From the Wall Street Journal, Nov. 11:
A Carlyle Group
LP hedge fund has lost the $400 million it invested last year in a
Moroccan oil-refinery deal, according to a securities filing and people
familiar with the matter.
The hedge fund, known as
Vermillion, was to receive a share of revenue at the refinery, which ran
into financial trouble and was seized by Moroccan authorities later in
2015, the people said. The refinery, known as Societe Anonyme Marocaine de l’Industrie du Raffinage, or Samir, was put into liquidation this year.
In
a note in the Washington, D.C., private-equity firm’s quarterly filing
last week, Carlyle said it believes $400 million in petroleum
commodities were “misappropriated by third parties outside the U.S.” It
didn’t identify the soured deal or name the third parties. The note,
which hasn’t previously been reported on, refers to Samir, the people
said.
Carlyle has spent $5 million in legal and professional fees
trying to get its money back and expects the matter could lead to
litigation and “significant additional costs or liabilities,” according
to the filing. It has also received a redemption request from an unnamed
investor as a result of the episode, additional details of which remain
murky.
Carlyle expects to join a group similar to
creditors committees that are formed in U.S. chapter 11 cases, the
people said. But the prospects for a recovery of its investment are less
clear than they would be in a U.S. bankruptcy proceeding.
Other creditors include BP PLC and Glencore PLC.
The
loss represents the latest misstep in Carlyle’s hedge-fund business,
which has suffered declines in commodity and credit investments and
investor withdrawals. Carlyle is pulling back from the business and
plans to focus more on corporate lending. Co-founder William Conway said
on an earnings call last month that Carlyle is decreasing its “exposure
to shorter-term trading businesses, areas where, frankly, we have not
performed well.” Carlyle expects to have about $1 billion of hedge-fund
assets by year-end, down from $14.7 billion as of the third quarter of
2014.
Carlyle and other big private-equity firms moved
into hedge funds to diversify beyond their corporate buyout businesses.
Carlyle’s most-recent foray into hedge funds began in 2010. It bought a
majority stake in Claren Road Asset Management, followed later by deals
for Emerging Sovereign Group, or ESG, and Vermillion. It also purchased a
Canadian fund of hedge-funds firm, Diversified Global Asset Management....MORE
