Fortress Said to Offer Earlier Payout on Mt. Gox Creditor Claims (Bloomberg)
Fortress Investment Group LLC is offering the creditors of defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox an earlier but lower payout than they would get under a trustee-backed proposal set for a vote in October. This is the highest value that the private-equity and hedge-fund firm has ever offered creditors, according to a letter seen by Bloomberg News. Officials of New York-based Fortress didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Legislators examine proposed sale of Courant parent Tribune Publishing to Alden Capital (MSN)
The impending takeover of The Hartford Courant by a cost-cutting hedge fund, Alden Global Capital, was decried in testimony Thursday before a legislative committee weighing an unusual bill that would give the state a role in the newspaper’s finances. Behind the legislation is a notion embraced by publishers in any other setting: Newspapers, especially one whose founding in 1764 predates the American Revolution, are institutions of public trust and benefit, even if privately owned. The bill filed by Sen. Matt Lesser, D-Middletown, whose father once reported for the Washington Post, seizes on the fact that The Courant, owned by national newspapers chains since 1979, sought a business charter the General Assembly granted in 1887 and revised repeatedly, most recently in 1951.
Billionaire Hedge Fund Mogul Alan Howard Is a Shareholder in CoinShares (Coin Desk)
British hedge fund manager Alan Howard is the fourth-largest shareholder in digital asset manager CoinShares. According to the CoinShares investor relations site, a company owned by Howard, AH (St Helier) Ltd, owns 5,484,580 shares, 8.24% issued share capital. On March. 11 CoinShares went public and listed on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market, an alternative stock exchange for small and medium-sized growth companies in Europe, and shares started trading.
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Corteva Agrees to Appoint Three Starboard-Backed Directors (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Corteva Inc said on Friday it had agreed to appoint three new independent directors backed by activist investor Starboard Value LP, which had earlier sought to oust the company’s chief executive officer. Corteva said David Everitt, Janet Giesselman, and Kerry Preete will join its board, effective immediately.
Two Sigma Appoints new private investment business Chairman (Hedge Week)
Two Sigma has appointed Tom Hill to the newly created role of Chairman of Two Sigma’s private investment business, which includes Two Sigma Impact, Two Sigma Ventures and Sightway Capital. In his role as Chairman, he will be responsible for setting the strategy and growth plans across the company’s current private investment businesses and will lead any expansion of Two Sigma’s private investment business. Hill previously held a consulting role with Two Sigma since early 2019 and recently joined full-time.
Dawn Fitzpatrick (Barron’s)
When Dawn Fitzpatrick was running 3,000- and 5,000-meter races for the University of Pennsylvania track team, she had to be “tenacious,” “determined,” and “patient.” She said those traits come in handy in her role as chief investment officer of Soros Fund Management, where she has overseen the investments of billionaire philanthropist George Soros, his family, and foundations since 2017.
Hedge Fund Performance Update: February 2021 (Preqin)
The Preqin All-Strategies Hedge Fund benchmark returned +3.43% in February, building on January’s 2.03% gain and pushing the 12-month return to +25.73%. This heatmap presents the hedge fund performance benchmarks for February 2021. Plus, the YTD and 12-month returns for all top-level strategies, structures, denominations, and size classifications. Deeper analysis of hedge fund performance, including a close look at a different strategy each month, will be available on Preqin Insights+ as part of our Performance Monitor series. For more information on our new content subscription offering, contact your Account Manager.
Growing Talent (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Founded by Michal Danielewicz and Jens Larsson back in 2017, thematic-focused St. Petri Capital has recently found a bigger office on the same Sankt Peders street in Copenhagen to accommodate a larger team of seven. The team expansion comes as its thematic-focused equity fund, which topped last year’s performance charts with a full-year return of 98 percent, has reached its three-year anniversary.
“Markets are Shifting”: How US Hedge Fund Mill Hill Capital is Carving Opportunities from Structured Credit Dislocation (Hedge Week)
Founded in 2015 by David Meneret (above left), a former Macquarie senior portfolio manager and structured credit specialist of almost 20 years, New York-based credit hedge fund Mill Hill Capital believes the current market landscape offers fertile ground for its market neutral, relative value investment style. “All in all, markets are shifting right now,” Meneret, the firm’s chief investment officer, says of the current investment landscape in credit. “They are a good place to find dislocations, to move around the portfolio, and to look across opportunities not only in CLOs, but also in shipping bonds, aircraft, CMBS, RMBS and in financials.”
Friday 3/19 Insider Buying Report: MRKR, SCOR (Nasdaq.com)
At Marker Therapeutics, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Tuesday, Director John Robert Wilson bought 1,714,285 shares of MRKR, for a cost of $1.75 each, for a total investment of $3M. Wilson was up about 33.7% on the buy at the high point of today’s trading session, with MRKR trading as high as $2.34 at last check today. Marker Therapeutics Inc is trading up about 27.8% on the day Friday. And at comScore, there was insider buying on Thursday, by William Paul Livek who bought 200,000 shares at a cost of $3.66 each, for a total investment of $731,962. This purchase marks the first one filed by Livek in the past twelve months. comScore Inc is trading up about 10.4% on the day Friday. Livek was up about 12.8% on the purchase at the high point of today’s trading session, with SCOR trading as high as $4.13 at last check today.
Oracle Corp (ORCL) CEO Safra Catz Sold $333.8 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CEO of Oracle Corp, Safra Catz, sold 5,000,000 shares of ORCL on 03/18/2021 at an average price of $66.75 a share. The total sale was $333.8 million. Oracle Corp is a computer software company. It sells enterprise information technology solutions, including databases, middleware, applications, and hardware. The Company primarily offers software licenses, support, and maintenance services worldwide.
The CCO of Wayfair (NYSE: W) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
On March 17, the CCO of Wayfair (W), Steve Oblak, sold shares of W for $1.07M. Following Steve Oblak’s last W Sell transaction on December 17, 2020, the stock climbed by 40.9%. Based on Wayfair’s latest earnings report for the quarter ending December 31, the company posted quarterly revenue of $3.67 billion and quarterly net profit of $23.82 million. In comparison, last year the company earned revenue of $2.53 billion and had a GAAP net loss of $330 million. The company has a one-year high of $369.00 and a one-year low of $21.70. W’s market cap is $33.76 billion and the company has a P/E ratio of 226.00.
