Arpad “Arki” Busson was once the man to know in high finance.
Educated at the exclusive Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland, the boarding school whose alumni include Prince Rainier, the Duke of Kent and King Juan Carlos of Spain, Mr Busson rubbed shoulders with the world’s elite and led a lifestyle that was the envy of his peers in high-stakes hedge fund circles.
The 57-year-old made his millions after setting up his first hedge fund business, EIM, in 1992 and by the beginning of 2008 he had created an investment company with assets of almost $15bn (£12bn).
With the money came fame and soon after establishing EIM, Mr Busson, known as Arki to his friends, began dating the Australian supermodel Elle Macpherson, cementing his position in high society and making him a regular feature in the gossip columns. Mr Busson has two sons with Macpherson.
An investment management executive, who has met Mr Busson a number of times, told i: “At that time Arki had more friends than he knew what to do with. He was the man you needed to know if you wanted to meet people with influence.”
Rise and fall
In 2002 the French financier used that influence to set up Absolute Return for Kids, a charity that held a star-studded annual ball that became legendary in the UK capital. In 2007, he raised £27m in one night for Ark, where tables were reportedly sold for as much as £100,000 each.
It was a record for such a fundraising event, with Bill Clinton delivering the opening speech at Marlborough House in Pall Mall and Prince singing to guests. One of the auction prizes included a private dinner with the former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
By 2007 Mr Busson had split from Macpherson and started dating Hollywood actress Uma Thurman, with whom he has a daughter. They announced their engagement in 2008 but it was called off for the first time a year later.
It was around that time that cracks also began to appear in Mr Busson’s business empire. By 2009 EIM had lost almost half of its $15bn of assets under management as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, while his investment company became embroiled in Bernard Madoff’s $50bn Ponzi scheme, with Mr Busson making a $230m investment with the fraudster.
Problems mounted and turbulence followed. EIM was offloaded to Gottex Fund Management Holdings, a Swiss investment firm, in 2013. And in 2016 the company was renamed LumX.
Losses began to build with the latest set of accounts showing that LumX posted a loss of $13m in 2019, contributing to losses of more than $55m over the last five years. Over the same period, headcount at the firm fell from 139 employees to just 37 at the end of 2019.
Fall from grace
And on Tuesday LumX will be delisted from the Swiss stock market, marking a significant fall from grace for Mr Busson, who was once one of the hedge fund industry’s brightest lights.
Mr Busson declined to comment on how much shareholders might lose as a result of the stock market removal but in a statement to investors when the delisting was announced, Mr Busson was in his usual ebullient mood. “This decision will allow us to invest all our resources in the continued growth of our most promising strategic opportunity, which is the business of LumRisk, the group’s fintech and regtech subsidiary that continues to be our growth driver.
“My heartfelt thanks go today to the LumX investors who have stood by us over the years, as we have worked to refocus our business,” he said.