Bermuda-based entities with exposure to Madoff were remaining tight-lipped yesterday following yesterday's sentencing of the convicted fraudster to 150 years in prison.

Argus Group Holdings Ltd., the Bank of Bermuda, Kingate Management Ltd. and Fairfield Greenwich all had direct or indirect investments in funds run by Madoff, but each one was decidedly guarded about commenting on the situation after learning the news that the disgraced Wall Street trader had received the maximum term for his crime.

Fairfield Greenwich was the only company to make a statement, with spokesman Thomas Mulligan saying: "Our primary focus today - as it has been since the fraud was revealed in December - is on achieving the maximum possible recovery for the funds' investors."

When contacted by The Royal Gazette yesterday, Argus and Kingate both said they had no comment and the Bank of Bermuda promised a response but had not replied at time of going to press.

Following the news of the $65 billion fraud first breaking last December, Argus revealed that its Argus Select Funds' Moderate Fund, which is used by pension holders and investors, had a 2.1 percent exposure to funds managed by Madoff.

The local insurer said clients who invested in the AFL Portfolios administered by Argus Financial Ltd. had an exposure of between 1.3 percent and 1.8 percent to Madoff's scheme, but the Aggressive Fund was not affected.

According to its 2008 annual report, dated March 31, Argus's pension division has more than $600 million in assets under management, of which clients have invested more than $250 million in the Argus Select Funds.

In January this year, Argus disclosed that its Argus International Life Bermuda Ltd. unit had also been hit by the fraud, particularly in terms of some of the investments which supported its life insurance and annuity products for international clients.

A month later, Argus announced it was taking legal action to try to force the liquidation of two investment funds in a bid to recover some of its life insurance policyholders' assets that were exposed to Madoff.

The company filed a petition in a Cayman Islands court seeking orders to wind up two Rye Select funds operated by a subsidiary of fund management giant Tremont Capital Management after trading in the funds was suspended following Madoff's arrest and Argus International Life Bermuda Ltd. wrote down the value to zero.

In May, Argus said it had agreed in principle to settle a class action lawsuit pending in a New York court relating to losses stemming from the Madoff fraud.

The settlement of the case, which had been brought in January against Argus and Argus International Life Bermuda Ltd., as well as 10 other funds, money managers and companies, in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York by some of Argus's international life insurance customers, who had seen the value of their policies plummet, would eliminate the expense and uncertainty of ongoing litigation, according to Argus CEO Gerald Simons, but the terms did not include any financial settlement to be paid to policy holders.

The two most prominent hedge funds that invested with Madoff were the $7.3 billion Fairfield Sentry Ltd., run by Walter Noel's Fairfield Greenwich Group, which has operations in Bermuda, and the $2.8 billion Kingate Global Fund Ltd, run by Kingate Management Ltd. and based on the Island.

In April, the trustee appointed to liquidate Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities LLC sued Kingate Management Ltd. for the return of $255 million transferred to the firm's funds in the months before Madoff's collapse.

Irving Picard, appointed under the Securities Investor Protection Act, filed a complaint in US Bankruptcy Court in New York stating that transfers of $100 million to Kingate Global Fund Ltd. and $155 million to Kingate Euro Fund Ltd. from Madoff firm accounts last October and November were improper.

Mr. Picard subsequently called on Bermuda Supreme Court to stop the two Kingate funds, and the Bank of Bermuda, which held $100 million of the Madoff payments in an account according to court documents, from transferring money.

He said in court documents that Kingate Global Fund Ltd. and Kingate Euro Fund Ltd. were actively seeking to unfreeze their accounts through the court and filed for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop them from moving the funds .

The Bank of Bermuda, as a custodian bank, meanwhile, headed the list of Bermuda-based clients who had money invested directly or indirectly with Madoff, according to a court filing in the US Bankruptcy Court, Manhattan in February.

Clues to the extent of the bank's exposure were revealed in Madoff trustee's list of the firm's customers, within the past year, with no fewer than eight direct or indirect listings.

HSBC, the multinational bank which owns the Bank of Bermuda, estimated in December that it had around $1 billion at risk globally, but the local bank did not say how much of that exposure was on its books.

Mr. Picard then declared in April the liquidators were going after around $80 million held in the Bank of Bermuda, that they believed could be used to repay Madoff's swindled investors, asking a bankruptcy court judge for permission to hire lawyer Justin Williams, of Williams Barristers & Attorneys in Hamilton, to recover the money.