The manager of a failed hedge fund has denied 16 charges of fraud, false accounting and forgery following accusations he left investors more than £370million out of pocket after the firm collapsed.

Magnus Peterson, from Otham, appeared at Southwark Crown Court for the high-profile trial, which is expected to last 12 weeks.

Jurors heard how the founder of Weavering Macro Fixed Income (WMFI) and Weavering Capital Fund (WCF) blew 20% of his entire account "within a few days" of disastrous trading.

The 51-year-old Swede, of Honey Lane, is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of pounds from his hedge fund for the benefit of himself and his family.

He is also charged with forging relatives' signatures, lying to auditors and disguising his failures by using another firm he owned, WCF, to write IOU notes to himself.

Amanda Pinto, QC, for the Serious Fraud Office, said: "This case is about a fraud carried out by Peterson, through the investment fund, which he ran between 2003 and 2009.

"Investors put millions of pounds into the fund and in the end, it went down to the tune of £377million, losing all their money.

"This was not because of bad luck or incompetence - this was because of dishonesty."

Peterson was permitted by Mr Justice Smith to sit amongst his legal team while he heard the charges against him.

"This was not because of bad luck or incompetence - this was because of dishonesty..." — Amanda Pinto, QC, for the Serious Fraud Office

Miss Pinto explained how Peterson had promised investors in his low risk low profit macro fund that losses or gains would never exceed 5%.

However, behind the scenes he was propping up the ailing company by making false deals with WCF, promising to pay large amounts to WMFI and making the company look more stable than it was.

The fund’s collapse in 2009 has been described as emblematic of the banking crisis that led to a worldwide economic slowdown.

Peterson denies seven counts of fraud by false representation, three counts of fraudulent trading, two counts of furnishing false information, two counts of forgery, one count of fraud by abuse of position and one count of obtaining a money transfer by deception.

The trial continues.

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