AdultVest, Inc. is an investment management company based in Beverly Hills, California. It was founded in 2005 by former hedge fund specialist Francis Koenig as an institutional investment company focusing exclusively on sex industry-related investments. [1] [2] Only accredited investors may invest in the fund; it caters to investors willing to invest more than one million dollars. [1] The firm is a former winner of the Hedge Fund Launch of the Year Award. [3]
In January 2009, The Atlantic reported Koenig stating that AdultVest had made a 50% return. [3] The Business Insider stated that they were "deeply skeptical" about Koenig's claim of a 50% return because when they asked him how the company had made the money, Koenig referred to "valuing assets like iPhone porn startups and unsold domain names". [4]
According to private equity source, FINAlternatives, and the SEC's exoneration letter referenced in the article, Koenig was misquoted. The actual 50% claim was, instead, a 50% increase in the per unit buy-in price based on the fund's progress. [5]
The SEC reviewed the company and concluded that all funds were correctly accounted for, and the fraud case was closed in April 2010, with Koenig being exonerated in an official letter. [6]
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that holds liquid assets and that makes use of complex trading and risk management techniques to improve investment performance and insulate returns from market risk. Among these portfolio techniques are short selling and the use of leverage and derivative instruments. In the United States, financial regulations require that hedge funds be marketed only to institutional investors and high-net-worth individuals.
Soros Fund Management, LLC is a privately held American investment management firm. It is currently structured as a family office, but formerly as a hedge fund. The firm was founded in 1970 by George Soros and, in 2010, was reported to be one of the most profitable firms in the hedge fund industry, averaging a 20% annual rate of return over four decades. It is headquartered at 250 West 55th Street in New York. As of 2023, Soros Fund Management, LLC had $25 billion in AUM.
Steven A. Cohen is an American hedge-fund manager and owner of the New York Mets of Major League Baseball since September 14, 2020, owning just over 97% of the team. He is the founder of hedge fund Point72 Asset Management and S.A.C. Capital Advisors, which closed after pleading guilty to insider trading and other financial crimes.
Man GLG is a discretionary investment manager and a wholly owned subsidiary of British alternative investment manager Man Group plc. It is a diversified and multi-strategy fund manager that operates strategies including equity long-short funds, convertible arbitrage funds, emerging market funds and long-only mutual funds. The firm is also a founding member of the Hedge Fund Standards Board and a signatory of the Principles for Responsible investment. As of 2022, Man GLG had $35.4 billion assets under management.
Sculptor Capital Management is an American global diversified alternative asset management firm. They are one of the largest institutional alternative asset managers in the world.
Mark Spitznagel is an American investor and hedge fund manager. He is the founder, owner, and chief investment officer of Universa Investments, a hedge fund management firm based in Miami, Florida.
Pequot Capital Management was a multibillion-dollar hedge fund sponsor that closed in 2010. The firm's investment funds invested in a range of markets through a variety of strategies. The firm invested in public equities as well as private equity, venture capital, distressed securities, and various other fixed income securities. The firm closed in 2010 following allegations of insider trading.
Harry M. Markopolos is an American former securities industry executive and a forensic accounting and financial fraud investigator.
Arthur Geoffrey Nadel was an American hedge fund manager, disbarred lawyer, piano player, and philanthropist. In 2009, Nadel was indicted on fifteen federal counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, and mail fraud. If found guilty, he could have been sentenced to 280 years in prison and would have been required to forfeit all assets connected to the fraud.
Rajakumaran Rajaratnam is a Sri Lankan-American former hedge fund manager and founder of the Galleon Group, a New York-based hedge fund management firm. He is also the author of his memoir, Uneven Justice: The Plot to Sink Galleon.
The Madoff investment scandal was a major case of stock and securities fraud discovered in late 2008. In December of that year, Bernie Madoff, the former Nasdaq chairman and founder of the Wall Street firm Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, admitted that the wealth management arm of his business was an elaborate multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme.
Elliott Investment Management L.P. is an American investment management firm. It is also one of the largest activist funds in the world.
Leon G. Cooperman is an American billionaire investor and hedge fund manager. He is the chairman and CEO of Omega Advisors, a New York-based investment advisory firm managing over $3.3 billion in assets under management, the majority consisting of his personal wealth.
Tsai Capital Corporation is a Manhattan-based investment management and advisory firm. The company was founded in 1997 by Christopher Tsai, a third generation investor whose financial roots date back to World War II. Tsai is also the son of the late American financier Gerald Tsai. The firm follows a value-oriented investment approach and primarily focuses on high-quality, growth companies.
The Raj Rajaratnam/Galleon Group, Anil Kumar, and Rajat Gupta inside trading cases are parallel and related civil and criminal actions by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the United States Department of Justice against three friends and business partners: Galleon Group hedge fund founder-owner Raj Rajaratnam and former McKinsey & Company senior executives Anil Kumar and Rajat Gupta. In these proceedings, the men were confronted with insider trading charges: Rajaratnam was convicted, Kumar pleaded guilty and testified as key witness in the criminal trials of Rajaratnam and Gupta, and Gupta was convicted in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan in June 2012.
SAC Capital Advisors was a group of hedge funds founded by Steven A. Cohen in 1992. The firm employed approximately 800 people in 2010 across its offices located in Stamford, Connecticut and New York City, and various offices. It reportedly lost many of its traders in the wake of various investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In 2010, the SEC opened an insider trading investigation of SAC and in 2013 several former employees were indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice. In November 2013, the firm itself pleaded guilty to insider trading charges and paid $1.2 billion in penalties. The firm shrank after returning the vast majority of its outside investor capital. Point72 Asset Management was established as a separate family office in 2014. SAC ceased to exist as a separate entity in 2016. Point 72, essentially the continuation of SAC, manages 30 Billion as of 2023.
Emmanuel Lemelson is an American-born Greek Orthodox priest, social commentator and hedge fund manager.
Charles J. Gradante is an Italian-American businessman in the hedge fund industry, appearing on television and before the United States Congress in that role. Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute's PensionDaily.com called Gradante "one of Wall Street's most sought after opinion leaders" for financial and economic areas. Gradante is known as one of the first hedge fund industry executives to spark a legendary debate about the risk of hedge funds growing too large rather than focusing on finding investments where they have a competitive edge; he most recently discussed the issue at a conference hosted by The Palm Beach Hedge Fund Association that was covered by Yahoo Finance and CorpGov.
Visium Asset Management LP was an American multi-strategy hedge fund and private equity firm. It began as a healthcare-focused fund, founded in 2005 by Jacob Gottlieb. In 2016, three of the company's traders were indicted by United States federal authorities for securities fraud. One of the accused employees killed himself days after he was indicted. Visium subsequently liquidated several of its funds and wound down operations.
Francis Koenig, a former Wall Street hedge fund executive who is now based in Los Angeles, believed that there were riches to be made by matching investors with 'adult entertainment' companies.