Image Credit: Aviron.com
By Jason Zweig | Feb. 28, 2020 2:19 pm ET
Take a break from the market turmoil to ponder the drama at a little fund run by the world’s biggest asset manager. It involves allegations of fraud and forgery, not to mention a fund manager’s daughter landing a part in a movie the fund financed.
We’re talking about the BlackRock Multi-Sector Income Trust. In 2017, the fund, which at that time had $750 million in net assets, lent a tenth of that to a small, privately held movie company, Aviron Capital LLC. It was an unusually aggressive bet. By late 2019, the fund said the loan wasn’t worth anything, for a nearly $75 million loss. In December, it filed a lawsuit against Aviron and its owner, William Sadleir.
Mr. Sadleir denies committing fraud. He does, however, admit copying-and-pasting signatures of a BlackRock fund executive onto documents to accelerate the sale of $3.2 million in movie-revenue receivables on which the fund had exclusive claim.…
To read the rest of the column:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hollywood-drama-that-cost-a-blackrock-fund-75-million-11582917564
For further reading:
Books:
Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor
Jason Zweig,The Devil’s Financial Dictionary
Jason Zweig, Your Money and Your Brain
Jason Zweig, The Little Book of Safe Money
Articles and other resources:
BlackRock to Pay $12 Million Penalty for Failing to Disclose Conflict of Interest