<이미지를 클릭하시면 크게 보실 수 있습니다>

South Korea’s troubled hedge fund manager Lime Asset Management Co. has alerted it will be freezing withdrawal from additional funds maturing from March amid liquidity shortage to place a total of 1.67 trillion won ($1.4 billion) worth of its funds in suspension and at risk of losing its customers’ money.

Lime Asset Management in a press statement on Wednesday said it has notified brokerages of possible delay in payments for its credit insured trade finance fund and 16 smaller funds worth 294.9 billion won that invested in the trade finance fund maturing from the end of March. The affected funds are linked to Pluto FI D-1 and Pluto Trade Finance. The company projected to defer payment for around 120 billion won worth funds.

The addition would put a total of 1.7 trillion won worth of its funds suspended from redemption, up from previously estimated 1.6 trillion won. It is the third time for Lime to officially defer payment on its maturing funds.

Lime said it will conduct due diligence on the funds and form a consultative group with 16 fund brokers and total return swap securities company to discuss recollection and redistribution of assets.

The company said it had intended to temporarily place assets of the trade finance fund in the Pluto funds, which made it to suspend redemption due to liquidity problem.

But some suspect Lime had known in advance that its trade finance would cause trouble, given that the hedge fund manager started selling the fund in April last year when it sold all its holdings in a fund operated by International Investment Group LLC (IIG) to Singaporean trade financing firm Rhodium in return for promissory notes upon discovering losses. Lime’s trade fund was invested in IIG, an American specialist in short-term trade finance that recently lost its license by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on charges of securities fraud.

In October, Lime had said it entered into a contract with Rhodium to swap its holdings in IIG with promissory notes. The promissory notes, however, were issued were in April. Also, the hedge fund began selling its trade finance funds through Shinhan Bank on April 22.

[ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]