

The Hedge Fund and the Despot - tehrania
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-21/mugabes-bailout-och-ziff-investment-linked-to-zimbabwe-despot

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crapshoot101
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.

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mercurial
> 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.

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justincormack
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.

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junto
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.

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memossy
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)

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spindritf
_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
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.

