CMB offers to return P450m

CMB, now under liquidation, was contracted by the BPOPF in 2014 to manage an initial P500 million investment mandate in private, unlisted equity.

The asset manager and the pension fund fell out in late 2017 with allegations of misappropriation, at which point CMB had reportedly being given P477 million to manage. The asset manager sent BPOPF P50 million back and said the amount was fulfillment and settlement of its (CMB’s) obligations under the contract. Prosecutors, empowered in part by the findings of a Court of Appeal-appointed statutory manager into CMB and complaints filed by the pension fund and others, are building cases against the asset manager’s directors, Tim Marsland and Rapula Okaile.