Amber Capital Hedge Fund Gets Back Assets Frozen With Lehman

Amber Capital Investment Management, the hedge-fund firm co-founded by ex-Societe Generale SA trader Joseph Oughourlian, got back its remaining assets stranded in Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s prime-brokerage unit.

Amber plans to return about $600 million, or 60 percent of its hedge fund’s net asset value, to investors in the coming weeks, Oughourlian and Chief Financial Officer Michel Brogard said yesterday in a letter to clients. The New York-based firm suspended its $2.9 billion hedge fund, which fell 26 percent last year, waived fees and started disbursing investor money after Lehman collapsed in September.

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About 700 hedge funds and investment firms, including GLG Partners Inc., lost control of assets when New York-based Lehman filed for the biggest bankruptcy on record. Amber, which invests in companies involved in mergers and spinoffs, had about $600 million of securities in Lehman’s prime brokerage. Amber told clients in January that it had gotten back about half.

The firm has returned about $2.4 billion, or more than 80 percent of investors’ assets, according to the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News. The fund’s remaining holdings include equity investments, which Amber is selling, and cash collateral that it posted to Lehman to help secure the early return of its money, the letter said.