A Greenwich hedge fund, Plainfield Asset Management, who is being investigated by the Manhattan District Attorney, has recently lost its co-founder Niv Harizman.
News of Plainfield’s troubles with its corporate borrowers and the Manhattan D.A. was first reported by Katie Benner at Fortune Magazine. The Fortune story lists multiple lawsuits against Plainfield and says its borrowers are also working with the Manhattan D.A. over violations involving lending fraud. When the news broke in late January, Greenwich Time reported that the Connecticut Attorney General would look into Plainfield and determine if the fund had violated any laws that affected Connecticut investors. After the Fortune story was printed, Plainfield admitted it was cooperating with the D.A. on the investigation. No charges have been filed yet.
Harizman has started a new hedge fund called Tyto Capital Partners. At Plainfield, Harizman was the head of corporate finance. His LinkedIn profile states he is no longer with Plainfield. Questions are mounting if Harizman left over worry about the D.A. investigation into the fund he helped start and the unusual mafia like tactics its president Max Holmes has been taking in an attempt to silence borrowers who are working with the D.A. on its investigation.
A few weeks after the troubles at Plainfield were reported across the national media, it appears the executives at Plainfield got to work to try and cover its tail. According to a settlement agreement seen by this reporter between Plainfield and one of its borrowers, we learned the fund offered to dismiss litigation against the borrower if it signed an agreement that allowed Plainfield to control the flow of information the borrower gave the authorities. In fact, this borrower, who used Confidential Security and Investigations’ Robert Seiden to build its case against Plainfield, was also asked to fire Seiden and turn over all documents, names, phone numbers, and communications the private investigator had turned up about Plainfield. Plainfield even demanded the borrower get back any evidence the investigator had given to the media, regulators or government agencies and give it to the hedge fund.
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