Private company

Fairfield Greenwich Group

Logo: http://dealbreaker.com/2008/12/presented-without-comment-the-fairfield-greenwich-group/, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons³

American investment firm

Fairfield Greenwich Group is an investment firm founded in 1983 in New York City. The firm had among the largest exposures to the Bernard Madoff fraud.² Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1983Founded¹

Industryinvestment management¹
HeadquartersNew York City¹

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Fairfield Greenwich Group is an investment firm founded in 1983 in New York City. The firm had among the largest exposures to the Bernard Madoff fraud.²

The story

The firm was founded in 1983 by Walter M. Noel Jr. At one time, the firm operated from Noel's adopted hometown in Greenwich, Connecticut, before relocating its headquarters to New York City, New York.

In 1989, Noel merged his business with a small brokerage firm whose general partner was Jeffrey Tucker, who had worked as a lawyer in the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Both Noel and Tucker are semi-retired.

Fairfield offered feeder funds of single-strategy trading managers. Fairfield also started several fund of funds, each investing in a basket of hedge funds, though the offering of feeder funds has been the primary business of Fairfield. It described its investigation of investment options as "deeper and broader" than competitive firms, because of Tucker's regulatory experience.

Fairfield Greenwich's website says it "employs a significantly higher level of due diligence work than typically performed by most fund of funds and consulting firms". It is an employee-owned firm with 140 employees, 21 of whom are shareholders. At one time, it reported $16 billion in assets under management.

It was reported that foreign investors provided 95% of its managed assets, 68% from Europe, 6% from Asia, and 4% from the Middle East. Each of Noel's four daughters married into international families.

In 2008, Fairfield Greenwich reported more than $14 billion in assets under management.

Walter M. Noel, Jr. and family

Presently, Walter Noel has a 17% ownership interest.

Walter Miller Noel, Jr. was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1930 to Walter and Corinne (née Travis) Noel. At the time of Noel's birth, his father was a mortgage appraiser. The family moved to Kenmore, New York, a suburb of Buffalo, where Noel was raised. Noel attended Montgomery Bell Academy, Vanderbilt University and Harvard Law School. Noel had previously been a private banker in Lausanne, Switzerland, then worked at Citigroup, before becoming the head of Chemical Bank's international private banking practice in Nigeria, Switzerland, and Brazil.

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Noel met his Brazilian-born wife, Monica Haegler, who hails from a prominent Swiss family, while she was studying at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. They have five daughters and 19 grandchildren. Their daughters married into families that provided additional connections for the firm and helped funnel money into Madoff's fund:

His eldest daughter, Corina, married Colombian Andrés Piedrahita in 1989; she lives in Madrid, London and Manhattan.

Lisina, who lives in Milan, married Yanko Della Schiava, the son of the editor of Cosmopolitan in Italy and of the editor of Harper's Bazaar in Italy and France.

Ariane married Florence-born Marco Sodi, head of VSS's London-based affiliate, Veronis Suhler Stevenson International, and a partner and managing member of Veronis Suhler Stevenson Funds. They live in Notting Hill, London.

Alix married Philip Jamchid Toub, the son of a director of the Saronic Shipping Company in Lausanne, Switzerland. He is also a former FGG partner, and the couple lives in Greenwich.

The youngest daughter, Marisa, married Matthew Brown, an asset manager and the son of a former mayor of San Marino, California. Marisa listed her New York townhouse after the Madoff revelations; she is now a jewelry designer and founder of TRE, an accessories business.

Three of Noel's sons-in-law eventually became partners, promoting the firm's funds in their home countries and other regions, and funneled money into Bernie Madoff's funds. Piedrahita was named a Fairfield founding partner in 2007; he owns 22 percent and became one of the firm's dominant representatives of European and Latin American banking and investment. Della Schiava helmed Noel funds in Madrid and Lugano, Switzerland. Toub was the "agent" for the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the Safra National Bank of New York, and the National Bank of Kuwait. Monica Noel's niece, Bianca Haegler, a well-known Brazilian socialite, and her father, Alex, reportedly steered Brazilian investors to the firm, as did her cousin Jorge Paulo Lemann, Brazil's richest financier, co-owner of InBev, Budweiser's parent company.

Jeffrey Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker also had a 17% interest in the firm. Though he is not as prominent as the Noels, Tucker benefited from Fairfield's success. In 2007, Tucker, chairman of Empire Racing, led the group of thoroughbred investors, who sought to bid for New York State's horse-racing franchise.

Joint venture

In 2004, the firm formed a partnership with Lion Capital of Singapore, now Lion Global Investors, and created Lion Fairfield Capital Management, a joint venture meant to introduce Asian investors to the firm. Richard Landsberger, a Fairfield partner, is director.

Merger

In September 2008, Banque Bénédict Hentsch, a private Swiss bank, managing $2 billion in assets, merged with Fairfield Greenwich Group, intending to create an $18 billion venture in combined assets. Bénédict Hentsch, founder and chairman of the board of directors, stated that clients would gain access to Fairfield Greenwich's funds, while Fairfield Greenwich clients would be able to access BBH's wealth management services. Bénédict Hentsch and Robert Pennone became directors of Fairfield Greenwich Group, and Charles Murphy and Mark McKeefry joined the board of Banque Bénédict Hentsch Fairfield Partners SA.

In mid-December 2008, it terminated the merger due to the Madoff crisis. It had $47.5 million of client assets at risk with Madoff.

The founding shareholders of the bank have terminated their partnership with the Fairfield Greenwich Group. They have concluded an agreement with the latter whereby they have repurchased the total capital of the bank... Banque Bénédict Hentsch have immediately taken all appropriate steps in order to protect the interests of its clients and those of the bank.

