Access International Says Funds Invested With Madoff

By Saijel Kishan

Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Access International Advisors LLC said some of its funds invested with Bernard Madoff, who was charged with perpetrating a $50 billion fraud on hedge funds and wealthy investors.

Access, a New York-based investment firm, said in a letter to clients yesterday that funds including LUXALPHA SICAV- American Selection invested with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC and that it’s working with counsel to assess the situation. Access called Madoff’s arrest “a shocking development.”

The LUXALPHA SICAV fund had $1.4 billion in assets as of Nov. 17, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Investors in the fund include Rothschild & Cie Gestion, a unit of the Rothschild group, through its Elite fund.

Madoff, 70, confessed to employees this week that his investment company was “a giant Ponzi scheme” that cost clients $50 billion. Yesterday, a federal judge in New York ordered any remaining assets frozen while the FBI and other investigators try to determine what happened and where the money went.

To contact the reporters on this story: Saijel Kishan in New York at skishan@bloomberg.net