Russian hedge fund CEO Kim Karapaetyan and $20M in accounts disappear
January 6, 2015
Fox News – The disappearance of a Russian hedge fund founder — and
the missing $20 million in fund accounts — has those he left behind
seeking answers.
Employees of Blackfield Capital CJSC — once one of Moscow’s hottest
hedge funds — want to know the whereabouts of founder and CEO, Kim
Karapetyan, 29, who vanished sometime in October.
It was mid-October when three men charged into Blackfield’s offices in
a luxury complex in Moscow, former employees told The Wall Street
Journal. The unidentified men said they were looking for Karapetyan,
who was not in the office that day, and has not showed up there since.
Senior executives of the fund had to explain to the 50-person staff
that all the money in company accounts — some $20 million, including
investor cash — was gone, so there was no way to pay their salaries.
It’s not clear whether investors in the fund were all Russian or from
other countries.
“Our CEO just …disappeared,” Sergey Grebenkin, one of the firm’s
software developers, told the Journal.
Karapetyan had received attention in the investment community for his
expensive taste and spending habits. He hosted glitzy parties,
reportedly rented a $15,000 per month Manhattan apartment in 2013, and
had recently asked his U.S.-based staff to purchase a $300,000 Aston
Martin sports car.
The ambitious CEO had plans to expand his business to London and the
U.S., renting office space in New York’s financial district. As
recently as October, the firm planned to start trading on the London
Stock Exchange and Chicago Mercantile Exchange, according to former
employees.
The Journal’s efforts to reach Karapetyan by phone, email and through
associates and friends were unsuccessful. His Facebook, LinkedIn and
Google mail counts have been closed, and his cellphone has been
disconnected.
To add to the mystery, a person claiming to be Karapetyan contacted
top staff members and investors several days after his disappearance,
with a cryptic message from a temporary email address. He wrote that
he was on the run because he was being threatened, according to
several people who received the message. He also promised to return
all funds to investors but gave no further contact information.
Karapetyan told former employees he had worked at Morgan Stanley as a
portfolio manager and graduated with a master’s degree from the London
School of Economics. But The Journal determined neither institution
has any record of him.
Blackfield was launched in 2009 aimed at conquering the modern
markets. Several former staffers said Karapetyan told them the firm
once managed as much as $300 million.
According to the paper, the first signs of trouble came in the spring
of 2014 following the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, which led
to international sanctions against Russian businesses and individuals.
Shortly after, Blackfield’s U.S. entity ended its lease and let its
staff go. The firm blamed the shutdown on a lack of financing related
to “the economic slowdown in Russia,” according to a former employee,
who heard from Moscow employees that several big investors had
withdrawn funds.
Blackfield employee Danil Krivopustov came to work expecting a regular
day on October 8, but soon learned Blackfield was out of cash and the
firm’s founder was missing.
“I left at 5 p.m. without money or a job,” Krivopustov said. “We
haven’t heard anything since.”