Merkin Investors To Get $200 Million Back

Investors in two Bernard Madoff feeder funds are set to get a decent chunk of their money back.

Bart Schwartz, the court-appointed receiver in the case, this week filed a plan to return $200 million to 278 investors in J. Ezra Merkin’s Ariel Fund and Gabriel Capital Corp. The figure represents only about one-sixth of the $1.2 billion Merkin investors lost in the Madoff scandal, although Schwartz said that, on average, investors would get back about one-third of their losses.

All told, Schwartz has recouped about $270 million for the funds’ investors. The funds, which had only about 30% of their assets invested with Madoff, and the rest with Cerberus Capital Management, still hold roughly $1 billion in assets awaiting liquidation.

Unlike his old friend Madoff, who is serving 150 years in prison for running the largest Ponzi scheme in history, Merkin, a former chairman of GMAC, has not been charged criminally. But he is battling a series of lawsuits, including one filed by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.