Poor performance by Vega Asset Management’s main fund, Select Opportunities Fund, has placed the HF under scrutiny, the Wall Street Journal reports. Vega’s head, Ravinder Mehra, a native of India and a former trader at Citigroup and HSBC Holdings, started Vega in 1996 with $25 million after working at Spain’s Banco Santander Central Hispano. Vega lured investors by enabling them to withdraw money on a monthly basis, with 30-days notice. He also instituted risk-management policies that gave investors insight to large trades, and more notably, forced Vega traders to abandon positions after considerable losses or signs of extreme volatility. At the height of business in 2004, Vega was managing $12 billion, but poor bond bets and internal risk policies contributed to big losses for the main fund. While the Vega Select fund maintains average annual returns of 12.3% since 2000, his other funds post meager 7% gains. Vega’s risk policy forced it to dump a number of positions before the bond market plummeted, which if they’d held out, would’ve yielded big profits. Mehra is the first to admit his faults and though many have recently pulled their money, he is asking current investors to give him 90 days to turn the situation around before they withdraw funds.