(Bloomberg) -- A former Allianz SE hedge-fund manager avoided prison and will instead spend 18 months in home confinement for fraudulently inflating the value of funds that ultimately collapsed, resulting in $3.2 billion in investor losses.
Gregoire Tournant, the former chief investment officer of the US-based Structured Alpha group of Allianz hedge funds, was sentenced Friday by US District Judge Laura Taylor Swain in Manhattan. The penalty, which also included three years of probation, was far below the seven years in prison sought by federal prosecutors.
Tournant pleaded guilty in June to two counts of investment adviser fraud. Prosecutors said the fraud had allowed Tournant to earn tens of millions of dollars in compensation, much of which was based on the funds’ performance.
Swain said Friday that prosecutors failed to show that the billions in losses were directly tied to Tournant’s lies to investors. The judge pegged the loss at zero for sentencing purposes. She additionally expressed concern about Tournant’s ability to receive adequate medical care for severe health issues in prison.
Tournant’s lawyers had raised health problems requiring “constant, complex and cutting-edge medical care in arguing for home confinement instead of prison.
‘I’m Really Sorry’
Details of Tournant’s health are redacted from public court filings, but he told the judge in June that he was being treated for multiple neurological issues and coughed throughout the proceeding. His lawyers said that prison for Tournant would be “overly punitive and life threatening.”
Tournant coughed frequently during the sentencing hearing at which he expressed remorse for this actions.
“I’m really sorry for my conduct.” Tournant said, occasionally stammering. “I was wrong. I failed to comply with the law. I’m committed to try to do better.”
Tournant’s sentencing comes after an Allianz unit agreed in 2022 to pay $6 billion for misrepresenting the investment risk posed by Structured Alpha funds, as part of a plea agreement with the US Justice Department. The unit, Allianz Global Investors US, pleaded guilty to a single criminal charge of securities fraud in the deal.
Allianz sold 17 Structured Alpha funds to at least 114 pension funds and other institutional investors, according to the government. From January 2016 through March 2020, Tournant and two other managers made misleading statements about the funds’ risks and provided phony financial data to investors.
Prosecutors said the funds, which managed more than $11 billion at their height, lost about $7 billion after the Covid-19 pandemic hit in early 2020. More than $3.2 billion of that was lost principal. That amount should be attributed to Tournant’s fraud, they said.
An expert paid by Tournant calculated that the amount of loss tied to his actions is zero and that the investor losses were caused by the market downturn during the pandemic and other factors outside his control. Determining loss amount is a key part of calculating federal sentencing guidelines and how much a defendant has to pay in fines, forfeiture and restitution.
Two executives who worked with Tournant, Stephen Bond-Nelson and Trevor Taylor, also pleaded guilty in the case and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in hopes of leniency when they’re sentenced in February.
The case is US v. Tournant, 22-cr-00276, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
(Updates with detail from hearing, background.)
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