From Wikipedia’s article on Fairfield Greenwich Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.⁴

Products and brands

hedge fund

Listed on Wikidata.¹

Controversies and legal

Lawsuits

Investor lawsuits

Fairfield Greenwich was a defendant in a class action seeking to recoup losses resulting from Fairfield Greenwich funds' investments with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. The class action was a result of the consolidation of multiple cases filed in federal and state court against Fairfield Greenwich. On September 29, 2009, a second amended consolidated complaint was filed. The complaint also named as defendants the placement agent for the funds; Citco, the fund administrator and sub-custodian of the funds which calculated the net asset value (NAV) of the funds; and PricewaterhouseCoopers, the auditor of the funds. The complaint alleged fraud, violations of Rule 10b-5, violations of Section 20(a), negligent misrepresentation, gross negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, third-party beneficiary breach of contract, constructive trust, mutual mistake, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting fraud, and unjust enrichment.

In the case of Anwar v. Fairfield Greenwich (SDNY) relating to fund administrator liability for failure to handle its NAV-related obligations properly, the defendants settled in 2016 by paying the Anwar plaintiffs $235 million. The court held in the case, prior to the settlement, that it is reasonable to infer from Plaintiffs' allegations that the Administrators were aware that Plaintiffs would—and did—rely on their statements of the Funds' NAVs that were sent to the investors.... Accordingly, the Court finds that Plaintiffs allege a relationship between the investors and the Administrators that gives rise to a duty of care

Fairfield was also a defendant in a lawsuit filed in Miami against PricewaterhouseCoopers Ireland by investors in a fund marketed by defendant Banco Santander SA, Europe's second-largest bank by market value, which lost an estimated $3 billion.

Massachusetts action

On April 1, 2009, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin filed a civil action charging Fairfield Greenwich with fraud, breaching its fiduciary duty to clients by failing to provide promised due diligence on its investments. The complaint sought a fine and restitution to Massachusetts investors for losses and disgorgement of performance fees paid to Fairfield by those investors. It alleged that in 2005 Madoff coached Fairfield staff about ways to answer questions from SEC attorneys who were looking into Harry Markopolos' complaint about Madoff's operations.

The Secretary of State had stated that he had no plans to settle the lawsuit in spite of Fairfield Greenwich's offer to repay all Massachusetts investors, and said he was going to force Fairfield to explain e-mails and other evidence that appear to show company officials knew about potential problems with Madoff but failed to disclose them to clients. However, the action was settled on September 8, 2009. Fairfield Greenwich neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing, accepted a censure from state officials, agreed to provide restitution to Massachusetts investors, and paid a $500,000 fine.

Other lawsuits and investigations

On April 13, 2009, a Connecticut judge dissolved a temporary asset freeze from March 30, 2009, and issued an order for Walter Noel to post property pledges of $10 million against his Greenwich home and $2 million against Jeffrey Tucker's.

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Noel agreed to the attachment on his house "with no findings, including no finding of liability or wrongdoing". Andres Piedrahita's assets continued to remain temporarily frozen because he was never served with the complaint. The principals were all involved in a lawsuit filed by the town of Fairfield's pension funds. The pension fund case was Retirement Program for Employees of the Town of Fairfield v. Madoff, FBT-CV-09-5023735-S, Superior Court of Connecticut (Bridgeport).

On May 18, 2009, Irving Picard sued Fairfield Greenwich Group seeking the return of $3.2 billion covering the period from 2002 to Madoff's arrest in December 2008. $1.2 billion was withdrawn in the final three months of the fraud. Since 1995, the Fairfield funds invested about $4.5 billion with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, or BLMIS, through 242 wire transfers. The funds were Fairfield Sentry Ltd., Greenwich Sentry LP, and Greenwich Sentry Partners LP. However, it was conjectured that the money may already be in the hands of Fairfield's own clients, who are likely off-limits to Picard, since they weren't direct investors with Madoff.

On May 29, 2009, Fairfield Sentry, based in the British Virgin Islands, filed a complaint in New York State Supreme Court in Manhattan seeking to recover more than $919 million in investment management and performance fees that it paid to Fairfield, based upon "inflated net asset value reports of its investments with Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC... The Fairfield entity defendants recklessly disregarded their duties as the fund's risk and investment adviser and their actions and inactions constitute gross negligence." The lawsuit alleged breach of fiduciary duty, and unjust enrichment. It was "the largest victim of the fraud perpetrated by Bernard L. Madoff", losing $7 billion.

The defendants include founders Noel and Tucker and other fund partners who the plaintiffs alleged "failed to fulfill their contractual obligations to use best efforts to supervise the operations" of Madoff-related investments and to "oversee the day-to-day investment activities of the fund". The case was Fairfield Sentry Ltd. v. Fairfield Greenwich Group, 601687/2009, New York State Supreme Court (Manhattan).

On July 20, 2009, Justice Edward Alexander Bannister granted the request to liquidate the Fairfield Sentry funds, worth more than $7.2 billion in December 2008, now less than $70 million, incorporated in 1990 under the mutual fund statutes of the British Virgin Islands and technically under the control of their local directors.

Spanish anticorruption prosecutors investigated Fairfield Greenwich as well as Piedrahita to determine what they knew about Madoff's fraudulent funds when they sold them to Spanish clients. According to Fairfield's offices in Spain, Spanish investments totaled $89.1 million.

On November 19, 2010, both Greenwich Sentry, L.P. and Greenwich Sentry Partners, L.P. voluntarily filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in New York. Court filings blamed the bankruptcy filings on the cost of the Madoff-related litigation, and asserted a goal of reaching a global settlement of the litigation for the bankruptcy cases.