International Olympic Committee (IOC) finance commission chairman Richard Carrion told the Associated Press the IOC has about $4.8 million at risk in an alleged Ponzie scheme by Bernard Madoff, a 70-year-old former Nasdaq stock market chairman, who was arrested last week.
Carrion told the Associated Press, “that could be the maximum loss”. He added the IOC’s money wasn’t directly in Madoff funds. “They’re in funds invested in Madoff funds”.
IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said the Madoff affair would have “limited impact” on the IOC’s overall finances.
Carrion said, “it’s a little over one per cent of the money in the portfolio. It is possible that we could lose a substantial portion of that. That is not something that makes us very happy”.
Last week Carrion said the IOC has financial reserves of more than $400 million – a fund designed to keep the Olympics afloat in the event of the Games being cancelled.
Carrion added the IOC has policies in place to limit major concentrations of money, but the Madoff scam has caught the organization off guard. “This is obviously something unexpected because this is a fraud. It’s never any fun when you lose money”.
Carrion said at an IOC meeting in Lausanne last week that the amount of money in the IOC reserves had dropped about 14 per cent in recent months due to the fall in stock prices and the strengthening of the U.S. dollar against the IOC’s non-dollar investments. Saturday Carrion reiterated that other monies are hurting the IOC more, reports the Associated Press.
He said, “probably the improvement of the other currencies vis-
