Receiver sets Norshield investor meeting

Retail clients will get a chance to learn more about the fate of their investments in the failed Olympus United hedge funds next month.

RSM Richter, the receiver for the Norshield Group, has announced an investor information meeting for February 21 in Toronto, with videoconference links for investors in Montreal and Vancouver. The meeting comes after months of wrestling by the receiver with the opaque investment structures Norshield used.

There were roughly 1900 Canadian investors in various Olympus United funds managed by the Norshield Group. All together, they invested $132 million.

In RSM Richter’s second report, the receiver said that it had recovered $4 million in assets, with the potential to recover another $4.5 million. Further recoveries would depend on what assets a fund called Mosaic Composite held — 90% of the Olympus funds went to the Mosaic Composite — and the resolution of competing claims over its share of an option contract. But the receiver held out slim hope for further recoveries.

Institutional and direct investors put in another $350 million into Norshield Group investments. Given the receiver’s second report, some have written off their investments. Industrial Alliance wrote off $77.9 million, while the city of Sherbrooke’s pension fund wrote off another $16 million.

Filed by Scot Blythe, Advisor.ca, scot.blythe@advisor.rogers.com.

(01/31/06)