Optimus Fund Sellers Accuse 'Asset Management Company' of Fraud Charges

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Hyun-seok] Fund distributors have filed fraud charges against executives of Optimus Asset Management, which is facing a fund redemption suspension crisis.

According to the financial investment industry on the 22nd, securities firms selling the Optimus Creator Fund submitted a complaint to the prosecution on the same day, accusing executives of Optimus Asset Management of fraud and other charges.

This fund, which has been sequentially established 54 times from last year to recently, is a specialized private equity fund that attracted investors by introducing that more than 95% of the included assets are public institution accounts receivable.

The asset management company listed bond names in the statements of these funds as if they included products matching the management purpose, such as "○○ Corporation accounts receivable." However, it has been identified that in reality, they mainly included private bonds unrelated to public institution accounts receivable, such as private bonds issued by unlisted companies.

Earlier, the distributors also revealed that they secured statements indicating document forgery during the process of checking the asset status of the 25th and 26th funds, whose maturities were extended.

Optimus Asset Management reportedly expressed that they too belatedly confirmed that H Law Firm, which prepared the bond transfer contract and transfer notification confirmation, had forged the documents. The distributors are also reported to have applied for provisional seizure of the account assets of the custodian bank related to the Creator Fund on the same day to recover the related assets.

Previously, the alternative investment specialized management company, Optimus Asset Management, requested the distributors to extend the maturity of the Optimus Creator 25th and 26th funds one day before their maturity on the 17th. The redemption suspension scale of these two funds is about 38 billion KRW.

The scale of funds with suspended redemptions or remaining maturities includes 440.7 billion KRW sold by NH Investment & Securities and 28.7 billion KRW sold by Korea Investment & Securities. The sales volume of just these two companies amounts to approximately 470 billion KRW.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.