AUGUST 28, 2009
No SEC Penalties in Amaranth's Failure
By JOSEPH CHECKLER
NEW YORK -- Hedge-fund manager Amaranth Advisors LLC won't face any penalties from the Securities and Exchange Commission for its high-profile failure, according to a letter the firm received from the agency's enforcement division.
Amaranth, which once managed $6.6 billion but imploded in 2006 after bad natural-gas bets, was cleared of wrongdoing after a three-year SEC investigation into whether it misled investors.
In a letter to investors reviewed by Dow Jones Newswires, Amaranth founder Nick Maounis said, "Needless to say, we are very pleased with this decision."
Earlier this month, Amaranth paid a $7.5 million settlement to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which was investigating whether the firm manipulated natural-gas futures contracts months before its blowup.
The natural-gas bets gone awry were made by former trader Brian Hunter, who is still being investigated by the CFTC for alleged manipulation and whose case wasn't affected by Amaranth's CFTC settlement.
Mr. Hunter's lawyers were in Washington earlier this week arguing that Mr. Hunter didn't intentionally manipulate gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
In September 2006, Amaranth had a large position in natural-gas futures, specifically a bet that gas prices at the end of the winter would rise relative to those at the beginning of spring. Prices fell, however, and Amaranth suffered billions of dollars in losses.
At the time, energy traders and experts feared that the unwinding of Amaranth's energy positions, the remains of which were taken over by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Citadel Investment Group LP, would create a selloff in the natural-gas market. They caused barely a ripple, as it turned out.
News of the SEC's decision to not charge Amaranth was reported Wednesday by Bloomberg News.