Bill Ackman Scores 70% Return in 2020 (CNBC)
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman appears to have scored one of his best years ever in 2020 despite a volatile market rocked by a global pandemic, an economic recession and a presidential election. His Pershing Square fund netted a 70.2% return last year after a 4.6% gain in December. That performance was far better than the 2020 return of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 or even the Nasdaq Composite, which posted a robust gain of 43.6%.
Hedge Fund Manager Scaramucci Launches Cryptocurrency Fund (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Anthony Scaramucci’s firm SkyBridge Capital is the latest traditional fund manager to launch a bitcoin-focused fund after a surge of interest in cryptocurrencies in 2020. Scaramucci, who previously served a short stint as U.S. President Donald Trump’s communications director, joins Paul Tudor Jones here and Britain’s Ruffer Investment Management in embracing the nascent asset.
Bishop’s Impala Fund, Up 30% in 2020, Sees Commodity Bull Market (Bloomberg)
Bob Bishop’s Impala Resource Fund, which gained more than 30% in 2020, is predicting a long-term bull market for commodities. The fund, which is under Bishop’s $2 billion Impala Asset Management and focuses on commodity-related equities and materials, drew comparison to the last super cycle that started in the early 2000s on a China-driven demand boom. It sees copper as a “clear winner,” and is also bullish on wood products and the energy sector, forecasting oil demand to top supply in 2021, according to a presentation seen by Bloomberg News.
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Public Storage Reaches Deal With Activist Elliott Management on Board Seats, Strategic Direction (Barron’s)
Public Storage reached an agreement with activist hedge fund Elliott Management to add two board members and make other changes, allowing the self-storage real estate investment trust to avoid a proxy fight. Public Storage (ticker: PSA) on Tuesday said it named two new independent trustees to its board: Michelle Millstone-Shroff, who formerly served as chief customer experience officer at Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY), and Rebecca Owen, who served as the chairwoman of Battery Reef, a commercial real estate investment company.
Kempen’s New Fund-of-Funds to Focus on Distressed Debt (Opalesque.com)
UK-based specialist asset management company Kempen Capital Management (KCM) has launched a fund-of-funds investing in distressed debt securities to sit within its existing alternatives range. According to a press release from the investment management firm, the introduction of the new pool represents an important addition to the current range of alternative investment products offered by Kempen, as it will give professional and retail investors innovative and cost-efficient access to the Distressed Debt market.
Andurand Hedge Fund Soared 154% in 2020 as Covid Roiled Oil (Bloomberg)
Pierre Andurand’s oil hedge funds stormed back in 2020 to post their biggest-ever gains as the global pandemic roiled energy markets. His main Andurand Commodities Fund, which mostly bets on rises and falls in oil prices, was up 68.6% for the year, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The Discretionary Enhanced Fund, a vehicle he started in 2019 that has no set risk limits, surged 154%, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. That made it one of the year’s best-performing hedge funds.
Hedge-Fund Manager Sees Big Upside for Zillow and These Other Tech Stocks (CNBC)
Hedge-fund manager Eric Jackson told CNBC on Monday he believes technology stocks are well-positioned to build off a strong 2020, and he pointed to Zillow as one name in particular with more upside ahead. In an interview on “Closing Bell,” the president and portfolio manager of Toronto-based EMJ Capital said Zillow is “revolutionizing real estate” in the digital age. For that reason, Jackson said, Zillow is in a position to build off its robust gains last year, when shares soared more than 200%.
Swedish Hedge Fund Pioneer Brummer Steers Through “Great Concern and High Volatility” with Double-Digit Annual Return (Hedge Week)
Stockholm-based multi-strategy hedge fund firm Brummer & Partners’ flagship vehicle gathered further pace towards the end of the year, as strong performances in its stock-picking and trend-following funds during December powered the long-running manager into double-digit territory for the year. The Brummer Multi-Strategy (BMS) fund – which invests in a range of single-strategy hedge funds – was up 4.6 per cent last month, building on its 3.1 per cent November advance, to bring its 2020 return to 12.6 per cent.
Company That Was Perfect When Carl Icahn First Invested Now Even More So (Deal Breaker)
It may have started as a spiteful lark, one that proved spectacularly profitable but still based on one committed loather’s loathing of another, another who he believed had once wronged him, and whose quixotic if ultimately more-or-less correct (if somewhat overenthusiastic) analysis created an opportunity for vicious vengeance. Yes, the partnership between Carl Icahn and gassy diet shake purveyor Herbalife may have, initially, been nothing but the financially living embodiment of the axiom that the enemy of one’s enemy (in this case, crybaby Bill Ackman, before he found love and god in the form of an old man who he no longer has use for) is one’s friend.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway likely scored a $50 billion gain on Apple in 2020 (Business Insider)
Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway likely scored a $50 billion gain on its Apple investment in 2020, lifting its total paper profits from the technology bet to north of $90 billion in less than five years. The famed investor’s company plowed about $35 billion into the iPhone maker between 2016 and 2018, securing a roughly 5.5% stake. Apple’s climbing stock price more than doubled the value of Berkshire’s position to about $72 billion at the start of 2020, then boosted it to $109 billion by the end of September, despite Buffett and his team selling close to 4% of their stake in the third quarter.
Union Seeks Removal of Alden Members From Tribune Board in Wake of Buyout Offer (The Wall Street Journal)
A labor union representing newsroom employees at seven of Tribune Publishing Co. ’s nine newspapers is demanding the removal from the board of three representatives of a hedge fund that has offered to buy the company and take it private. In a letter sent to Tribune’s chairman, Philip Franklin, the News Guild said that the hedge fund, Alden Global Capital LLC, had violated Securities and Exchange Commission rules by not informing shareholders of its buyout offer within the mandated 10 days after approaching the board.
Monday 1/5 Insider Buying Report: OCIP, BAS (Nasdaq.com)
At OCI Partners LP ( OCIP ), a filing with the SEC revealed that on Wednesday, Director Nassef Sawiris bought 87,465 shares of OCIP, for a cost of $15.71 each, for a total investment of $1.37M. So far Sawiris is in the green, up about 3.2% on their purchase based on today’s trading high of $16.22. OCI Partners LP is trading up about 2.7% on the day Monday. Before this latest buy, Sawiris bought OCIP at 4 other times during the past year, for a total investment of $3.44M at an average of $17.08 per share. And at Basic Energy Services ( BAS ), there was insider buying on Wednesday, by Director Thomas Moore Jr. who bought 10,000 shares for a cost of $7.13 each, for a total investment of $71,299.
Bandwidth Inc (BAND) Chairman & CEO David A. Morken Sold $13.7 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
Chairman & CEO of Bandwidth Inc, David A. Morken, sold 86,789 shares of BAND on 12/31/2020 at an average price of $157.97 a share. The total sale was $13.7 million. Bandwidth Inc provides a cloud-based communications platform for enterprises in the United States. It offers solutions including software application programming interfaces for voice and text functionality.
The Chairman of Gibson Energy (Other OTC: GBNXF) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Today, the Chairman of Gibson Energy (GBNXF), James M Estey, sold shares of GBNXF for $205.5K. Following James M Estey’s last GBNXF Sell transaction on March 10, 2020, the stock climbed by 3.7%.
