Thursday, November 15, 2007

Amaranth Sues JPMorgan for Disrupting Transactions

From Bloomberg:

Amaranth Advisors LLC, the hedge- fund firm that failed last year after losing $6.5 billion, sued JPMorgan Chase & Co., accusing the bank of sabotaging its efforts to stave off collapse.

Amaranth lost 65 percent of its assets in September 2006 because of a wrong-way wager on natural gas. JPMorgan, the third-largest U.S. bank, and hedge-fund manager Citadel Investment Group LLC later took over the Greenwich, Connecticut- based firm's energy trades. Amaranth returned cash to investors this year.

In a letter yesterday to investors, founder Nicholas Maounis said $2.5 billion of the firm's losses came from a cash concession made to JPMorgan for taking over the energy derivatives portfolio after negotiations with other parties failed....MORE