Keydata Investment Probe Dropped After SFO Fails to Find Funds

U.K. prosecutors dropped a three-year investigation into collapsed investment firm Keydata Investments Services Ltd. after failing to track down more than 100 million pounds ($160 million) in missing funds.

The Serious Fraud Office said efforts to trace the secure income bonds “have not met with any success and it is considered unlikely that the situation will change,” the agency said in a Nov. 2 posting on its website.

The SFO said in May 2011 it didn’t have enough evidence to make prosecutions and planned to focus on tracing assets. Keydata had 2.8 billion pounds of assets under management when the Financial Services Authority forced it into administration in 2009 and referred the case to the SFO. Keydata used investors’ money to buy bonds issued by Luxembourg based SLS Capital SA.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeremy Hodges in London at jhodges17@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net