They are not going away anytime soon…. See the latest they sent to ValueWalk below..
NEW YORK – Today the Hedge Clippers rallied outside 15 Central Park West, New York City, “the world’s most powerful address,” in protest against hedge funder Daniel Och, who lives there.
Och, the founder, CEO, and Chairman of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, is worth $3.9 billion. He was America’s top-paid executive in 2008 and made $400 million in 2013. In addition to his $41 million penthouse at 15 CPW, Och also has a $26.5 million estate in Southampton, Long Island, and a $20.3 million mansion in Aspen, Colorado.
Och-Ziff’s involvement in sleazy foreign investments has led to investigations by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice. The firm paid the Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe $100 million in 2008 for platinum mining rights. The payment is said to have enabled Mugabe to steal that year’s election and “unleash a campaign of brutal repression.”
Hedge Clippers: Och-Ziff connections with Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi
Och-Ziff also handled investments for Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi’s sovereign wealth fund and loaned $284 million to two shady ventures in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In collaboration with an offshore firm, Palladino Capital 2, Och-Ziff made a secret loan to the government of Guinea that was described as “a bribe” that might violate the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
In 2014, a group of Och-Ziff shareholders sued it for its dealings with Libya and the DRC and for failing to tell them it had been subpoenaed by the SEC and DOJ. The firm’s clients were also outraged that they hadn’t been notified about the SEC and DOJ probes. In August 2014, class-action lawyers targeting Och-Ziff over its foreign-corruption issues were said to be circling the firm “like a posse of Indian braves whooping around a wagon.”
According to charges investigated by U.S. officials, Och-Ziff helped bring down Lehman Brothers by spreading false rumors. Lehman Brothers lawyers accused Och-Ziff of “short-selling the company into the dirt.”
The Hedge Clippers previously protested outside 15 CPW on March 21 because, in addition to Och, it is the home of several other notorious Wall Street figures, such as Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs.
About Hedge Clippers
Founded in February 2015, the Hedge Clippers are working to expose the mechanisms hedge funds and billionaires use to influence government and politics in order to expand their wealth, influence and power. We’re exposing the collateral damage billionaire-driven politics inflicts on our communities, our climate, our economy and our democracy. We’re calling out the politicians that do the dirty work billionaires demand, and we’re calling on all Americans to stand up for a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the wealthy and well-connected.
“The Hedge Clippers will accomplish a great deal if they can simply turn the secretive few into the widely infamous.” – Ginia Bellafante, The New York Times
