The knives are out -- and the media feeding frenzy is on -- for Steven A. Cohen and his $15 billion hedge fund, SAC Capital Advisors. The firm last week told its investors in a letter that it no longer will cooperate unconditionally with federal investigators, and that the updates it provides about the progress of the government’s probe may be scant. The New York Times has reported that Cohen received a subpoena to testify before a grand jury.
There has been lots of speculation about what this means. SAC clients will have to make decisions about whether to keep their money there, even if the information available to them is imperfect. What does the future hold for Cohen individually? He may not know himself. One thing we can conclude: The government probably has enough evidence to indict SAC Capital or one of its subsidiaries already. The question of whether it should indict is another matter. At least nine current or former SAC employees have been linked to insider trading while working at the firm, including four who have pleaded guilty to crimes, according to Bloomberg News’s tally.
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