Jacob Jay Gottlieb, CFA, M.D., recently served as a Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer for Visium Asset Management, LLC. Visium was formed by Mr.Gottlieb in 2005. The hedge fund firm was recently shut down in the midst of a Wall Street scandal involving insider trading and for mismarking. It was ultimately determined that members of the staff would be charged with wrongdoing. The term mismarking refers to the act of inflating the value of an asset. Jacob Gottlieb was not charged with any wrongdoing as a result of the investigation.

He is now considering starting another hedge fund. Mr. Gottlieb would need to reach out to his contacts to raise the funds. He has not made up his mind about that, however, he has already opened a new investment firm. At 46 years of age, he knows he is not ready to end his investing career. He has been an investor for many years, dating back to his teens. Jacob has named the new company Altium Capital. At this point, only Jacob, his brother Mark, and a few other people are employed at the new company. Mark Gottlieb serves in the role of Chief Operating Officer of Altium. They are mainly managing Gottlieb’s own personal financial portfolio. Similar to the scope of Visium, the company will focus on growth opportunities for investing in the health care sector. He is a doctor and therein lies his interests. Jacob Gottlieb had already started the process of liquidating the Visium hedge fund back in 2016, and he wanted to start again. The fund had been valued at approximately $8 billion at the time it was shut down.

The investigation resulted in the tragic ending of the life of one of Visium’s high ranking executives. The federal prosecutors were already investigating the matter in 2016. They found Sanjay Valvani guilty of wrongdoing, and he was charged with insider trading, among other charges. Mr. Valvani was a portfolio manager and a partner of the health care fund at the time. He was accused of having inside knowledge of a generic drug approval that was pending. Sanjay Valvani was found dead only a few days later. He was found in his home in what would have appeared to be a suicide. Federal prosecutors additionally charged Mr. Stefan Lumiere with mismarking securities that were holdings in one of the company’s fixed income funds. He pleaded guilty to the charges, and he received a prison sentence for the crime. The sentence would be followed by a supervised release after 18 months that would last for a period of 3 years. He was also fined $1 million.

Stefan Lumiere was a former portfolio manager for the company. He was also Jacob’s brother-in-law at the time. Other members of the firm were also involved in the federal investigation. Mr. Christopher Plaford pleaded guilty to mismarking. Additionally, Visium’s former Chief Financial Officer was barred from practicing in the industry for 12 months. Mr. Steven Ku was found to have failed to properly supervise the aforementioned staff members at Visium, and he received a fine of $100,000.