Attention is turning to the family of Walter Noel, he of Madoff feeder-fund, Fairfield Greenwich Group.
His daughters, you see, were something of high society fixtures before Madoff’s Ponzi scheme came to light.
Here they are, for instance, frolicking in a 2002 Vanity Fair profile titled “Golden in Greenwich“.
That’s (from left) Lisina, Ariane, Corina, Alix and Marisa Noel. Back then the sisters were earning kudos from Vanity Fair for being “well dressed, well educated (Harvard, Yale, Brown, Georgetown), and well married” with one of their husbands working “at the London office of the Fairfield Greenwich Group, an international hedge fund founded by Walter Noel”. The Noel sisters, the story noted, stand “with not a divorce or scandale among them”.
Now the family is attracting a different sort of press from Vanity Fair. Here’s an excerpt from their latest article on the Noels — “Greenwich Mean Time“:
Walter and Monica Noel, their five attractive daughters, and their well-connected sons-in-law were flying ever higher on the profits of their Fairfield Greenwich Group, a feeder fund for Bernie Madoff. Then the family watched their world crumble as the accusations began.
The article lays out in detail just what the social repurcussions of allegedly recklessly losing the money of one’s elite friends and contacts really are (Fairfield vigorously denies this). There’s much anonymous sniping of the “well, we never liked them any way” sort, accusations of “shameless self-promotion” and — shock, horror — incriminations of bad taste in home decorating. More saliently the family is said in the article to have been snubbed at various parties by their former investors.
On Tuesday NYC social blog Guest of a Guest also noted that an anonymous tipster had informed them that:
The Round Hill Club recently revoked the Noel family membership. After all of the heat they have drawn and the publicity nightmare, it looks like they [the club members] have had enough…
The club is denying the above, but it’s a good indicator of the type of social repercussions the Noels might be dealing with.
If you thought that was bad, however, please turn your attention to Tatler, the go-to magazine of the Sloane set in the UK. The rag was not shy at all about laying into the family in its latest issue. Here’s a sample:
One thing is certain. On both sides of the Atlantic the ‘fabulous Noels’, as they were simperingly known in society pages a few months ago, are beginning to find out who their real friends are. And, guess what? Those still taking their calls probably didn’t invest their nest eggs in FGG. The rest — like the yummy mummies currently cutting the Glamazons at the school gates — are having to lay off staff and lose the third car. Many are also reminding themselves that Walter Noel originated in Nashville, Tennessee, and the family is, therefore, no better than you’d expect.
Err, Meow?