Perella Weinberg Partners LP London headquarters were searched this week as part of a German insider trading investigation.
(Bloomberg) — Perella Weinberg Partners LP London headquarters were searched this week as part of a German insider trading investigation.
The investment bank was searched by officials on Jan. 25. Frankfurt prosecutors are looking into allegations that a London-based employee at the bank disclosed information on planned takeovers and other suspects traded on that, according to people familiar with the matter. Perella Weinberg suspended the employee, they said.
Frankfurt prosecutors disclosed on Thursday that they have made one arrest as part of an investigation into five suspects since November 2021 over allegations they used insider information about takeovers that took place between 2017 and 2021. By selling company shares before the takeovers became public, the suspects earned a “two digit million” euro amount, according to a joint statement from the investigators and Germany’s financial regulator Bafin.
“The firm is assisting in an investigation by German law enforcement authorities,” a spokesperson for Perella Weinberg said Friday. “The firm is not the subject of the investigation, and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing on the part of the firm.”
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Service said it executed warrants on behalf of German authorities in Westminster and a residential address in west London. No arrests were made in London.
Frankfurt prosecutors said they arrested a 47-year-old suspect as part of the probe and that all five people investigated are Germans. Raids were also conducted in Frankfurt, Munich and the wider area of the Bavarian capital as well as in Austria.
(Updates with employee suspension in second paragraph.)
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