between them (AP). "This is a major disaster for a lot of people," Velvel said in a telephone interview from his Andover, Mass., office. "You work all your life, you finally manage to save up something, and somebody who's entrusted with it, it turns out suddenly he's a crook. Lots of people are getting fully or partially wiped out." Velvel said he wants to know where government regulators, as well as accountants and others at Madoff's company, were when the money was being lost." (AP)

Loeb Family. Source: CNBC's David Faber

J. Ezra Merkin. GMAC LLC Chairman. WSJ: Mr. Merkin, the chairman of former General Motors Corp. financing arm GMAC, is also a money manager at Ascot Partners LLC in New York. Ascot, which had $1.8 billion under management as of Sept. 30, had substantially all of its assets invested with Mr. Madoff, according to a letter to Mr. Merkin sent to clients Thursday night. Mr. Merkin said as one of the largest investors in Ascot, he believed he had personally "suffered major losses from this catastrophe."

Norman Braman. Former Philadelphia Eagles owner

Leonard Feinstein, co-founder of retailer Bed Bath & Beyond. (WSJ)

Mort Zuckerman. Mr. Zuckerman, the chairman of real-estate firm Boston Properties and owner of the New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report, had significant exposure through a fund that invested substantially all of its assets with Mr. Madoff (WSJ)

Richard Spring. WSJ: A Boca Raton resident and former securities analyst, says he had about $11 million -- or 95% of his net worth -- invested with Mr. Madoff. "That's how much I believed in him," Mr. Spring said.

Elie Wiesel's Foundation For Humanity. Total assets of about $10 million.

Members of half-a-dozen country clubs: WSJ: "Mr. Madoff tapped social networks in Dallas, Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis. In Minnesota, he attracted investors from Hillcrest Golf Club of St. Paul and Oak Ridge Country Club in Hopkins, investors say. One of them estimated that investors from the two clubs may have invested more than $100 million combined. One of the largest clusters of Madoff investors was in Florida, where losses could be substantial. Mr. Madoff relied on a network of friends, family and business colleagues to attract investors. According to investors and agents, some of these agents were paid commissions for harvesting investors. Others had separate, lucrative business relationships with Mr. Madoff. "If you were eating lunch at the club or golfing, everyone was always talking about how Madoff was making them all this money," one investor says. "Everyone wanted to sign up." Jeff Fischer, a top divorce attorney in Palm Beach, says many of his clients were also Mr. Madoff's clients. "Every big divorce that came through my office had portfolio positions with Madoff," he says. Two of his investors said that among his clients, Mr. Madoff was considered a money-management legend; they would joke that if Mr. Madoff was a fraud, he'd take down half the world with him."

Bramdean Alternatives in the U.K. 9% of portfolio.

Banque Benedict Hentsch, Geneva-based private bank, $47.5 million.

Nomura and Neue Privat Bank. "Marketed access to Fairfield Sentry Ltd., a fund overseen by Mr. Madoff and sold through Fairfield Greenwich. The shares offered by Neue Privat and Nomura were leveraged three times -- meaning $3 of borrowed money was added to every $1 of capital invested in order to magnify returns, greatly increasing the potential losses for those investors." (WSJ)

Unicredit. The Italian firm had unspecified amount with Madoff via its Dublin-based Pioneer alt-asset group. (MarketWatch)

Sen. Frank Lautenberg. Unspecified (Newsday).

Robert Lappin Foundation in Massachusetts closed its doors today and is citing relationship to Maddoff fund. $8MM foundation plus personal holdings. Foundation supported Jewish organizations throughout North Shore of Massachusetts. (source: Jewish Journal)

Wunderkinder Foundation, a Steven Spielberg charity. In the past the foundation "appears to have invested a significant portion of its assets with Mr. Madoff, based on regulatory filings. In 2006, the Madoff firm accounted for roughly 70% of the foundation's interest and dividend income, according to regulatory filings. A representative of Mr. Spielberg confirmed that the foundation has suffered losses on its investments with the Madoff firm. He said he didn't know the size of the losses and couldn't comment further, including on whether Mr. Spielberg had any of his own money invested with the Madoff firm." WSJ

BNP Paribas. "BNP Paribas's exposure, the extent of which is not clear, may stem from BNP's lending relationship with a fund of funds that was a big Madoff client, said people familiar with the matter. A BNP spokeswoman declined to comment." WSJ: BNP, France's largest bank by market value, said it could lose as much as 350 million euros as a result of the alleged fraud. The bank said it has no investment of its own in the hedge funds managed by Bernard Madoff Investment Services. BNP Paribas, however, said it is exposed to these funds through its trading business and lending to hedge funds that had invested in Madoff's funds.

