"For many investors, John Meriwether is by now just another hedge-fund manager." Ouch! So says one expert to Bloomberg, which reports that Meriwether is closing down his Relative Value Opportunity II fund, after losing 44 percent from September 2007 to February 2009.

Meriwether of course is well known for having run Long-Term Capital Management, which imploded in the late 1990s. It ended up being rescued in a Fed-driven effort that involved many top banks.

He generated big headlines when he started up his new hedge fund, which alas returned an average of only 1.46 percent a year since opening in 1999, compared with 2.4 percent for the Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fixed Income Arbitrage Index, notes Bloomberg. Meriwether becomes yet another high-profile casualty of the current malaise. No word yet on whether he'll start up yet another fund. However, Adrian Eterovic, his top man in London, apparently has plans to form his own fund. 

For more:
- here's the Bloomberg article

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