Hedge Fund Collapse Rocks Florida’s Rich

Contributing Editor

4 March 2005

The collapse of KL Financial Group, a Palm Beach, Florida-based hedge fund, is having widespread repercussions among some of America’s wealthiest citizens. The US Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are currently investigating what happened to the $200 million-$300 million assets KL Financial Group was managing. The hedge fund held the accounts of some of Palm Beach’s wealthiest residents, according to reports in the local media. KL Financial founder John Kim started the company in California in 1999. He moved the fund to Florida two years ago to offices in Palm Beach. One of the fund's partners, Ron Kochman, a Palm Beach lawyer who steered clients to the fund and invested himself, told the local media: “I'm going through a very tough time. My clients and I have lost everything.” Gary Klein, a Boca Raton attorney who represents 20 KL investors with $15 million to $20 million in the fund, said: “A lot of people in this town lost serious money.”