How Hedge Funds Hide

在冰岛，没有什么比Thingvellir国家公园更捕捉到岛屿国家的心理，这是一个陡峭的悬崖上方的地质奇迹，其中山谷洒到一个宽阔的湖面，所有这些都是从换挡构造板材雕刻。冰岛的第一个大会于930年在这个土壤中成立;近1,000年后，1928年，该地区被宣布了一个“所有冰岛人的受保护的国家靖国神社”。今天，访客可能会在裂谷中遇到婚礼。

但Thingvellir不仅仅是冰岛最大的国宝。它也是由美国对冲基金创建的Shell公司的名称，以便在2008年金融危机之后不久购买该国违约的银行债务 - 这一危机将冰岛带到毁灭的边缘。

Thingvellir Fund, incorporated in Delaware, and Thingvellir SARL, based in Luxembourg, were the onshore and offshore names for two of several secretive funds created by Seth Klarman’s $30 billion Baupost Group and named after famous Icelandic towns and landmarks that disguised Baupost's investment.

Operating through hard-to-trace shell companies — others included Gulfoss Partners, Geysir Advisors, and Grindavik Fund — Baupost became the hedge fund with the greatest dollar amount of claims on Iceland’s three major banks, totaling €3 billion ($3.7 billion). And while other hedge funds were stuck in Iceland for years as the country imposed capital controls, Baupost exited early and made what one analyst calculates was close to $1 billion. Outside of an obscure 2016 book written by Icelandic professors, and a corresponding blog, Baupost’s use of these shell companies has never been publicly revealed before. Neither has the hedge fund’s huge exposure, and corresponding windfall, in Icelandic debt.

最近的事件揭示了Baupost的使用外壳公司 - 或者对冲基金律师更喜欢称之为“专用车辆” - 这不是冰岛独一无二的。

基于波士顿的对冲基金使用了类似的混淆策略，同时投资现在违约的波多黎各债务。通过一系列壳牌公司 - Decagon Holdings 1通过Decagon Holdings 10 - Baupost将其保持高度秘密直到最后秋天，当策略由在线媒体出口曝光时拦截，一系列抗议呼出飓风蹂躏的波多黎各债务的举办的启示录。

波多黎各启示揭露将Baupost的战略带来了争夺这种投资的道德的争夺辩论的最前沿，并在寻求债务救济的活动家使用的秘密秘密。但Klarman的基金难以唯一一个在冒充其所有权时唯一一个，特别是当这些投资可能带来秃鹰的标签时。

在另一个例子中，2003年，Paul Singer的Elliott Management Corp.起诉阿根廷通过一家名为NML Capital的Cayman Islands持有公司。歌手寻求多年来保持他对NML秘密的所有权，但到2012年他与阿根廷的战斗已成为前页新闻。

Another is Davidson Kempner Capital Management, whose distressed investments following the financial crisis helped turn it into a $30 billion fund, and which has perhaps done the best job of camouflaging its interests. It was a co-plaintiff in NML Capital’s suit against Argentina, under the name Blue Angel Capital, and it was the third-biggest owner of Icelandic bank debt, using the shell company Burlington Loan Management, registered in Dublin, to buy distressed European assets after the financial crisis. That fund reportedly had another rationale: According to爱尔兰时代, it was structured precisely to avoid paying taxes. (Davidson Kempner declined to comment, except to say it has paid all the taxes it owes.)

对冲基金以其不透明度而闻名，因此他们使用有时与避税或洗钱相关的秘密壳牌公司提供了额外的阴谋。震惊许多与这个术术的金融领域没有什么令人难以置信的是这种隐身所完成的。

“例如，在美国特拉华州的状态，您需要提供更多识别来获取与您创建公司的图书卡，”注意到金融透明度联盟，这是一个试图遏制非法货币的非法流动。“能够建立一家公司 - 有能力搬运金钱，开放子公司，并作为法律前线 - 如果没有提供关于谁最终拥有的任何信息，这是一个完美犯罪的食谱，”它在其网站上解释。

可以肯定的是,大多数对冲基金基于“增大化现实”技术en’t engaged in criminal activity, and there may be legitimate reasons for hedge funds to hide what they own. Last year when Klarman spoke at the Robin Hood investment conference, he explained why Baupost likes to operate in stealth. “I don’t like to be attacked,” Klarman told the crowd, according to an audio recording of his off-the-record remarks obtained by亚博赞助欧冠。对冲基金泰坦还承认，他“隐藏”他公司对波多黎各债务的所有权，因为“世界往往跟随我们并汇编我们。”

Hedge funds are also sensitive to how such controversial investments might affect their clients. “It’s an issue with investors,” says Hans Humes, president and chief investment officer at Greylock Capital Management, which invests in distressed country debt, but does so in the open. “Bigger investors are going to be more sensitive to headline risk. The media attention in these cases can be very anti-creditor.

