The trial of Archegos founder Bill Hwang for alleged securities fraud and market manipulation opened in New York on Monday, focused on the fund's spectacular 2021 implosion that cost large banks billions of dollars. The family-owned hedge fund run by Hwang had taken huge bets on a few stocks with money borrowed from banks, and…
The 2021 collapse of the fund sent shock waves through financial markets and caused $10 billion in losses for Credit Suisse, Nomura, Morgan Stanley and other leading financial institutions. Hwang and other conspirators, including head trader William Tomita, sought to defraud investors by convincing them that shares in the fund’s portfolio were on the rise when in fact the stock price increases “were the artificial product of Hwang’s manipulative trading and deceptive conduct that caused others to trade,” the indictment said.
The move to inflate share prices caused the firm to expand rapidly, “increasing in value from approximately $1.5 billion with $10 billion in exposure in March 2020 to a value of more than $36 billion with $160 billion in exposure at its peak in March 2021,” said the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the market regulator.
Minister of Youth Development, Jamila Bio-Ibrahim, has said the Federal Government will restructure the National Youth Service Corps to make it a revenue-generating agency and to meet future demands.