Iriving Picard, the trustee in charge of finding and returning as much of the $17.3 billion in principal lost in Bernie Madoff's infamous Ponzi scheme, is ready to give some money back. Specifically, Picard is seeking permission to distribute $272 million of the roughly $10 billion he has recouped to 1,224 of Madoff's account holders (so about $222,000 per account).
Why is Picard only giving out a tiny fraction of what he has gotten back already? Because pending litigation by some investors could change the size of the payouts (and who receives them) and the trustee wants to be careful. An appeal of a decision to return $7.2 billion from the estate of Jeffry Picower in particular seems to be of concern. As such Picard explained that "we will keep a very significant reserve" when he announced the distribution yesterday.
This distribution, if approved by the courts, wouldn't be the first that Picard has made. He's already begun paying nearly $795 million to investors whose claims of losses less than $500,000 he has approved, using funds from the industry-funded Securities Investor Protection Corp. Picard has so far approved nearly $6.9 billion in claims for losses from Madoff’s scheme.
