Och-Ziff Suffers Record Redemptions In First 4 Months Of 2017 As AUM Plunges

One year after Och-Ziff Capital settled a bribery case that led to jump in redemption requests and an exodus in high profile executives, on Tuesday the hedge fund reported that it suffered record net withdrawals in the first four months of the year, extending several straight quarters of outflows.
The firm reported net redemptions of $4.8 billion in the first quarter and an additional $2.1 billion from April 1 and May 1. At the same time, assets under management declined from $37.9 billion as of December 31, 2016 to $32 billion as of the beginning of May, a record $5.9 billion decline, and a 24% drop from a year earlier.
As discussed at the time, and as Bloomberg reminds this morning, the redemption wave started when the hedge fund settled a five-year bribery probe and saw founder Dan Och singled out by regulators for ignoring red flags and corruption risks. Och-Ziff agreed to pay more than $400 million in September to settle U. S. charges that it paid bribes to gain business in Africa. Its OZ Africa Management GP unit pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe officials of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on May 2, 2017.