Donna Wood

Investment advisor Ian Renert has been portrayed in a lawsuit as a bungling fraudster who genuinely believes that bank debenture trading programs exist and who signed mutual fund documents in the names of his pet geese.Renert, who controlled 36 mutual fund firms that were mostly incorporated in the Bahamas, has been accused of defrauding at least 850 investors who invested $22 million from June, 1997 to April, 1999.

The Securities & Exchange Commission has filed a civil lawsuit against US-based Ian Laurence Renert and his unregistered, Bahamas-based mutual fund group Hawthorne-Sterling & Co., for an alleged $22 million fraud.   As part of the complaint, an emergency order freezing the assets of both parties was granted on June 7, 2001 by the US District Court in Connecticut.

An unlicensed, unaudited mutual fund group into which over 550 investors invested approximately $13.2 million has been forced into Receivership by the Bahamas Securities Commission. It has triggered a bitter legal battle for control of the Hawthorne-Sterling family of funds between their Receiver, accountant Clifford Culmer, and their founder, American Ian L. Renert.