最终，这些是私人公司认为他们没有义务向公众披露他们的持股。Sean O’Shea, a former chief of the business securities fraud section of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York who is now a white-collar criminal defense lawyer at Boies Schiller Flexner, says sometimes funds simply hide their investments because they think, “It’s none of your fucking business.”

Iceland was a newcomerto the rough-and-tumble world of international markets. Until the 1990s, it was an insular country whose economy was dominated by stalwart fishermen relying on the harsh Nordic seas for their livelihood. But in 1994, Iceland allowed its currency to float on the open markets. Later in the decade, it began to privatize its banks.

全球精英所爱的金融自由化类型变成了灾难。到了2000年代初，外资开始洪水洪水 - 部分是由于其相对较高的利率，这为与日元进行了流行的贸易。冰岛迅速发现其银行资产越来越多的人口越来越多。

The financial crisis that followed was not kind to Iceland. What had become one of the globe’s richest countries became the face of hot money gone mad when its three major banks — Kaupthing, Glitnir, and Landsbanki — collapsed in October 2008 as the financial crisis that exploded with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings in the U.S. quickly spread. Iceland did not have the money to bail out its banks.

Klarman，其投资策略可能经常被描述为“购买的最佳时间是街道上有血液”的机会。但有一个问题：冰岛的经济迅速陷入严重的萧条，政治动荡加剧，并且有争议地加剧了它的问题的外国人成为其困境的易于替代品。但是，通过创建冰岛名称的壳牌公司购买违约冰岛银行债务，Klarman的Baupost撰写了一个政变的东西：它能够在没有公开风险的情况下获得意外收获，因为外国监督员恰恰是为什么策略如此受欢迎。

In Iceland, hedge funds were particularly despised. “Iceland had a bad experience with hedge funds prior to the crisis with people shorting the currency,” explains Hersir Sigurgeirsson, a finance professor at the University of Iceland and co-author (with fellow professor Asgeir Jonsson) ofThe Icelandic Financial Crisis: A Study Into the World ́s Smallest Currency Area and Its Recovery From Total Banking Collapse。

“他们投注了冰岛，这导致了外国人在这里以任何方式寻求利润，”他补充道。

休亨德里，现有的Eclectica资产管理成立合作伙伴，他在伦敦媒体上享有着名的冰岛克罗纳，并在伦敦媒体上公开发表讲话，发现了冰岛人的烦恼多么沮丧。“2008年3月，我在巴西桑托斯港的拖船上，我的黑莓开始疯狂，”他回忆道。“我正在从北欧徒 - 从冰岛的人那里得到死亡威胁。故事蔓延了。。。。我在伦敦给出的采访已经被拿起并戴上冰岛报纸的首页。“

“你怎么敢摧毁我们的国家？”消息亨德里说他得到了。

Baupost was not short Iceland’s currency, but it won’t say why it chose Icelandic names when it went in to buy the bank debt or otherwise comment on its Icelandic adventure. Given the anti-foreigner mood, however, it was “clever” to do so, says Sigurgeirsson: “Having Icelandic names just looks like someone in Iceland is buying claims.”

Thingvellir National Park, he notes, “is a very dear place” to Icelanders.

Baupost was one of the earliest foreign buyers of the bank debt, according to the professor, who believes the fund began buying at a CDS auction in London following the collapse of Iceland's banks. At that time the bank claims were going for a song: The debt of Iceland’s biggest bank, Kaupthing, was sold for 6.63 percent of face value, debt on Glitnir went for 3 percent of face value, and debt of Landsbanki was sold for 1.25 percent of face value.

Some hedge fund ownership of the failed Icelandic bank debt came to light when the banks published claims directories in 2009 and 2010. A predictable furor erupted — but even then many true owners were still unknown.

Trying to track funds registered in Delaware would lead to a dead end. According to the Financial Transparency Coalition’s Andres Knobel, Delaware is “famous” for having the least transparent corporate records in the world. As a result, linking the various shell companies with Icelandic names back to Baupost wasn’t possible until 2011, when Luxembourg registries could finally be used to trace them.

