Silence on Solengo

I'm surprised, and disappointed, that the media has not picked up on the outrageous effort by Solengo Capital to bludgeon blogs to not post its marketing brochure. This includes a real or threatened (it's not clear which) lawsuit against Dealbreaker, which won't cave in.

Apart from Reuters and the New York Times Dealbook, both yesterday, there has been no pickup in the media.

What makes Solengo interesting, apart from its ham-handed and dumb saber-rattling, is that Solengo is quite fascinating in its own right, and for all the wrong reasons. It is run by former traders of the collapsed Amaranth Advisors hedge fund.

Dealbook noted:

Wall Street has been buzzing over the news that Brian Hunter, who was in charge of the ill-fated energy trades that brought down Amaranth last year, was already raising funds for a new hedge-fund firm called Solengo. The fund’s marketing materials, which were marked as confidential but leaked to blogs, describe it as “structured to become a multibillion-dollar commodity investment vehicle” that is “designed to minimize the risk associated with leverage, liquidity, credit and operations.”

Thus Solengo is a good example of the unbridled hubris that still infects the hedge fund industry -- and, to the extent it can raise money, the stupidity of people and institutions that invest in hedge funds. Apart from a small article in the Wall Street Journal a week ago, this swift rebirth of a proven failure has received little notice.

P.S. Here is the infamous brochure.

© 2007 Gary Weiss. All rights reserved.

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