The Hedge Fund and the Despot

The Hedge Fund and the Despot(businessweek.com)

38 points by tehrania 11 years ago | 7 comments

This is disgusting, in so many ways. Investing in Africa often has its own set of moral qualms, but doing business with Mugabe lacks even the pretense that you're doing any good to offset dealing with a bastard. Sadly, I think mercurial is right - nothing will end up happening, because that's the lay of the land.

mercurial 11 years ago |

> In July, Och-Ziff hired David Becker, the SEC’s former general counsel, as its chief legal officer.

Right. I'm betting for a quiet settlement, a few millions changing hands and everybody retiring to their hard-won country estate and living happily ever after.

justincormack 11 years ago | |

They may need more than one settlement, as they are already being investigated for bribery in Gaddaffi's Libya, and they might be prosecuted by both the US and the UK.

junto 11 years ago |

I hope they go to jail for this. I also hope they have trouble sleeping at night, but I doubt it. They have blood on their hands purely for greed.

memossy 11 years ago |

I remember this deal from when I was a hedge fund manager at a similar company, seemed very off indeed so refused to be a part.

Some very odd African mineral companies on AIM, very few I felt comfortable investing in (did turn down joining OZ a bit after too for a lower paying role elsewhere, Michael was an interesting chap).

Doubt anyone will go to jail, seen much worse than this somehow slide (from institutional asset managers as well as hedge funds)

spindritf 11 years ago |

Mugabe had led one of two guerrilla groups that liberated the former Rhodesia from a white-minority regime

Liberated in the same sense that Stalin liberated Eastern Europe.

The hedge fund (Och-Ziff) sounds like it was ripped from pages of a movie script. Young protege, cross-Atlantic deals with African dictators, corrupt soviet oligarchs, lavish estate in British countryside... no happy end though.

r00fus 11 years ago | |

Sounds like something out of Richard K Morgan's "Market Forces" actually.

But that's assuming life imitates art. Clearly it's the opposite - as books like John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" seem to indicate.