经过placing its holdings in a number of different secret vehicles, Baupost was able to operate under the radar. “People didn’t know how much Baupost had,” says Alexander Freyr Einarsson, an MIT graduate student whose thesis on hedge funds’ involvement in Iceland post-crisis formed part of the Icelandic professors’ book. (At the time of his research, Einarsson was a student at the University of Iceland.) He reckons that having so many different names may have allowed the hedge fund to sell off its claims more easily. By the second half of 2013, according to the bank registries, Baupost was almost entirely out. In the end it made about $880 million, for a 51.3 percent internal rate of return, he estimates. “Those who managed to buy the debt at this CDS auction were the guys who ended up making the most money, as the value started rising pretty fast,” he adds.

据冰岛大学教授据教授据冰岛大学教授称，Baupost的早期进入和退出允许它逃离冰岛大多数对冲基金的命运。对冲基金从危机之后征收的资本控制豁免，但政治动荡迎来了新政府。2012年，它撤销了资金的特殊地位，谈判，以便资金在多年来拖延拖延的资金。

“那些选择早期退出其立场的人就是可能的大量利润。其他人在最多三年内陷入了资本控制之后，而价格保持不变，遭受了大量的机会成本，“教授在他们的书中写道。

Baupost’s stunning success in Iceland helped it turn in strong returns in the years just following the financial crash, gaining 20 percent in 2009 and another 13.4 percent in 2010. Moreover, Klarman’s investors are primarily endowments and charities, including Ivy League universities that abhor being dragged into international crises. Klarman was able to make such lofty returns for these investors without a hint of controversy, keeping the stellar reputation that has endeared him to them.

“Klarman has cultivated an image as a moral and principled person, which is appealing to those who are more socially responsible investors,” notes Stephen Lerner, a labor strategist and fellow at Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor who is working with activists seeking to cancel Puerto Rico’s debt. But Lerner isn’t convinced. “It’s disgusting that people like Seth Klarman can hide how they are pillaging countries around the world, taking advantage of people — and it’s even worse when they try to come off as good guys.”

Seth Klarman。

虽然其保密工作wonders in Iceland, the Boston-based hedge fund did not fare so well in another of its efforts.

2008年市场崩盘两年后，Baupost是纽约梅隆银行的争夺，受托人为CountryWide令人生畏的抵押贷款支持证券。根据路透社的说法，Baupost在美国银行的一部分 - 通过美国银行的一部分 - 购买对冲基金的债券约10亿美元。但随着谈判摇摇欲坠和八庇阵要将此事提交法院，对冲基金创建了一个称为核桃地方的法人实体，以举行这些债券，将诉讼置于其名称。路透社报道，纽约Mellon律师银行将核桃地方描述为“制造诉讼”名称。

BofA was also negotiating with major institutional investors like BlackRock, MetLife, and PIMCO over their losses, and in June 2011 reached a settlement worth $8.5 billion. Walnut Place refused to go along, however, arguing that the sum was inadequate.

缔约方向法院举行，距离博鳌·伊尔维斯·米尔维斯（Bofa）的律师之后，揭示了真正的所有者。

“Walnut Place实际上是一个制造的名称，”Wachtell，Lipton，Rosen＆Katz的合作伙伴，在纽约州最高法院的听证会上说。米尔维斯说，真正的公司，是Baupost - “被称为苦恼或有时秃鹫基金”。

purcha与机构投资亚博赞助欧冠者sed the mortgage-backed securities before the housing crisis pummeled their prices, Baupost had bought the bonds on the cheap. “I didn’t want the judge to think the plaintiff was a mom-and-pop investor,” Mirvis says. Walnut Place certainly didn’t have the ring of a so-called vulture fund. “Walnut Place sounds friendly. It has the name of a tree in it.”

在媒体透露媒体之后的第二天，Klarman向他的投资者发了一封信，承认核桃地方确实是Baupost（否认传言，它伪装了它的所有权，因为它已经短缺了Bofa股票）。但Baupost通过将案件移动到联邦法院最终失败，试图抛弃和解。Baupost拒绝评论。

“Where does one half-truth end and another begin?” asks former hedge fund manager Hendry. “When you’re taking risks with other people’s money, I think you should never be in denial. I don’t like secrets. Once you begin to have secrets with other people, you have them with yourself, and therein lies the road to ruin.”

阿根廷和波多黎各的对冲基金保密将测试该观点。

读取系列的第2部分。