Archegos Founder Bill Hwang Is Sentenced to 18 Years

A federal judge sentenced Bill Hwang, the founder of Archegos Capital Management, on Wednesday to 18 years in prison for his role in the collapse of his once-giant investment firm that caused roughly $10 billion in losses for Wall Street banks.Mr.Hwang, whose legal name is Sung Kook Hwang, was convicted in July by a federal jury in Manhattan after nearly two days of deliberation after a two-month trial.

Federal prosecutors called 21 witnesses, including two former employees at Archegos, which Mr.Hwang had set up in 2013 as a giant family office.Archegos traded like a hedge fund for much of it existence, using borrowed money from Wall Street banks to make big bets on stocks.

But because it was a family office that managed mainly Mr.Hwang’s family money, it operated without much regulatory oversight.The sudden collapse in 2021 of Archegos — which managed $36 billion of Mr.

Hwang’s family money — wiped out most of his personal fortune in addition to causing the steep losses for the banks that had facilitated his firm’s trading.The broader impact of Archegos’s failure on the stock market was limited, but several banks, including UBS, Morgan Stanley and Nomura, suffered losses.In all, Mr.Hwang, 60, was charged with 11 counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, racketeering and market manipulation.

The jury found him guilty on 10 of those charges and found him not guilty on one of the seven counts of market manipulation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....