Hedge fund shuts down after sexual harassment and assault allegations against its founder, who claims to be a victim of ‘the woke brigade’

The firm said on its website Tuesday that the entire business, including Brook Asset Management and Odey Wealth, will be closing. Its funds will either shutter or move to other companies. 

Odey Asset Management has been spiraling since the Financial Times reported numerous sexual harassment and assault allegations against its founder, Crispin Odey, who has disputed the claims. Numerous banks have cut ties with his firm and investors have raced for the exits, forcing the company to shut two funds and suspend several others.

In June, Odey was removed from the firm that he’d established in 1991, and the hedge funds he ran until his departure have been transfered to Bainbridge Partners, where his former co-manager Freddie Neave will run them. 

The claims about Odey’s behavior sparked months of negotiations as the fund managers at his firm tried to find other asset managers to house them and their money pools. Oliver Kelton moved to SW Mitchell Capital, whose founder Stuart Mitchell formerly worked at JO Hambro Investment Management at the same time as Kelton, according to their LinkedIn profiles.

The Brook Global Emerging Markets Fund — run by Sophia Whitbread, the only female portfolio manager at the firm — was shuttered.

With his company being wound down, the question is what Crispin Odey does next.

In late June, he approached a private investigator to discuss the “massive witch hunt” he faced. In a recording of their conversation, 64-year-old Odey criticized his treatment by the media and said he had been targeted by “the woke brigade,” adding that he planned to clear his name. Seth Freedman, who runs London-based corporate intelligence firm Red Mist, ultimately didn’t work with Odey. 

Asked by the investigator about the swift expulsion by his company and counterparties, Odey said his partners had no grounds to take the business away from him. 

“It served my corner quite well because they then had a death as far as they were concerned, the woke brigade, you know,” he said at the time. “So they stop and actually I then gather everything back up together and I then say ‘hey, let’s wait.’” 

Two of Odey’s alleged victims sued the manager and his firm over sexual abuse allegations earlier this year. No details of the claims have been public yet.