Madoff "feeder" fund chief dead in apparent suicide

Thomas Coyle

23 December 2008

AIA put over $1 billion in Madoff's hands for Luxembourg-based fund company. Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, co-founder and managing director of the hedge fund Access International Advisors (AIA), was found dead in his Manhattan office early this morning. AIA is said to have had around $1.4 billion invested with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities (BLMIS), a New York-based asset-management firm at the heart of a pyramid scheme allegedly orchestrated by its chairman Bernard Madoff.

Unusual step

Building security discovered De la Villehuchet's body at AIA's Midtown office. One of his arms was cut at the wrist, forearm and across the bicep -- seemingly with a box cutter found on the scene -- in an apparent suicide, according to the New York City Police Department (NYPD). He was found sitting with one leg resting on his desktop and with a trash can, into which he had apparently bled, on the floor nearby. He was pronounced dead on the scene, according the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in New York.

De la Villehuchet was in his office early on Monday evening. Earlier that day, he had taken the unusual step of asking the building's cleaning staff to assist him in straightening out his office. Later Monday when, at the behest of another AIA higher-up, a security guard checked to see if De la Villehuchet was still at work, his office was found to be locked, according to a New York Times report citing NYPD commissioner Raymond Kelly.

There was no sign that anyone else had been in the room with De la Villehuchet shortly before his death or after it prior to his discovery this morning, the NYPD added.

The NYPD said there was a bottle of pills on the scene, but no sure sign that De la Villehuchet had taken any of the tablets. Police have so far found no suicide note.

AIA managed around $3 billion in September 2008, with $1.4-billion of it invested with Madoff's BLMIS for Luxembourg-based Luxalpha's "America Selection" fund.

Day and night

The Luxalpha America Selection fund's "objective is to provide investors with an opportunity to invest mainly in transferable securities and to provide a consistent performance," according to a "fund profile" available on Bloomberg. "The fund invests according to the principle of risk diversification in equities listed on the New York Stock Exchange and U.S. government securities."

AIA replaced UBS as administrator of the Luxalpha fund this year.

De la Villehuchet had recently been trying to help Luxalpha investors recover the money they'd apparently lost to Madoff, according to the Paris-based financial journal La Tribune, which broke the story of De la Villehuchet's death. Citing an un-named source, the French newspaper says that De la Villehuchet was working "day and night to find a way to recoup his investors' money" and "could not cope with the pressure following the outbreak of the scandal."

The scandal in question came to light on 11 December 2008 when Madoff was arrested for allegedly swindling investors in an operation that paid dividends and redemptions with funds taken directly from new in-flows.

Madoff, who is under house arrest at his New York apartment while he awaits trial, said BLMIS bilked its investors out of at least $50 billion in an operation he called a "giant Ponzi scheme," according to the SEC and the FBI. Other sources say the amount lost to BLMIS was anywhere from $18 billion to $100 billion.

Before founding AIA with the late Patrick Littaye in 1994, De La Villehuchet was head of Credit Lyonnais' U.S. investment-banking unit.

A boating enthusiast, De la Villehuchet was a member of the Larchmont Yacht Club in Larchmont, N.Y. He was 65. -FWR

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