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f*na"WHn^>EmI`*f@eKh rH}={q3P3B"27Uh*_.~IJ@2H_,@S.)(|s vwA\r[9S8R`'ow\5&Lx`LUC^-rHAeh0x*od{dt" {+PsCBjT0b1F|=]dK2D"`7e >a\!M/69TS.lKk`4.Gz6NEfI:LX.wS06;.>k"j7v1r.>0t`1VJ>?=[yE The complaint further alleges that Tournant, Taylor, and Bond-Nelson then made multiple, ultimately unsuccessful, efforts to conceal their misconduct from the SEC, including false testimony and meetings in vacant construction sites to discuss sending their assets overseas. The industry leader for online information for tax, accounting and finance professionals. <>stream Tournant, the chief investment officer at Miami-based Structured Alpha, spent years "smoothing" performance data, lying about hedges against market downturns, and pretending risk managers at. In the complaint, the SEC describes Tournant as a resident of Miami, Florida except he also is a resident of Basalt, per reports in the Washington Post and The (Colorado Springs) Gazette. There was an error processing your request. The star portfolio manager behind Allianz Structured Alpha funds faces decades in prison after he traded off Allianz good reputation to defraud investors of billions, US prosecutors have said. Aug. 7 Oliver Baete, Allianz chief executive officer describes a horrible week and concedes not everything was perfect in the fund management.. read more. As a result, Allianz plans to move about $120 billion of investor assets to Voya Financial Inc (VOYA.N) in exchange for a stake of up to 24% in Voya's investment management unit. In the finger-pointing that followed, some big investors accused the professional consultants they had hired to vet Structured Alpha of ignoring red flags and failing to understand what the funds were doing, according to lawsuits. Four billion dollars wrong so far, with outside estimates that it could grow much larger. Disaster struck in 2008 when the collapse of Lehman Brothers rocked global finance, freezing up markets and with them, Innovative Options trades. Investors have also filed more than two dozen lawsuits against Allianz over the Structured Alpha funds. Because AGI, a registered investment adviser, failed to provide meaningful oversight, Tournant and his co-conspirators were able to deceive investors about the risks they were taking with their money. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. Mr Tournant, 55, now faces charges that are upending his career and could send him to prison for a decade or more if he is convicted. Soon, he decided to cooperate and assist the SEC staff in understanding the Structured Alpha fraud, according to the agency complaint. Regulators said the misconduct included when Tournant and Bond-Nelson altered more than 75 risk reports before sending them to investors. The U.S. Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission have opened investigations. It all came crashing down in the early, panicked days of Covid-19, when wild market swings upended an options strategy that was marketed as aiming to generate alpha regardless of market waves.. They face long prison terms but could get far less time for their cooperation. Megan Tackett is the editor for the Aspen Daily News. At the same time, the firm has argued that its clients were sophisticated investors who knew what they were getting into. 6LinkedIn 8 Email Updates. Thats the allegation both the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission make in an indictment released Tuesday. Two other executives with the funds agreed to plead guilty and are cooperating with authorities. Gregoire Tournant, the former chief investment officer who created and oversaw the now-defunct Structured Alpha funds, was also indicted for fraud, conspiracy and obstruction, while two other. After the COVID-19 market crash of March 2020 exposed the fraudulent scheme, the strategy lost billions of dollars as a result of AGI US and the portfolio managers misconduct. Bond-Nelson declined to comment. We are shocked by the actions of Greg Tournant and his former colleagues.. How Do I Establish My Value with Prospects? Two years after the spectacular collapse of the insurance giants Structured Alpha hedge funds, a low-profile business registered in Florida, 5,000 miles from the Munich headquarters, the shock waves continue to reverberate. Copyright 2022 Bloomberg. Essentially, the Structured Alpha fund was sold as a bill of goods that would expose investors to the benefits of the S&P 500 index while protecting them from any sort of market crash by selling put options to hedge against a downturn. July 21 Allianz publishes a paper saying that losses were not the result of any failure in the portfolios investment strategy or risk management processes. It has since been removed from the web. The SEC said projected losses in one market crash scenario were changed to 4.15% from the actual 42.15%, simply by removing the "2.". The transition period will be ten weeks for the US mutual funds that AGI US sub-advises and four months for the US closed-end funds that AGI US advises. Russia takes its war with Ukraine to Londons High Court as battle begins over a soured $3bn bond deal, Worlds top insurers to face aircraft leasers in High Court mega trial over planes seized by Russia. An arraignment was set for June 2 in New York. Automobile Diminished Value: Is THAT Covered. Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. The bigger the investment gains, the bigger the payday. Help using this website - Accessibility statement. Tournant and Taylor prospered at Allianz during the long bull market that followed the Great Recession. Structured Alphas performance was solid. Structured Alphas troubles continued after his departure. But inside Allianz SE, where a handful of hedge fund managers claimed they could do just that, few grasped how wrong that dream could go. May The U.S. Department of Justice approaches Allianz for information on the funds. Disaster struck in 2008 when the collapse of Lehman Brothers rocked global finance, freezing up markets and with them, Innovative Options trades. Prosecutors say that although Mr Tournant assured big investors safety was his top priority, he secretly took huge, undisclosed risks. Pensions funds for so many retirees, religious organizations and essential workers from laborers in Alaska, to teachers in Arkansas, to bus drivers and subway conductors here in New York City invested with AGI because they were promised a relatively safe investment with strict risk controls. Information is just a click away. All of the reward, very little risk. In early March of 2020, as he was grappling with the pandemics effect on his funds, Tournant went on medical leave for undisclosed reasons, the person said. 2723 0 obj A dual U.S.-French citizen, he arrived at Allianz Global Investors in the early 2000s by way of Oppenheimer Capital. Investors were told the funds employed options that included hedges to protect against market crashes, but prosecutors said the fund managers repeatedly failed to buy those hedges. Tournant and Taylor prospered at Allianz during the long bull market that followed the Great Recession. Their lawyers declined immediate comment. Allianz Global Investors U.S. LLC Also Charged with Securities Fraud, Agrees to Plead Guilty. Browse an unrivalled portfolio of real-time and historical market data and insights from worldwide sources and experts. Dont forget you can visit MyAlerts to manage your alerts at any time. Greg Tournant was a hedge-fund manager supposedly under the watchful eye of a "master cop"an Allianz SE unit that policed his every move. Investors lost billions of dollars, the SEC complaint details. The insurer warned last month that ongoing probes by the Justice Department and SEC are at a sensitive stage and it couldnt yet predict the final price tag from regulatory settlements and private litigation. That change was not disclosed to investors, prosecutors allege. Sept. 10 Reuters reports that the DOJ was looking at possible misconduct by fund managers and misrepresentation of risk to investors. "Our strategies are not race cars looking to speed their way to high returns. Roman Frenkel was a first-hand witness to the Structured Alpha teams earlier failure when he worked at Innovative Options Management, the small Miami firm that Taylor founded and Tournant helped run briefly while continuing to manage money for Allianz. Tournant, the former chief investment officer who created and oversaw Allianz's now-defunct Structured Alpha funds, was indicted in May on fraud, conspiracy and obstruction charges and. According to an initial report by Bloomberg, the trio used to manage the Structured Alpha funds, but all left the company in December 2021, per company filings. A chart containing the names, ages, residences, charges and maximum penalties for the defendants is attached. Feb. 3 Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, warns CNBC viewers not to buy the dip because the coronavirus crisis was without precedent. Feb. 17 Allianz says it will set aside 3.7 billion euros ($3.90 billion) to deal with investigations and lawsuits. Exclusive news, data and analytics for financial market professionals, Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Tom Sims and Alexander Huebner in Munich Making Sense of the NAIC Risk Oversight Landscape, For This HNW Firm, It's Crunch Time for Estate Planning, 20 Cities With the Most Ultra-Wealthy Residents, What to Do When Generations Clash Over Philanthropy, Former Head of Fidelity Billionaires Family Office Leaves Firm. Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the Manhattan federal court scheduled Tournant's trial for Feb. 5, 2024, rejecting his lawyer's argument that it was premature to schedule a date. Structured Alphas performance was solid. "Following the crash of the Structured Alpha Funds, the defendants continued their pattern of deceit by lying to SEC staff and their fraud would have gone undetected if it werent for the persistence of SEC lawyers who pieced together the full scope of the massive fraud.". Perfect Sunday reading. Long before the pandemic, their small investment firm on Miamis Brickell Avenue, aka, Wall Street South, collapsed when its trades went bad, according to two former employees there foreshadowing what was to come. Tournant, of Basalt, Colorado, surrendered to authorities on Tuesday morning. Chief Executive Officer Oliver Baete expressed regret in February for Structured Alphas losses and said they will have a significant impact on the compensation of its directors. Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. The SEC's complaint, filed in the federal district court in Manhattan, alleges that Structured Alpha's Lead Portfolio Manager, Gregoire P. Tournant, orchestrated the multi-year scheme to mislead investors who invested approximately $11 billion in Structured Alpha, and paid the defendants over $550 million in fees. 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