Accountant: Fla. money manager owed $50M
SARASOTA (AP) – Around the same time he mysteriously vanished, hedge fund manager Arthur G. Nadel owed a $50 million payout to some of the investors who had entrusted their life savings to him, an accountant said Monday.
Instead, they learned their money was gone – and now they’re left asking if it was all a bad investment, or if they were scammed.
The search for Nadel entered its sixth day Monday as more investors contacted authorities with concerns their savings, and Nadel, were gone forever. Nadel’s green Subaru was found in a Sarasota airport parking lot on Jan. 15, and he left his family a note in which he appeared to be “very distraught,” said Lt. Chuck Lesaltato of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s office.
Nadel, 75, was expected to deliver a $50 million redemption that day to investors in the six hedge funds he managed, said Michael Zucker, an internal accountant for Scoop Management Inc., where Nadel traded. Nothing in documents indicated the funds weren’t turning a profit, he said.
“Mind you, this was a lot, but it was still, we thought, very easily done,” Zucker said in an interview with The Associated Press.
The payment was set to be made after the funds, which had about 600 investors from across the country, suffered losses in October, Zucker said. But if Nadel was nervous, he didn’t show it: He often was seen around the office smiling and seemed on top of things.
“He felt that he was turning the whole thing around,” Zucker said.
Investors and police said that Nadel or Neil Moody, who was a general partner in some of Scoop’s funds, would often meet potential clients in person, and would promise big returns. Karin Gustafson, the YMCA Foundation of Sarasota head, said Moody promised them a 10 percent return each year.