No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller by Harry Markopolos Read Free Book Online

International Advisors. Basically, Access was a hedge fund of funds whose investments were spread among several other hedge funds. It was what I always referred to as fighting size, meaning it managed more than $1 billion. I only found out later that almost all of its clients were European royalty or high-born old money.
     
    As I told Frank, “I’ve heard from Tim Ng that his boss found a manager who’s putting out one to two percent a month or more net to client. Would that help you in building these principle-protected notes?”
     
    The fact is that I was curious to see how this manager could consistently generate such a high return. Nobody ever beats the market month after month—nobody. The market can go up, remain neutral, or go down. There is no single strategy that provides a consistent return no matter what the market does. So I told Frank, “Why don’t you go down there and figure out what their game is?”
     
    Frank wanted to know about this manager, too; if he really was that good, Frank could refer him to the banks that were building portfolios for Rampart. If he actually had discovered the holy grail, we could use him in our products.
     
    They met in Access’s Madison Avenue office. Unlike so many of the elaborately decorated financial offices, this one was tastefully but simply decorated. It was an open plan, with steel desks side by side: a working office. Tim explained to Frank that he didn’t handle that side of the business and set up an appointment for him with the CEO of Access, a Frenchman named Thierry de la Villehuchet. Like Frank, I would eventually get to know and like Thierry very much. Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet was a terrific person, a French nobleman who, as it tragically turned out, truly was a noble man, a man of honor. He wasn’t an expert in financial math, but he was a great salesman. He and another Frenchman, Patrick Littaye, had founded Access. Both Thierry and Patrick had lived in the United States long enough to consider themselves Americans. They loved the American entrepreneurial spirit and considered themselves Americans in spirit. Thierry believed completely in American values. He took the Statue of Liberty very seriously. As Thierry once explained to me, in a French accent tempered by the years he’d lived here, “The French are socialists; we’re not socialists. Americans are capitalists; we’re capitalists. We believe in economic freedom; therefore we’re Americans.”
     
    Thierry had a medium build, and everything about him was impeccable. He was always formal, always dressed in a suit and tie. The product he was marketing was himself, and he sold it well. I never knew precisely how old he was, but I guessed he was in his mid-50s when we met. I never knew how wealthy he was, but clearly he was a quietly rich man. Like Frank, Thierry was passionate about sailing, and one afternoon I took him to a shop that specialized in miniature sailboats and nautical items for home decor. He bought a miniature sailboat for $5,000 for his home in Westchester County, New York. “Maybe I overpaid,” he told me, “but I loved that boat.”
     
    As it turned out, Thierry had his own motive for meeting Frank Casey. While his firm was called “International,” almost all the investments managed by Access came from Europe, and Thierry was trying to raise Wall Street money. So during this first meeting with Frank, Thierry spent considerable time promoting his company. That’s probably why he was unusually candid about the business. “At first I was the hedge fund unit of a French bank in the United States,” he explained. “I built this business basically to find the best managers early in their careers and lock them up for capacity, so later when people wanted to invest with them I would have access to them. Therefore the name of our firm: Access to the best managers. That’s what we provide for our clients.”
     
    When Frank asked him specifically about the