Commodity hedge fund collapses

Hedge fund manager Ospraie Management has said that it will close its flagship fund after it plunged 27 percent in August on losses in energy, mining and natural resources equity holdings, in one of the biggest ever closures of a commodities-focused hedge fund.

The closure of the fund, announced by the firm's founder Dwight Anderson in a letter to investors on Tuesday, could be more bad news for Lehman Brothers, which took a 20 percent stake in the hedge fund manager in 2005.

The fund has slumped 38.6 percent this year because of bad bets on commodity stocks.

The shuttering of the Ospraie Fund, which opened in 1999 and managed $2.8 billion at the start of August, leaves Anderson's firm with three funds overseeing more than $4 billion of assets, down from $9 billion in March.