Amaranth Taps Fortress To Help Liquidate

Amaranth Advisors, the Greenwich, Conn.-based fund that lost upward of 65% of its $9.2 billion in assets on bad natural gas bets last month, is throwing in the towel, more or less. Firm founder Nicholas Maounis sent a letter to his investors saying Amaranth would suspend redemptions for September and October to enable the Amaranth funds to generate liquidity for investors in an orderly fashion, Bloomberg News reports. Apparently, the flood of redemption demands sank a possible tie-up with Citigroup Alternative Investments, which had considered buying all or part of Amaranth. The firm has hired New York-based hedge fund Fortress Investment Group to help it liquidate its assets and provide potential strategic support, Maounis said in a statement. Investors, says Maounis, will not be footing the bill, however. What's left of Amaranth the firm will cover that. And there may be more left of it than meets the eye: In his letter to investors, Maounis said Amaranth would remain open. It did not say what the firm would be doing.