Investor and His Hedge Fund Are Rocked by Sex Assault Allegations

For 3 many years, Crispin Odey stood above London’s monetary neighborhood, a larger-than-life monetary mogul who was identified for taking big bets — and raking in large earnings after they proved proper.

However in a little bit greater than per week, his hedge fund is abruptly getting ready to dissolution, felled by the most recent accusations of sexual assault and harassment towards its 64-year-old founder.

The agency, Odey Asset Administration, mentioned on Thursday that it was in “superior discussions” to switch funds and employees to different companies. The explanation, it famous with maybe excessive understatement, was that it had “turn into clear that some funding administration actions of the partnership are affected by latest occasions.”

In an indication that traders have been shedding confidence within the firm, Odey Asset Administration mentioned it could shut down one in every of its funds and had halted traders from withdrawing their cash from others, after what the agency described as “a large stage of redemption requests.” Within the hedge fund world, such a transfer, often called “gating,” is taken into account a drastic step meant to keep away from the equal of a run on the financial institution.

It’s unclear how a lot cash stays at Odey Asset Administration, which oversaw $4.9 billion earlier this yr.

These occasions have been kicked off, on June 8, by a virtually 7,900-word investigation in The Monetary Instances, during which 13 girls mentioned Mr. Odey had assaulted or abused them — at his agency’s opulent workplaces in Mayfair, in his London townhouse and at his nation mansion in western England. Lots of the girls quoted additionally mentioned Mr. Odey’s habits was identified all through the agency.

In response, Odey Asset Administration mentioned it handled allegations like this “extraordinarily significantly” and had “sturdy insurance policies and procedures in place” to adjust to the regulation and monetary rules.

Inside two days of the article’s publication, the agency mentioned it had eliminated Mr. Odey from the partnership. The agency’s monetary counterparties — together with Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, which all offered essential banking companies to the agency — reduce ties.

The chair of the Home of Commons’ Treasury Committee, Harriett Baldwin, this week known as on the Monetary Conduct Authority, one of many nation’s prime monetary regulators, to reply questions on its supervision of Odey Asset Administration.

Among the many questions that Ms. Baldwin submitted to the authority have been the extent of its earlier investigations into Mr. Odey and its broader work overseeing the companies’ dealing with of sexual misconduct allegations.

The seemingly dissolution of Odey marks a reckoning for its founder, who stood out from London’s pinstriped financier crowd with an aristocratic swashbuckler picture and a willingness to take counterintuitive bets that made him a lot of cash.

The financier, whose full identify is Robin Crispin William Odey, was born right into a line of industrialists, and his grandfather was a conservative lawmaker. Mr. Odey was educated at elite British establishments, together with the Harrow Faculty and Oxford College. However, he confronted cash issues when his household fell into monetary break. (He as soon as described his father as a “wastrel from starting to finish,” whose money owed compelled the sale of the household residence.)

After graduating from Oxford, Mr. Odey settled on banking as a strategy to regain his wealth. He struck out on his personal in 1991, forming Odey Asset Administration as a automobile for his gut-instinct buying and selling model.

That tendency towards large bets usually paid off, as when he guess towards British banks earlier than the 2008 monetary disaster. At its peak, the agency managed greater than $13 billion.

However he usually misplaced cash, too. The agency’s primary fund misplaced almost 50 % in 2016 via dangerous bets.

His fortune made him a monetary movie star, and he was a serious donor to Britain’s governing Conservative Occasion. (Kwasi Kwarteng, whose temporary stint final yr because the nation’s finance minister below Prime Minister Liz Truss rocked traders’ confidence within the authorities, beforehand labored for Mr. Odey’s agency.)

Mr. Odey additionally grew to become an outspoken supporter of Britain’s leaving the European Union — although he drew some criticism for additionally incomes 220 million kilos, or $280 million, from market actions tied to the occasion.

In an Odey-esque flourish, he quoted an Italian expression, “Il mattino ha l’oro in bocca,” or “The morning has gold in its mouth,” to the BBC on the day after the Brexit referendum.

The accusations of sexual misconduct detailed by The Monetary Instances weren’t the primary to be made towards Mr. Odey; earlier allegations have been made by The Instances of London, Bloomberg Information and a podcast by Tortoise Media. In 2021, he went on trial over a declare of indecent assault involving an worker on the agency. He was acquitted by the presiding decide, who informed him, “You allow this courthouse together with your good character intact.”

Since then, Mr. Odey and his agency gave the impression to be poised for a restoration: Its flagship fund made a 152 % return final yr, largely due to his extremely worthwhile bets towards British authorities bonds, roiled by the short-lived financial insurance policies launched by his former worker, Mr. Kwarteng.