‘Indian origin billionaire investor Rajaratnam accused of pocketing $4M on Hilton deal’

March 22nd, 2011 - 2:20 pm ICT by ANI  

Washington, Mar 22 (ANI): US federal prosecutors have said that Indian origin billionaire investor Raj Rajaratnam, founder of Galleon Group who was arrested over an alleged 20 million dollars insider trading scheme, had pocketed four million dollars in a day by doubling his stake in Hilton before the hotel chain announced a takeover by private-equity firm Blackstone Group.

The New York Post quoted Special Assistant US Attorney Andrew Michaelson as saying that Rajaratnam had bought 400,000 additional shares of Hilton on July 3 prior to the company’s announcement after the markets closed. Previously, the hedge fund firm owned 475,700 Hilton shares.

Margaret Holloway, then the boss of former Moody’s analyst Deep Shah, who was declared a fugitive two years ago and was recently located in Mumbai, were the prime witnesses in the case.

Shah is accused of informing ex-Intel executive Roomy Khan about the Hilton takeover, and the latter reportedly had passed on the information to Rajaratnam.

The Indian-origin investor faces 25 years of imprisonment if convicted.

Former Goldman Sachs Director Rajat Gupta, who is accused of sharing inside information with hedge fund trader Raj Rajaratnam, had hit back at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday over the allegations.

Gupta had denied allegations and had accused the SEC of unfairly ruining his reputation by bringing a shoddy case and depriving him of a trial by jury. (ANI)

Related Stories

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in World |

Subscribe