Erin Arvedlund | |
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Born | Wilmington, Delaware, U.S. [1] |
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Known for | Exposing Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme [2] |
Notable work | Too Good to Be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff [3] |
Erin E. Arvedlund is a financial journalist who has written for Barron's , The Wall Street Journal , The Moscow Times , The New York Times , TheStreet.com, and Portfolio.com. On Feb. 1, 2011, her "Your Money" column debuted in The Philadelphia Inquirer .
On May 7, 2001, Barron's published her article "Don't Ask, Don't Tell: Bernie Madoff Attracts Skeptics in 2001". [4] This was only the second investigative article, following closely on Michael Ocrant's May 1, 2001 article in industry publication MARHedge , to question Bernard Madoff's scheme, his demand for investor secrecy and his "enviably steady gains".
When the SEC finally investigated Madoff, after the December 2008 failure of his multi-billion dollar scheme, its Exhibit 104 belatedly mentions the Ocrant and Arvedlund articles:
"Madoff said that when the MarHedge and Barron's [ sic ] articles came out, he expected the SEC to come to him, and that he was surprised the SEC didn't follow up with him. He also mentioned that Erin Arvedlund ("That idiot woman from Barron's.") didn't know what she was talking about, and that it was obvious she was not familiar with the industry." [5]
Arvedlund's father was a money manager in Wilmington, Delaware, where she was raised. She graduated from Ursuline Academy in 1984 and Archmere Academy in 1988, both in Wilmington. She attended Tufts University before starting her career at Dow Jones News Service. [6] [7] She lives in Philadelphia.
Arvedlund's first book, Too Good to be True: The Rise and Fall of Bernie Madoff, was published in August, 2009. [8] This was followed, in June, 2010, by The Club No One Wanted to Join - Madoff Victims in Their Own Words, which she edited from the stories told by Madoff's victims. [9] Arvedlund also wrote a book on the Libor scandal, Open Secret: The Global Banking Conspiracy That Swindled Investors Out of Billions, published in September, 2014, covering how the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor), a primary benchmark for short-term interest rates around the world, had been manipulated by major banks across the world. [10]
A "fund of funds" (FOF) is an investment strategy of holding a portfolio of other investment funds rather than investing directly in stocks, bonds or other securities. This type of investing is often referred to as multi-manager investment. A fund of funds may be "fettered", meaning that it invests only in funds managed by the same investment company, or "unfettered", meaning that it can invest in external funds run by other managers.
Bernard Lawrence Madoff was an American financial criminal and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest known Ponzi scheme in history, worth an estimated $65 billion. He was at one time chairman of the Nasdaq stock exchange. Madoff's firm had two basic units: a stock brokerage and an asset management business; the Ponzi scheme was centered in the asset management business.
Harry M. Markopolos is an American former securities industry executive and a forensic accounting and financial fraud investigator.
Fairfield Greenwich Group is an investment firm founded in 1983 in New York City. The firm had among the largest exposures to the Bernard Madoff fraud.
Frank DiPascali Jr. was an American fraudster and financier who was a key lieutenant of Bernie Madoff for three decades. He referred to himself as the company's "director of options trading" and as "chief financial officer". For a number of years, he played a key part in the daily operation of the Madoff investment scandal, later recounting how he helped manipulate billions of dollars in account statements so clients would believe that they were creating wealth for them.
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.
Participants in the Madoff investment scandal included employees of Bernard Madoff's investment firm with specific knowledge of the Ponzi scheme, a three-person accounting firm that assembled his reports, and a network of feeder funds that invested their clients' money with Madoff while collecting significant fees. Madoff avoided most direct financial scrutiny by accepting investments only through these feeder funds, while obtaining false auditing statements for his firm. The liquidation trustee of Madoff's firm has implicated managers of the feeder funds for ignoring signs of Madoff's deception.
