Odey Asset Management has begun the process of hiving off its funds and employees in a move that would likely signal the firm’s end, a culmination of the fallout from fresh sexual assault allegations against its founder Crispin Odey.
(Bloomberg) — Odey Asset Management has begun the process of hiving off its funds and employees in a move that would likely signal the firm’s end, a culmination of the fallout from fresh sexual assault allegations against its founder Crispin Odey.
The investment firm is in advanced discussions to transfer its funds and many employees to other asset mangers, Odey Asset Management said in a letter to investors on Thursday seen by Bloomberg News. Many banks that Odey trades with have moved to cut ties this week as investors pulled money.
A spokesman for the investment firm declined to comment.
“We have been, and remain in constructive dialogue with our service providers and key counterparties,” Odey Asset Management said in the letter. “It has however become clear that some investment management activities of the partnership are affected by recent events.”
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The business is swiftly unraveling after the publication last Thursday of a Financial Times investigation into Odey’s treatment of women over a 25-year period that included multiple allegations of sexual harassment and assault. The accusations followed similar reports in the two years since he was acquitted of an assault charge in British courts. Two women came forward to Bloomberg News, another went to the Times of London newspaper. Later, more appeared in a Tortoise Media podcast.
The London-based investment firm, which until recently managed about $4.3 billion, said on Saturday that it had fully divorced itself from its founder in the wake of the allegations. That wasn’t enough to save its banking relationships, with Morgan Stanley moving to terminate its prime brokerage service and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. following soon after. A wave of investor redemption requests on Monday forced one of its funds to close and the gating of at least two others.
“It is going to be very difficult for Odey Asset Management to survive as an entity moving forward,” said Don Steinbrugge, head of Agecroft Partners, which helps hedge funds raise money. “In this ultra-competitive environment, it only takes a small change in perception for a successful fund to go from receiving positive flows to sustaining heavy redemptions.”
Born into a well-known family — Odey’s grandfather was a Tory MP and his mother came from an old-line mercantile family — the University of Oxford alumnus started his firm in 1991. In recent years, he’s been tabloid fodder for everything from his support of Brexit to his conspicuous lifestyle. He’s sparked outrage shorting the pound. He’s been mocked for his predictions of doom in the midst of the longest bull market in history.
On Wednesday, politicians sought answers from UK’s Financial Conduct Authority into its prolonged probe of the firm. The regulator has spent two years looking into Odey’s conduct but the full extent of its investigation is unclear.
Read more: UK Watchdog Pressured to Answer Questions About Odey Probe (2)
The majority of the firm’s assets are managed by portfolio managers other than Odey himself. Several funds were renamed to remove Odey’s name and housed under the trading name Brook Asset Management when Odey was fighting the previous assault charge.
In its letter to investors, the firm said its fund mangers support the moves and that any sale or rehousing would be subject to regulatory approval.
–With assistance from Michael J. Moore.
(Updates with background, Steinbrugge comment from second paragraph.)
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