Bear cashes out failed fund

Bear Stearns Cos. Inc. has seized the assets from one of its troubled hedge funds, according to published reports. New York-based Bear Stearns will continue to liquidate its High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund, one of two failed hedge funds. Bear Stearns took the assets after waiting more than a week for more cash to repay its $1.6 billion line of credit—which was intended to bail the fund out, a source told The Wall Street Journal. The firm hopes to establish hedges in order to protect against falling prices in the future, Bear Stearns spokesman Russell Sherman told Bloomberg. The event is another chapter in the firm’s saga of its failing hedge funds. Last week, the firm said that investors in the High-grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund and the High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund had lost their money and were unlikely to get it back. At the time, the Enhanced Leverage lost all of its value, while its sister fund lost more than 90% of its value.