The US Department of Justice has reportedly launched a probe into this spring’s dramatic implosion of Archegos Capital Management, which slammed some of the world’s biggest banks with more than $10 billion in losses.
Federal prosecutors sent requests for information to some of the banks that conducted business with the massive but little-known family office run by disgraced financier Bill Hwang before its epic collapse in March, according to a Bloomberg report.
Hwang relied on massive leverage and risky derivatives to take concentrated positions. When the massive bets he’d made on ViacomCBS and Discovery went south, he failed to meet margin calls and his brokers tried to liquidate their positions — his collateral — as quickly as possible.
The move spurred a frantic, market-melting fire sale that left Credit Suisse with more than $5 billion in losses and Japanese bank Nomura with $3 billion in losses. US banks like Goldman Sachs were quicker to get out of their positions and escaped the incident largely unscathed.
The implosion of Archegos Capital Management slammed banks across the globe, saddling them with a combined $10 billion in losses.Alamy Stock Photo
In the wake of the Archegos collapse, regulators have sought to understand