Ira Rennert. Vicky Ward of Vanity Fair, said on CNBC."Heavily, heavily invested."

Englebardt family of Los Angeles. (Reader)

Swiss private bank Reichmuth & Co. "said its clients had an exposure of some 385 million Swiss francs to Madoff funds. The bank said Reichmuth Matterhorn, a fund that invests in other hedge funds, faced a potential loss of about 8.6% on its exposure to Madoff. That amount represented about 3.5% of the 11 billion Swiss Francs Reichmuth & Co. has under management, the bank said." (WSJ)

Union Bancaire Privee. UBP spokesman said the bank's clients have "limited" losses related to Madoff, but wouldn't be more specific or comment further. (WSJ)

EIM Group, the European investment manager with about $11 billion in assets, had a number of non-U.S. investors into funds overseen by Mr. Madoff, according to people familiar with the matter. Overall, EIM assets at risk are less than 2% of what it manages, which means losses could top $200 million. (WSJ).

UBS: ""Very limited" direct exposure to the Madoff funds...But the Zurich-based bank's wealth-management arm helped clients in Europe and possibly elsewhere invest with Mr. Madoff, according to investment professionals in Europe who spoke with some of these clients. UBS is currently reviewing its clients' exposure to Mr. Madoff's funds, according to the person familiar with the matter. The person said the funds weren't on UBS's list of "recommended" investments for its U.S. clients, but that they may have been among the firm's suggested investments for overseas clients." (WSJ)

Stephen A. Fine, president of Biltrite Corp. (Reader)

Avram and Carol Goldberg, former owners of the Stop & Shop supermarket chain (Reader)

Helfman family of Miami. (Reader)

Saul Katz, co-owner of the New York Mets.

Irwin Kellner, of Port Washington. (Reader)

Carl and Ruth Shapiro, donors to Brandeis University, and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. The Boston Globe reported on Saturday that the Shapiro family foundation lost almost half its money, or about $145 million.

Fairfield County, Connecticut. Bloomberg: First Selectman Ken Flatto and other elected officials in Fairfield, Connecticut, thought the 58,000- person town’s pension fund was holding up well amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The 18 percent decline in total assets since the end of June looked smart compared with the 31 percent plunge in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, and total assets of $286 million left a cushion over the $270 million of estimated liabilities. Flatto’s mood darkened yesterday when he heard Bernard Madoff, a Wall Street executive who oversaw $42 million of the assets, had been arrested and charged with fraud. “We classified this on our portfolio as one of the more conservative investments,” Flatto said in an interview. “You rely on your experts and your managers to be honest.”

Various Boston families: The Boston Globe.

More as we get them...

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Richard Spring. WSJ: A Boca Raton resident and former securities analyst, says he had about $11 million -- or 95% of his net worth -- invested with Mr. Madoff. "That's how much I believed in him," Mr. Spring said.

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Robert Lappin Foundation in Massachusetts closed its doors today and is citing relationship to Maddoff fund. $8MM foundation plus personal holdings. Foundation supported Jewish organizations throughout North Shore of Massachusetts. (source: Jewish Journal)

Wunderkinder Foundation, a Steven Spielberg charity. In the past the foundation "appears to have invested a significant portion of its assets with Mr. Madoff, based on regulatory filings. In 2006, the Madoff firm accounted for roughly 70% of the foundation's interest and dividend income, according to regulatory filings. A representative of Mr. Spielberg confirmed that the foundation has suffered losses on its investments with the Madoff firm. He said he didn't know the size of the losses and couldn't comment further, including on whether Mr. Spielberg had any of his own money invested with the Madoff firm." WSJ

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La Comisión Nacional del Mercado de Valores cifra en 106,9 millones de euros la exposición directa de las Instituciones de Inversión Colectiva (IIC) en España al fraude de Bernard L. Madoff, informó hoy el organismo supervisor de los mercados.

Este importe representa un 0,05% del patrimonio global de las IIC, sostuvo la CNMV, que está llevando a cabo "una seguimiento específico de los posibles efectos del presunto fraude en la firma Madoff sobre las instituciones sujetas a su supervisión".

