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Dutch financial website www.inveztor.nl announced, in a communication to Opalesque, that the Mercurius Investment fund had been in a voluntary liquidation procedure since January of this year. It is highly unlikely that investors will recoup a significant part of their money.

Mercurius was founded in 2002 by Michiel Visser, a former ABN Amro employer, as a high volatility, high return fund with a target return of 25% per year net of fees. Assets under managements reached € 39m at its peak. Mercurius, a Cayman Islands based fund with FSA regulated Mercurius Capital Management as the investments manager, applied leverage of on average 150%. Some of the remaining core holdings, consisting of illiquid micro caps, ran into trouble in 2007 as the intended catalysts did not materialize, but the reason for Visser to pull the plug was that the fund didn't reach the critical mass of at least € 75m (US$118.85m) AUM after five years in operation.

The liquidator, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, raised questions about unmatched trades, movements of shares outside the fund accompanied by option agreements, and a switch of prime brokers. PWC estimates that it appears likely that investors will suffer a significant shortfall on their investments.

A year ago, Mr. Vissier wrote in Bellier Financial that Mercurius was actively looking for stocks that were subject to takeover rumours - with a premium built into the price because of the rumours - to short sell and that Me......................

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