Patricia Watters sees opportunity in scandal.
Following the investment scandals of Bernie Madoff, Irvine’s Danny Pang and Allen Stanford, who have been accused of stealing clients’ money through massive Ponzi schemes, Watters founded Newport Beach-based Catalina Consulting Partners LLC to help keep tabs on money managers.
“I think there’s a new Ponzi scheme every week,” she said. “I saw this as an opportunity for a new business.”
Started last month, her company checks up on the investments of hedge funds and money managers to make sure her clients’ money is invested where it’s supposed to be.
Watters left her job as chief operating officer of a group of hedge funds at Pacific Alternative Asset Management Co. in Irvine to start this company.
She is targeting endowments, foundations and family trusts as potential customers.
Aside from outright scandal, the company looks into other potential trouble areas such as the holdings of funds and compliance issues.
Catalina also plans to serve as a consultant to money managers, such as hedge funds, to help them attract institutional investors.
Customers likely are to be from the West Coast. There are about 130 companies operating as investment advisers in Orange County, she said.
Watters works with partner Mason Snyder, formerly a senior manager and then director at Deloitte & Touche LLP in Los Angeles.
There are about 10 employees at Catalina who are in offices in London, San Francisco and Boston.
The actual money monitoring takes some leg work.
Tracking investment money comes down to actually checking accounts to see that it’s there, Watters said. Most companies should be pretty accommodating, she said.
“If they wouldn’t let us see, that would be a warning,” Watters said.
Watters also is betting that the government will require more scrutiny of money managers, pushing potential business her way.
“I expect something to come out of the Obama administration,” she said. “Talk of regulating large hedge funds has been circulating for some time.”
Major investment banks offer competing services to Catalina’s. But some have cutback with the collapse of the market, Watters said.
Catalina is offering its services on a project-by-project basis as well as for retainer.
