Och-Ziff Loses $800 Million to Withdrawals From Its Hedge Funds

Date: Friday, July 3, 2009
Author: Saijel Kishan, Bloomberg

Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC lost about 3.7 percent of the money it manages in June because of investor withdrawals from its hedge funds.

Assets under management declined $800 million in the month to $20.7 billion, the New York-based company said today in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Investors had withdrawn a record $5.1 billion in the first quarter, when rival hedge funds restricted redemptions.

Och Ziff’s OZ Master Fund returned 2.2 percent in June and 12 percent this year. Its European Master Fund rose 1.1 percent last month, bringing its six-month gain to 6.9 percent. The firm’s Asia Master Fund rose 0.7 percent in June and 13 percent in the first half of the year, according to the filing.

Och-Ziff was started in 1994 by Chief Executive Officer Daniel Och, 48, a former trader for Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and Ziff Brothers Investments LLC with money from the Ziff media empire.

Hedge funds are private, lightly regulated pools of capital whose managers can buy or sell any assets, bet on falling as well as rising asset prices, and participate substantially in profits from money invested.

To contact the reporter on this story: Saijel Kishan in New York at skishan@bloomberg.net