11 Nov 2009: Hedge fund managers, battered by volatile markets and the withdrawal of leveraged funding after September 2007, have faced record redemptions of more than $1 trillion by cash-strapped investors. They have also been savaged on exit trades by prime brokerage businesses in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and probably thought matters could not get much worse until the industry was again sent reeling by revelations in December 2008 that US financier Bernard Madoff had defrauded investors out of $64.8 billion via a giant Ponzi scheme.