Sentinel Management Group Inc, a cash-management firm which froze client withdrawals three days ago, filed for bankruptcy after a judge sought to block it from selling assets to hedge fund company Citadel Investment Group LLC.
Sentinel, a Northbrook, Illinois-based firm that oversees US$1.6 billion, stopped the withdrawals last Tuesday, causing brokers Farr Financial Inc and Velocity Futures LP to sue.
Farr claimed the freeze blocked access to client funds. Velocity joined the suit suit yesterday, seeking to keep its own clients' assets from being sold to Citadel because the assets are being sold at a 15 percent discount. The assets may have already been sold, lawyers for both sides told US District Judge Ronald Guzman in Chicago federal court yesterday.
"Sentinel's representations to the court were that the deal was done, with perhaps only US$10 million to US$15 million that hadn't been transferred," Matthew Crowl, a lawyer representing Velocity, said in an interview.
"You'd think that they'd be in great shape if they had this huge influx of cash," Crowl said.
The Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which Sentinel said would allow it to restructure its debt, lists both assets and liabilities in excess of US$100 million.
Sentinel froze withdrawals after saying turmoil in the credit markets made it impossible to trade without incurring losses.
The threats of legal action from the firm's clients may foreshadow a flurry of lawsuits across the industry, as asset managers battered by market declines are forced to unload holdings at fire-sale prices.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained