Madoff moved $160 million of assets to UK firm

LONDON (Reuters) - Disgraced U.S. financier Bernard Madoff moved nearly $160 million of his own assets to his British-based firm in 2007, according to company accounts and filings obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

Madoff, accused by U.S. authorities of running a Ponzi scheme for many years in a fraud worth up to $50 billion, moved the assets via the allotment of two sets of new shares in Madoff Securities International Ltd, a British firm he controlled.

In October 2007, Madoff bought 49.9 million new 100 pence shares in the British firm for 49.9 million pounds, the documents showed, the equivalent of about $100 million at the time and about $75 million at Thursday's exchange rate.

In addition, the previous month he also received 6.25 million new $10 shares as payment for terminating a $62.5 million loan he had made to the British firm in 2000.

On Thursday, Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said it had begun investigating Madoff's British operations, focusing on British victims and any offences that may have been committed in the country.

The SFO said in a statement the decision to investigate came after it was given an interim report by Grant Thornton, provisional liquidators in Britain.

Madoff Securities International Ltd, based in London's Mayfair, a honeypot for hedge funds, was authorized by Britain's Financial Services Authority and is currently in liquidation.

The firm was almost entirely controlled by Madoff, who owned the vast majority of the voting shares.

Its accounts for 2007, the last set of accounts filed by the firm, show the sale of the nearly 50 million pounds worth of shares contributed to an overall increase in the cash position of 82 million pounds to 96.3 million pounds at end-December 2007.

Madoff, under house arrest and surveillance in his luxury Manhattan apartment, was arrested and charged last month after authorities said he confessed to running a Ponzi scheme in which early investors profit from funds paid in by later investors.

A trustee of the U.S. Securities Investor Protection Corp (SIPC), which helps investors who had accounts at failed brokerages recover money, has identified more than $830 million in liquid assets related to Madoff's investment firm that may be subject to recovery and is searching for more.

(Editing by Joel Dimmock and Dan Lalor)