A hedge fund boss who is being sued by his own mother over unpaid debts has been living it up in Miami and jetting off on pricey vacations — even as his employees flee and his clients demand their cash back, The Post has learned.
Jason Ader — CEO of Spring Owl Asset Management, an activist fund that in past years helped topple CEOs including Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer — admitted in a letter to investors the firm’s main fund was facing “a challenging period” as it proceeds with “the liquidation of the fund’s assets.”
Ader singled out the firm’s “primary investments” in 26 Capital Acquisition Corp., a vehicle that tried and failed to buy the biggest casino in the Philippines for $2.6 billion; and GameCo, a firm denied a casino license by Nevada regulators.
“Both investments were structured as loans, and the circumstances surrounding each have contributed to the complexity of the wind-down,” Ader wrote in the Oct. 15 letter obtained by The Post. “We anticipate that write-downs are likely.”
That’s after the 56-year-old money man — who in the past had also been an occasional guest on CNBC — was sued in August by his 81-year-old mom after he defaulted on a $13 million mortgage he took out in 2016 against his late father’s townhouse on New York’s Upper East Side, state court filings show.
Despite the turmoil, the Spring Owl CEO has been seen over the past month partying at the swanky Faena Hotel on Miami Beach, according to two sources briefed on the situation.
The Post has also obtained posts from his now-private Instagram account showing Ader and his girlfriend Hana on a trip to France this past summer. The holiday snaps show the loved-up couple posing at the members-only Monte-Carlo Country Club just outside Nice and at the Olympics beach volleyball tournament at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
A week later, the pair were shacked up at the Rosewood Baha Mar hotel in Nassau, Bahamas, social media posts show. Other trips taken over the past two years include breaks in Japan, Germany, the Hamptons and a ski vacation in Colorado.
“That is the way Jason has always lived his life,” said one source close to the firm.
The latest luxury trips came a year after a court ruling slapped Ader on the wrist for failing to pay agreed-upon child support to second wife, Julie, and their four children.
Ader has a $6 million Miami apartment at 1000 Biscayne Blvd. — a glass-and-steel residential tower that boasts 84 private residences and includes a spa, fitness center and a rooftop helipad. It’s located on the same block where English soccer superstar David Beckham owns a $20 million pad.
His firm’s Florida address is registered on the upmarket Brickell Avenue in the city’s financial district. That’s despite the fact that SpringOwl is no longer registered with US regulators, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The firm is still listed with the division of corporations in the tax haven state of Delaware.
In a statement issued through his lawyer, Ader said that “any suggestion” that Spring Owl is on the rocks is “false.”
“Contrary to recent claims, I am not liquidating my assets or winding down my business ventures,” he said.
“While we are responsibly managing the wind-down of two specific legacy investments, this is a normal part of our investment cycle and does not reflect broader operations. SpringOwl is actively expanding, pursuing new opportunities in line with our long-term growth strategy.”
In response, Spring Owl investors scoffed. One disgusted client lashed out at Ader, griping in a leaked email obtained by The Post: “A special place in hell is reserved for liars and crooks. Your conduct is beyond despicable.
“Has anyone who invested with you received any funds back?” the backer fumed, who demanded to know why Ader’s firm had not yet handed over K1 forms that could allow those who got burned to seek tax relief from the IRS.
“I don’t have any confidence in getting my money back. What is the net value after all the lawyers get paid?” another investor lamented to The Post in a thinly-veiled reference to Ader’s legal woes. “This is bulls–t.”
In its last available public report from September 2021, the company claimed to manage some $80 million in assets and boasted only last year that it has raised more than $1 billion in capital since its founding in 2013.
That document was co-signed by Ader’s business partner Barry Konig, whose name does not appear on the latest missive. Konig declined to say whether he had left the company when contacted by The Post.
The company’s chief financial officer John Lewis left the firm in June of last year, while Ader’s co-founder Andrew Wallach departed last December, according to their LinkedIn profiles. Neither of the two men responded to The Post’s multiple requests for comment.
In his mid-October letter to clients, Ader blamed a Delaware judge for refusing to order the Philippines deal to close that now leaves his firm facing massive losses.
“The timing and release of these funds remain uncertain due to ongoing legal proceedings,” he wrote in the letter.
Delaware Chancery Court Judge Travis Laster ruled in September last year that the transaction could not go ahead because he saw evidence of double dealing by Ader and one of his advisers. The judge ruled that the self-styled investment guru appeared to have used “a dodgy bargain” to “enrich himself.”
One backers of the failed deal for the Okada Manila casino, Austrian billionaire Harald McPike, is suing the Spring Owl founder in New York over allegations he pocketed his $25 million investment in the botched buyout.
That case is still ongoing, but a court filing posted on Oct. 4 shows that Ader denies the allegations made by McPike.
The Post exclusively revealed in September that Ader’s mother Pamela accused him of leaving his father’s estate on the hook for millions in mortgage payments as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest and unpaid taxes.
Ader, via his lawyers in a Sept. 23 court filing, refused to “either admit or deny” the allegations made by his widowed mother.
Ader’s special investment vehicle, 26 Capital Acquisition Corp, is even being sued by one company over an allegedly unpaid $140,000 bill for Japanese translation services.
A separate case over an unpaid $2 million legal bill brought by attorneys Schulte Roth and Zabel was settled by 26 Capital last year.
Spring Owl’s website was offline for at least two weeks with visitors being presented with an error message on its landing page.
The site was only restored after The Post approached Andrew Lieb, an attorney representing Ader in a handful of New York court cases over the botched investment deals, for comment.
