About 15 miles from midtown Manhattan, in suburban Tenafly lives the head of Archegos Capital Management Bill Hwang —  the man who just lost more than $20 billion.

US prosecutors are still struggling for answers. Was all of this another spectacle of Wall Street greed and hubris, or was it something worse? Credit Suisse Group AG, which took a $5.5 billion hit, says it was likely deceived by Hwang’s office, reports Bloomberg.

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In an assessment of what went wrong, an independent review repeatedly criticised the bank’s risk management practices, though it did add there was no evidence of fraudulent or illegal activity, reports Reuters.

In the first official version of what went wrong, global investment bank Credit Suisse says that Archegos probably deceived them and hid facts.  A 172-page analysis, released on July 29, exposed a string of management failures at the bank, the agency adds. 

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“It seems likely that Archegos deceived CS and obfuscated the true extent of its positions, which Archegos amassed in the midst of an unprecedented global pandemic,” the report said, according to Bloomberg.

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The report hints at a shift in Hwang’s strategy, something that didn’t add up. Archegos had grown rapidly by making huge bets on established FAANG stocks – blue-chip US technology companies. But by last year, it was pushing money into riskier bets like ViacomCBS and several US-listed Chinese stocks, some of which had been targeted by short sellers, the agency adds.

This resulted in banks dumping Hwang’s portfolio, as a result of which these shares tumbled. This was followed up by a crackdown by the Chinese government. This further eroded many of Hwang’s favoured bets.

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Only months ago, Archegos boasted holdings  valued at more than $120 billion. Today, everyone is lining up for the scraps. Even the landlord of his Manhattan office is suing Archegos for unpaid rent. 

Hwang’s 38th-floor offices in the building across have mostly been vacated and his Christian charity, the Grace and Mercy Foundation, has shifted to a cheaper 22nd floor in the same building. 

But, there is another angle to the story. While his employees say they have been wiped out, they feel that Hwang, through private investments and other holdings away from Archegos, could still be a billionaire.

One such investment was the seed money he poured into four of Cathie Wood’s exchange traded funds that have exploded in popularity thanks to their market-beating returns.

The Swiss bank report also mentions that Hwang’s firm took out more than $2 billion from its account with the lender in the days before the collapse.