Billionaire Investor Bill Ackman Says US Banks Depositing $30 Billion into First Republic Creates a ‘False Sense of Confidence’ (Business Insider)
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman has criticized a plan by 11 US banks to deposit $30 billion into First Republic Bank, or FRB, saying it creates a “false sense of confidence” in the San Francisco lender. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, a former Fed chair, has apparently pushed the big Wall Street banks to “recycle” some of the deposits they have received from First Republic, by putting the billions back into the lender, Ackman said in a long tweet on Thursday.
Citadel Accelerates Hiring Push in Hong Kong and London (Reuters)
Miami-based Citadel has kicked off 2023 with multiple senior hires in London and Hong Kong to beef up its international equities team, after the firm became the world’s most profitable hedge fund in 2022, profile updates on LinkedIn show. At least five veteran investment and operational professionals recently joined the non-U.S. equity investment team under the $57 billion hedge fund titan run by billionaire Ken Griffin.
Tiger Global Writes Down Venture Funds’ Bets by 33% in 2022 (The Wall Street Journal)
Tiger Global marked down the value of its investments in private companies by about 33% across its venture-capital funds in 2022, according to people familiar with the firm. The markdowns erased $23 billion in value from Tiger’s giant holdings of startups around the globe, one of the people said. Its private portfolio includes big bets on hundreds of companies including TikTok parent ByteDance and payments company Stripe. In the fourth quarter, Tiger’s newest venture funds lost between 9% and 25%.
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Brevan Howard Grounds a Few Traders After Losses in Bond Rout (Bloomberg)
Brevan Howard Asset Management has grounded some of its traders to stem losses after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank triggered wild moves in the bond market. The macro hedge fund firm curtailed the betting of at least three money managers after they hit maximum loss levels, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The traders all specialized in rates trading, the people said, asking not to be identified because it’s private.
Dan Niles Rings The Register On Meta, What Led The Manager To Sell? (Benzinga)
Dan Niles, founder and portfolio manager of Satori Fund, tweeted Thursday that he trimmed Satori Fund’s position in Meta Platforms Inc (META), citing a poor risk-reward outlook in the near term. Niles’ decision came as Meta’s shares saw a strong year-to-date performance, driven by aggressive cost-cutting measures and the potential ban on TikTok by the U.S. government.
This Hedge Fund Is Betting Big on BBBY Stock, but Don’t You Dare Invest a Dime (InvestorPlace)
Bed Bath & Beyond (NASDAQ:BBBY) has staved off bankruptcy thanks to its recent capital raising efforts. The question now is whether this makes BBBY stock a buy or a sell. Consider it the latter the latter in my view. In order to raise this additional cash from Hudson Bay Capital Management, the company had to agree to terms that make this wager a proposition highly favorable from a risk/return standpoint to Hudson Bay. Per the terms of the deal, this investor could reap most of the potential upside, with certain mechanisms in place to minimize downside risk. This comes at the expense of outside investors, who now face the prospect of heavy dilution, with limited upside potential.
Banking Turmoil as Buying Opportunity for Utbytte (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – On Friday March 10, Silicon Valley Bank failed and was taken over by federal regulators after a run on deposits, as higher interest rates eroded the value of SVB’s massive portfolio of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. On the heels of Silicon Valley Bank’s failure, crypto-friendly Signature Bank was shut down by regulators on Sunday, with depositors at both banks made whole by the US Treasury, Federal Reserve, and Financial Deposit Insurance Corporation. Despite the U.S. government’s announced plan on Sunday to shore up the banking industry, bank stocks fell heavily on Monday on worries about what comes next following the second- and third-largest bank failures in U.S. history.
Hedge Funds Thrived in 2022. Now They’re on a Hiring Spree (Institutional Investor)
In a race to attract and retain talent, hedge funds have begun to ramp up sign-on bonuses and adjust compensation structures as their assets under management surge. For some of the most successful senior portfolio managers, sign-on bonuses can now range anywhere from $10 million to $50 million, and many portfolio managers are frequently being paid bonuses of $5 million to $10 million, according to recruiters. Some multi-manager shops, such as Millennium, have reportedly offered guaranteed payouts of $50 million over several years to lure top traders.
Friday 3/17 Insider Buying Report: WTFC, AMG (Nasdaq.com)
At Wintrust Financial, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Monday, Director H. Patrick Hackett Jr. purchased 7,100 shares of WTFC, for a cost of $73.31 each, for a total investment of $520,501. Hackett Jr. was up about 4.9% on the purchase at the high point of today’s trading session, with WTFC trading as high as $76.93 at last check today. Wintrust Financial is trading off about 4.4% on the day Friday. Before this latest buy, Hackett Jr. made one other buy in the past year, purchasing $456,150 shares for a cost of $91.23 each. And at Affiliated Managers Group, there was insider buying on Thursday, by Director Reuben Jeffery III who purchased 3,650 shares for a cost of $137.21 each, for a trade totaling $500,816. This buy marks the first one filed by Jeffery III in the past twelve months. Affiliated Managers Group is trading down about 1.7% on the day Friday. Investors can snag AMG at a price even lower than Jeffery III did, with shares trading as low as $133.09 at last check today which is 3.0% under Jeffery III’s purchase price.
$32M Bet On This Utilities Stock? Check Out These 3 Stocks Insiders Are Buying (Benzinga)
Valley National Bancorp: The Trade: Valley National Bancorp (VLY) Director Jennifer W Steans acquired a total of 150,000 shares an average price of $10.04. To acquire these shares, it cost around $1.51 million. Southwest Gas Holdings: The Trade: Southwest Gas Holdings, Inc. (SWX) 10% owner Icahn Partners Master Fund LP bought a total of 539,022 shares at an average price of $59.39. To acquire these shares, it cost around $32.02 million.
