DOJ Wants Och-Ziff (OZM) to Plead Guilty : Report

Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC (OZM) is one of today’s notable stocks in decline, down as much as 22 percent following a WSJ report that the U.S. Department of Justice [DOJ] wants the hedge fund to plead guilty to alleged bribery.

OZM disclosed in a 10K filing in March 2014 that it was subject to an investigation by the SEC and the DOJ regarding an investment made by the Libyan Investment Authority into Och-Ziff’s funds. At the time, the New York City-based hedge fund said the investigation “concerns an investment by a foreign sovereign wealth fund in some Och-Ziff funds in 2007 and investments by some of the funds, both directly and indirectly, in a number of companies in Africa”. Och-Ziff added that it was “unable to determine how the investigation will conclude” and warned that an “adverse outcome could have a material effect” on it.

The probe has obviously hurt the company with Och-Ziff stock loosing as much as 80% of its value since January 2014. OZM recently traded at $3.09, a loss of $0.71 over Monday’s closing price. The name has a current market capitalization of $559.86 million.

As for passive income investors, the firm pays shareholders $0.16 per share annually in dividends, yielding 4.32%. Five year average dividend yield currently stands at 10.31%.

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