Odey Asset Management is winding down a second fund as sexual assault allegations against founder Crispin Odey continue to rock the investment firm.
(Bloomberg) — Odey Asset Management is winding down a second fund as sexual assault allegations against founder Crispin Odey continue to rock the investment firm.
The LF Odey Portfolio Fund, which was suspended earlier this month because of mounting redemptions, will now be shuttered, the fund’s administrator said in a letter on its website.
“Due to the level of expected redemptions the investment manager is aware of should the sub-fund reopen, and there being no reasonable expectation of foreseeable growth for the sub-fund, it is now in the best interests of all shareholders for the sub-fund to be terminated,” Link Fund Solutions Ltd. informed its clients. Cash will be returned to investors “at the earliest opportunity.”
An Odey spokesman declined to comment on the fund, which managed £96 million ($121 million) at the end of May. The firm said June 13 it would shut down the Odey Swan Fund, while several other funds have halted redemptions. Odey was removed this month from the firm he founded in 1991.
London-based Odey Asset Management is battling to contain an exodus since the June 8 Financial Times investigation into Crispin Odey’s alleged treatment of women over a 25-year period — allegations that he denies. Assets in its funds have plunged by as much as 63% since then, forcing the firm to look to rehouse its money pools and employees.
The decision to shut the Portfolio Fund was taken after the firm concluded there were no suitable funds with compatible objectives either managed by the same investment manager or another to facilitate a merger, Link Fund Solutions said in the letter.
(Updates with information on outflows from fifth paragraph.)
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