Boston-based analyst linked to Galleon case
NEW YORK - Balyasny Asset Management LP told investors that a former analyst based in Boston had contact with Steven Fortuna, a money manager in Boston who pleaded guilty in a Galleon Group LLC insider-trading case.
The equity analyst was employed in Boston until last month, according to two investors who spoke with Balyasny executives. The firm contacted the US Securities and Exchange Commission because the analyst worked in the same building as Fortuna, who is cooperating with federal prosecutors, said the investors, who asked not to be named because the information is private. The analyst was Mark Adams, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
Fortuna, 47, is the cofounder of S2 Capital Management LP, a Boston-based hedge-fund firm. In July 2008, he received key nonpublic information about an unnamed Massachusetts technology company from an unidentified coconspirator, according to a court document detailing the charges against him.
The coconspirator was an analyst at a Chicago-based hedge fund, the document shows. The company was EMC Corp., according to the Journal. Balyasny Asset is based in Chicago.
The analyst provided inside tips to Fortuna because they were friends and because the fund manager gave his friend information and trading advice, according to the document. Balyasny, which oversees $2 billion, hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing.
Adams, who also has not been charged with wrongdoing, did not return a phone call seeking comment. Before joining Balyasny, he was an analyst at SAC Capital Advisors LP of Stamford, Conn., where he worked from July 2005 through the end of 2007.
Galleon Group’s founder, Raj Rajaratnam, is the most prominent trader among 20 people charged in the past month in ongoing probes.
