Left-Leaning Karma Banque Launching Activist Hedge Fund

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Left Leaning Karma Banque Launching Activist Hedge Fund

BY RODERICK BOYD - Staff Reporter of the Sun
January 13, 2005

Karma Banque, a left-wing organization dedicated to being a corporate gadfly, is trying to launch a $100 million hedge fund to sell short stocks it views as the biggest threats to individual freedom and environmental safety. Moreover, not content with merely saving the environment or mankind, the fund will return 98% of the profits to people and groups displaced by "past development cycles," according to the group's founder, Max Keiser.

The Karma Banque fund aims to force so-called exploitative corporations to the bargaining table via lowered stock prices. The current top-five targets are Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Microsoft, ExxonMobil. and Irish discount airline Ryanair.

"Bad press does not do it anymore; company managements need to be made to see there is a real economic cost for this behavior. A hedge fund is the perfect vehicle for this because they can bring billions of dollars in selling power to bear," Mr. Keiser said. In addition to the short-selling pressure on a target stock, Karma Banque will use its Web site to rally activists to the cause. "Most activists and their groups have either forgotten or never learned the power of concentrated economic activity," said Mr. Keiser.

The fund is to be jointly managed by Mr. Keiser, 43, a former stock-broker for PaineWebber, and the Ecologist magazine's editor-in-chief Zachary Goldsmith. Mr. Goldsmith is the 29-year-old environmental activist son of legendary 1980s corporate raider Sir James Goldsmith. The fund will guarantee investors a return of a little over 4%, unusual in hedge fund circles.

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http://www.karmabanque.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2086&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

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