A Boulder-based money manager accused of losing clients’ investments to Ponzi schemes is continuing to wind down operations by shuttering its brick-and-mortar office off east Pearl, an official for the firm said.
The Agile Group plans to close its 4909 Pearl East Circle office as a result of its lease ending, said Randy Armour, who works for Agile.
Earlier this year, officials said they were winding down operations. In the fall of 2008, Agile froze its investors’ accounts and told those clients to expect heavy losses.
The local company investee money with the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.; Ponzi scheme operator Tom Petters, who was recently convicted on 20 criminal counts; and New York money manager Bernard Madoff, who received a 150-year sentence for fraud.
As Agile shuts its physical operations, a civil case is pending in Boulder County District Court.
Four Colorado residents filed the lawsuit in September against the Agile Group, its principal Neal Greenberg, AGL Life Assurance Co., Phoenix Equity Planning Corp. and John K. Hillman, an AGL official.
The plaintiffs alleged that the operators of the Boulder firm did not disclose the risky nature of the “Agile Safety Variable Fund” and that the leverage hedge fund was invested in “risky ventures and Ponzi scheme artists” and was unsuitable for the “older” clients’ nest eggs.
“Now, through the greed and wrongful conduct of Greenberg and AGL, Plaintiffs’ lives have been devastated and their retirement dreams have been destroyed,” the suit reads.
Agile officials filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming that, among other things, the clients were aware that the investment was leveraged and that fund managers had the right to invest funds as they saw fit.
“Rather than citing any specific examples of misrepresentation, the complaint relies on vague and general assertions that plaintiffs believed that the Agile Fund was a safe investment based on nothing more than the fact that Greenberg’s fund was called the ‘Agile Safety Variable Fund,'” attorneys for Agile said in the motion.
Agile officials said the Agile Fund lost most, if not all, of its value because of the financial meltdown and Ponzi schemes operated by Madoff and Petters.
Contact Camera Business Writer Alicia Wallace at 303-473-1332 or wallacea@dailycamera.com.
