Follow the Money: Plundered Fortress

When it comes to hedge fund company Fortress Investments(FIG Quote), one thing's for sure: Chief executive Wesley Edens and the other principals didn't get where they are today by leaving money on the table.

Fortress went public two weeks ago and doubled in price on the first day. But what investors may not realize is that the five principals pretty much stripped the company clean just before the IPO.

I don't mean they cleaned up the balance sheet. I mean they cleaned out the vault. Page five of the prospectus shows they withdrew $446.9 million from the company in "cash distributions" last year.

Plus another $409 million in January.

They collected a further $888 million on Jan. 17 by selling a small stake to Japanese bank Nomura(NMR Quote).

Oh yes, and they pocketed a further $22.8 million in the final weeks before this month's IPO.

A table buried on page 94 of the prospectus shows the remarkable facts. Between January 2005 and this month's IPO, the five principals of Fortress -- Edens, Peter Briger, Robert Kauffman, Randal Nardone and Michael Novogratz -- cashed out $1.04 billion. "That does not include the Nomura transaction," adds company spokeswoman Lilly Donohue.

Total withdrawn in the two years before they took it public: $1.9 billion. Most of that was in the final few months.