Concretamente, con la información disponible a 31 de octubre, de los 106,9 millones de euros de exposición directa a dicho fraude piramidal, 56,5 millones corresponden a fondos y 50,4 millones de euros a SICAV.

El número total de ICC afectadas es de 224, de las que 39 son fondos de inversión y 185 son SICAV. Entre los fondos de inversión figuran siete hedge fund.

El número de gestoras afectadas asciende a 30, más una SICAV autogestionada, mientras que la exposición media para los fondos que mantenían las posiciones es de un 4,73%, y de un 3,24% para las SICAV.

La CNMV informó de que está en contacto con las sociedades gestoras afectadas por el presunto fraude, tras identificar la inversión de instituciones españolas en seis IIC extranjeras, con 17 compartimentos afectados por haber delegado en Madoff la gestión de sus carteras, y un producto estructurado.

PUBLICAR HECHOS RELEVANTES.

El organismo que preside Julio Segura ha establecido que las sociedades gestoras cuyas IIC gestionadas mantengan inversiones en activos afectados por la estafa Madoff en un porcentaje superior al 1% deberán publicar un hecho relevante a tal efecto.

Además, desde el pasado 12 de diciembre incluido, la inversión en estos activos debe ser valorada considerando como nulo el valor de la parte afectada por el presunto fraude.

Por otro lado, la CNMV recuerda a las gestoras "la obligación de actuar siempre en beneficio de los partícipes o accionistas de las instituciones cuyos activos administren", por lo que deberán adoptar cuantas medidas resulten razonables al efecto.

Entre estas medidas, considera, se incluirán aquellas para asegurar que los importes que eventualmente pudieran recuperarse en un futuro sean destinados a minorar el perjuicio finalmente ocasionado a los partícipes o accionistas afectados.

Los valores liquidativos de los distintos fondos se pueden consultar con carácter diario, así como la última información pública periódica (referida al pasado mes de septiembre), a través de las páginas web habilitadas por las gestoras.

Asimismo, indica que la información pública periódica de todas las IIC registradas se encuentra también disponible a través de la página web de la CNMV.

Adicionalmente, adelanta que las sociedades gestoras de los fondos de inversión facilitarán información puntual de cada fondo afectado en el próximo informe periódico correspondiente al mes de diciembre, y aclararán las dudas que les planteen los partícipes afectados.

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Varias organizaciones judías norteamericanas e israelíes reconocieron que se ven muy afectadas por lo que es el caso de Bernard Madoff, el inversor judío norteamericano que anunció su quiebra la semana pasada.

Entre las instituciones afectadas están la Yeshiva University de New York, el Tejnion de Haifa y otras organizaciones de renombre que recibían donaciones de la compañía de Madoff o que invertían sus fondos en la firma de este.

Entre los afectados también estarían el famoso director de cine Steven Spielberg y el autor ganador del Nobel de Literatura Eli Wiesel.

Varias organizaciones deberán cerrar sus puertas según se anunció en lo que sería el golpe más duro para organizaciones judías norteamericanas en toda la historia.

Este caso también afectaría a instituciones judías y compañias privadas de Latinoamérica según se pudo saber.

Madoff, ex presidente de Nasdaq y tesorero de la Yeshiva University y su compañía Ascot Partners, sería responsable de la desaparición de al menos 110 millones de dólares de Yeshiva University y el monto total de lo que sería un gran fraude, sería de 50 billones de dólares.

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US$ 20 millones de reservas en E.U. perdió el Banco de la República

Dichas reservas internacionales del país estaban depositadas en el Bank of New York Mellon, reveló este miércoles un comunicado del Emisor, que a su vez investiga por qué se presentó esa situación.

Según el texto, desde 1992 el banco realiza un programa de "préstamos de títulos valores" para "incrementar la rentabilidad de las reservas internacionales", que permite que las entidades financieras que custodian los papeles los presten temporalmente.

"El Bank of New York Mellon es una de las entidades que custodia los títulos de las reservas. En su programa de 'préstamos de títulos' se ha presentado una pérdida de 20 millones de dólares", precisó escuetamente el comunicado.

El documento agregó que el emisor "se encuentra en conversaciones con este custodio y tomará las acciones necesarias una vez se hayan investigado
completamente las circunstancias que llevaron a la pérdida".

En octubre pasado, el banco central había anunciado la pérdida de otro título por 2,7 millones de dólares de las reservas del país, como consecuencia de la quiebra del banco estadounidense Lehman Brothers.

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