Publication Type

Magazine Article

Version

Publisher’s Version

Publication Date

9-2009

Abstract

We examine two of the most fascinating fraud cases that rocked the hedge fund industry: Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities and Bayou Management. From academic research and news reports, we distill important lessons for the hedge fund investor. Our key conclusions are (i) conflicts of interests are often symptomatic of more serious problems at hedge funds, (ii) auditing statements from obscure accounting firms should provide little assurance to investors, (iii) a comparison between the actual fund risk exposures based on realized returns with the theoretical risk exposures from the trading strategy serves as a useful cross-check for investors, and (iv) for funds with a master-feeder structure, it is important to conduct due diligence on both the master and the feeder fund.

Keywords

Hedge funds, frauds, Madoff, lessons, conflict of interests, risk exposures, due diligence

Discipline

Finance and Financial Management

Research Areas

Finance

Publication

Hedge Fund Insights: Newsletter of the BNP Paribus Hedge Fund Centre at SMU

First Page

2

Last Page

6

Publisher

BNP Paribus Hedge Fund Centre, Singapore Management University

City or Country

Singapore

Copyright Owner and License

BNP Paribus Hedge Fund Centre, Singapore Management University

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