The recovery of funds from the Madoff investment scandal has been underway since the scandal broke in December 2008. That month, recovery trustee Irving Picard received funds from the Bank of New York account where Bernard Madoff held new investments into his Ponzi scheme. As it has been concluded that no legitimate investments were made on the investors' behalf for at least the last 12 years of operation, recovery has proceeded on a "money in/money out" basis. Investors are entitled to receive no more than the nominal cash amounts that they paid in and did not subsequently withdraw, without regard to inflation, interest, opportunity cost or the false statements that Madoff provided them. Those statements combined to a total balance of approximately $64 billion, while the admitted claims amount to $19.5 billion. As of March 2024, the trustee had recovered $14.7 billion toward these claims through legal action against Madoff associates, feeder funds and beneficiaries of the scheme, and had made fifteen distributions to investors. Action by the Department of Justice has recovered an additional $4 billion.
Irving H. Picard is a partner in the law firm BakerHostetler. He is known for his recovery of funds from the Madoff investment scandal from investors, Bernie Madoff and his family, and their spouses and estates. Throughout the ordeal, Picard's law firm was paid approximately $1 billion.
Stanley Chais was an American investment advisor, money manager, and philanthropist. He operated "feeder funds" which collected money for funds related to the Madoff investment scandal. The widow, family, and estate of Chais settled with Madoff trustee Irving Picard in 2016 for $277 million.
MARHedge was a semi-monthly financial newsletter and the most prominent publication focusing on the hedge fund industry for most of its history which circulated between 1994 and 2006. It was originally distributed under the name HEDGE and has also gone under the name Managed Account Reports LLC. The newsletter stopped distribution in November 2006 after Euromoney Institutional Investor’s acquired MARHedge.
Thema International Fund PLC, based in Dublin, Ireland, is a Dublin-listed, Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) III-certified, open-end fund incorporated in Ireland, which was launched in December 1996. It created only one sub-fund, the Thema Fund. The fund had a minimum investment requirement of $50,000.
Kingate Management is a Hamilton, Bermuda hedge fund. It was a feeder fund into the securities firm of Bernie Madoff, as part of the Madoff investment scandal.
Ascot Partners is a hedge fund that was a feeder fund to Bernie Madoff.
Access International Advisors and Marketers, a Securities and Exchange Commission-registered investment advisor and a hedge fund of funds, was a research analyst investment agency that specialized in managing hedged and structured investment portfolios that involve commercial physical and biological research. It was a feeder fund into the securities firm of Bernie Madoff, as part of the Madoff investment scandal.
Tremont Group Holdings, Inc., a Delaware corporation headquartered in Rye, New York, is a hedge fund group with a subsidiary that advised a feeder fund to Bernard Madoff's investment advisory firm in the Madoff investment scandal. This was the second-largest feeder fund to Madoff's firm due to the group having had a long professional relationship with him as Chairman of the NASD, the precursor to FINRA, and as the largest options market maker on the NASDAQ.The firm was one of the largest hedge fund consultants and advisors globally during the seminal 1990's period and pioneered a number of ground breaking products such as the CSFB Tremont Hedge Fund Index, specialized products and venues for hedge fund investment; structured products, insurance entities, new markets and jurisdictions including the first institutional fund of hedge funds in Korea and the foundation of The Bermuda Stock exchange. Prominent board members and shareholders included; Mario Gabelli of Gabelli Asset Management, Leon Cooperman of Omega Advisors and Arthur Samberg of Pequot Capital Management. Tremont was among the first investors and/or involved in the launch or restructuring of numerous legendary funds such as; S.A.C., Quantum and AQR.
Shana Diane Madoff, sometimes referred to as Shana Madoff Skoller Swanson, is an American former attorney who is now a yoga teacher.
Eric J. Swanson is an American lawyer who worked at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and dated and eventually married the niece of Bernard Madoff while the SEC was investigating Madoff's investment firm for what was eventually revealed to be a massive Ponzi scheme. Swanson is currently the Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of BATS Global Markets, the third-largest stock exchange in the United States.
Sterling Equities is a diversified, family-run group of companies based in Great Neck, New York whose portfolio consists primarily of holdings in real estate, sports, and media in the New York area. These include the New York Mets, the Brooklyn Cyclones, SportsNet New York, the New York Excelsior, Sterling Project Development, and a number of real estate investment portfolios and real estate services businesses. The firm became embroiled in the Bernie Madoff Scandal exposing a relationship between Sterling Equities partners and Bernie Madoff spanning 20 years. The partners eventually settled a billion dollar suit with the Madoff Trustee, Irving Picard, for $161 million.