Inside Third Avenue Management, where employees were terrified to bring bad news to the boss

CNBC BOSTON — In the months before the blowup of Third Avenue's junk-bond fund in early December, investors and financial advisers called the New York-based investment company to voice their concerns about the growing percentage of hard-to-trade, illiquid assets in the fund's portfolio. "I would call up and they would say, 'We're under control, we have plenty of cash,'" said Richard Berse, president of Northstar Financial Advisors Inc. in New Jersey. But Berse, who had as much as $2.5 million ...