Madoff told to reveal all assets by New Year eve

Investors looking to recoup some of the $50 billion they lost in Bernard Madoff’s alleged Ponzi scheme may get a better idea what the New York financial adviser has left when he is forced to reveal his assets to regulators.

Madoff, 70, must provide a detailed list of all investments, loans, lines of credit, business interests, brokerage accounts and other holdings to the Securities and Exchange Commission by New Year’s Eve, a federal judge ruled. Madoff’s foreign business units were given until January 26 to provide a similar accounting.

The list is to include all assets held for his “direct or indirect benefit,” US District Judge Louis Stanton in Manhattan wrote in a December 18 order in the SEC lawsuit against Madoff. The list must describe “the source, amount, disposition and current location of each of the items listed.”

A catalog of Madoff’s assets may reveal targets for angry investors including hedge funds and charities seeking the return of their funds. New York-based Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC began liquidating after his December 11 arrest for securities fraud. Madoff, under house arrest in his Manhattan apartment, faces as much as 10 years in prison and a $5 million fine if convicted.

Several investors filed proposed class-action, or group lawsuits against Madoff and his firm following FBI allegations that he admitted the business was “one big lie.”

Investment firms that did business with Madoff have also been sued. New York University said it lost $24 million in investments managed by Madoff, according to a lawsuit filed December 23 in New York state court in Manhattan against fund manager J Ezra Merkin and his Gabriel Capital LP fund and Ariel Fund Ltd. The school alleged Merkin invested NYU’s money with Madoff without telling investors or performing proper due diligence.

In a separate proposed class-action against Merkin, who is also the chairman of auto lender GMAC LLC, Harry Susman, a lawyer for The Calibre Fund, alleged he misled investors by claiming to have put investor money in a “diverse portfolio of securities.”