Former Sculptor CEO Och Escalating Fissures With Company

In order to deepen the fissures in the relationship with his former protege and putting the publicly traded hedge fund firm in play, Bloomberg Dan Och is escalating his fight with Sculptor Capital Management Chief Executive Officer Jimmy Levin.

Och, who co-founded Sculptor before stepping down as CEO in 2018, said he and other founding partners had been asked if the firm might be open to a strategic transaction that would not involve current management continuing to run the company, according to a letter to the Sculptor s board that was disclosed Tuesday in a regulatory filing.

Och, one of the biggest shareholders of Sculptor, has railed against his former firm, previously known as Och-Ziff. In August he and other former executives sued the money manager over Levin s compensation that last year exceeded what was paid to Wall Street's biggest banks, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase Co.

The lawsuit was full of falsehoods, according to the sculptor. Och called Sculptor an attractive target for a well-managed firm that could fuel growth and new prudent leadership.

He said that it is not surprising that third parties would see the potential for such a transaction, given that outside analysts previously identified the company's management issues and concluded that at its current trading price, the company may be worth less than the sum of its parts.

In New York, the sculpturer rose 19% to $11.17, a decline of 48% this year. It was down almost 97% from its 2007 peak, shortly after it went public.

Och said in the letter that he believes that one or more members of Sculptor's senior management reached out to at least one interested party about a possible deal.

The board may not be aware of this outreach because of previous experience, he wrote. I strongly recommend that the board take complete control of this process.