From Reuters (via hedge fund implode-o-meter) comes a snippet about a Madoff-linked collapse: Austin Capital Management is closing its $900m Safe Harbor Fund, which is understood to have sustained around $186m in losses from investments in the Madoff ponzi.
Austin Capital Management is already the target of a class action lawsuit because of the losses.
ACM is owned by Victory Capital Management, which in turn is backed by Cleveland-based KeyCorp (the bank bought ACM in 2006).
Nothing particularly out of the ordinary. But the name Austin Capital Management rang a bell…
Until recently the CFO of Austin Capital Management was one Wanda Potts, who had been a key architect of Austin Capital Management’s spectacular growth – and indeed, the growth and investment of the Safe Harbor Fund. According to her biography:
Potts managed the accounting, reporting, allocation, valuation, audit, and tax work of all of the Austin funds. She helped the firm to grown from $4 million in assets under management to approximately $2 billion in assets under management.
Still, nothing particularly unusual here. But…
Potts left Austin Capital Management in 2008 to become the CFO of… Onyx Capital
- the very same firm run by fellow Austin resident Mr Jeffry Schneider, marketer for allegedly fraudulent hedge fund Ponta Negra and vice-presidential fund of funds, Paradigm.
Wanda Potts could not be reached for comment.
Article Series - The Bidens, Paradigm and Ponta
- Untangling floor 17, 650 5th Avenue
- The politics of Paradigm
- There are no safe harbours in Austin, Texas
- Placing for Paradigm