Hedge fund operators go on trial after multibillion

NEW YORK (AP) — A fraud trial began Monday for the founder of a hedge fund that cost leading global investment banks and brokerages billions of dollars when it collapsed.

A prosecutor portrayed Bill Hwang, the founder of Archegos Capital Management, as a greedy man hoping to become a Wall Street legend while his lawyer said he was an honest investor fearless about losing money in stocks he believed in. Hwang is on trial along with his former CFO Patrick Halligan.

Hwang and his co-conspirators artificially inflated nearly a dozen stocks before a meltdown three years ago wiped out the company he created and caused the collapse of over $100 billion in market value, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors have accused Hwang of lying to banks to get billions of dollars that his New York-based private investment firm then used to inflate the stock price of publicly traded companies and grow its portfolio from $10 billion to $160 billion.

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