‘For a While There, We Forgot that Our Main Job Was to Make Money’, Said Bill Ackman – Now His Hedge Fund’s Up 40% in 2019 (Market Watch)
At a money-manager conference in New York earlier this week, Ackman acknowledged a string of missteps in recent years that saw his main hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management stumble badly, shrinking to around $11 billion from a peak of $20 billion in 2015. Some of Ackman’s losses came on the back of a series of hard-charging activist bets around nutrititional-supplement companyHerbalife Nutrition Ltd. HLF, -1.44% and the former Valeant Pharmaceuticals, now known as Bausch Health Cos. Inc. VRX, +9.29%.
D.E. Shaw Is to Buck Industry Trend With 3-and-30 Fees (Bloomberg)
D.E. Shaw & Co. is making it more expensive for investors in its biggest hedge fund, raising fees while many of its rivals have been forced to slash them. The New York-based investment firm is reverting to a fee model that it held for the better part of the 2000s, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The new structure will charge 3 percent of assets and 30 percent of profits and will take effect at the start of next year.
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Sears Sues Former Chairman Lampert and Ex-board Members Like Mnuchin (The Seattle Times)
Sears Holding Corp. is suing its former chairman, Eddie Lampert, as well as former board members including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for allegedly stripping the retailer of billions of dollars as it collapsed into bankruptcy. The lawsuit, filed this week, accuses Lampert of a “multiyear and multifaceted scheme” to siphon more than $2 billion of the company’s assets to himself, his hedge fund ESL Investments and other insiders. It also names Mnuchin, who served on the board of both Sears and ESL, as approving some of the deals – including spin-offs of Orchard Supply Hardware and Lands’ End – that the lawsuit says ultimately benefited Lampert and his hedge fund.
Mayfair Hedge Fund Ramps Up Stake in IFG to 12.4% Ahead of Takeover (The Irish Times)
A UK hedge fund has built up a 12.4 per cent interest in Dublin-listed IFG Group as it takes advantage of the financial services firm trading at a discount to the price at which it has agreed to be taken over for £206 million (€238.3 million). Sand Grove Capital Management, based in the Mayfair in London, disclosed on March 26th that it had snapped up a 6.2 per cent stake in IFG through financial derivatives called contracts for difference the previous day, after it emerged the company had accepted a takeover offer.
L Brands Says Hedge Fund to Withdraw Board Nominees After Reaching Agreement (Reuters)
(Reuters) – L Brands said on Thursday activist investor Barington Capital has agreed to withdraw its proposed board nominees and instead will serve as a special adviser as part of an agreement with the company. The agreement comes a month after Barington urged the company to either explore a spin off of the underperforming Victoria’s Secret brand or take the much financially stronger Bath & Body Works public.
Hedge Fund Manager Nine Masts Capital Fined by Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (InsideBitcoins.com)
Nine Masts Capital, a Hong Kong-based hedge fund, has been fined by the local Securities and Futures Commission (SFC). The group is allegedly in violation of “naked short selling,” reports Financemagnates. The past is back to haunt: Apparently, the situation is from back in 2015, where Nine Masts Capital sold a share before it was publicly available. The share in question was of Yuzhou. Nine Masts Capital is being fined HK$1.2 million or $152,000 for the violation.
Employers Can Assure Retirement for $2.64 an Hour (Think Advisor)
Hedge fund titan Ray Dalio published a sobering essay last Friday about the state of capitalism in the U.S. He observed, correctly in my view, that “the ability to make money, save it, and put it into capital (i.e., capitalism) is an effective motivator of people and allocator of resources that raises people’s living standards.” But Dalio then went on to present myriad data showing that many Americans make too little money to live on, let alone save, with harmful consequences. He counts among them diminished health, education and economic mobility, high rates of incarceration, and widening wealth and income disparity that raise the risk of social unrest. In an interview with 60 Minutes on Sunday, he called it “a national emergency.”
Facebook Inc (FB) COB and CEO Mark Zuckerberg Sold $58 million of Shares (GuruFocus)
COB and CEO of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) Mark Zuckerberg sold 324,000 shares of FB on 04/18/2019 at an average price of $178.89 a share. The total sale was $58 million. Facebook Inc is the world’s largest online social network. Its products are Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Oculus. Its products enable people to connect and share through mobile devices and personal computers. Facebook Inc has a market cap of $509.1 billion; its shares were traded at around $178.28 with a P/E ratio of 23.54 and P/S ratio of 9.30. Facebook Inc had annual average EBITDA growth of 48.30% over the past five years.
CNBC’s Lemonis Accused of Insider Trading in RV Company’s Stock (Bloomberg Law)
CNBC host Marcus Lemonis and a well-known private equity investor were hit with a shareholder lawsuit in Delaware claiming they manipulated the market while taking an RV supply company public. Lemonis and Stephen Adams used a series of public offerings to cash out of Camping World Holdings Inc. without relinquishing their control of it, even though Camping World was “in no way ready to be a public company,” a police pension fund says in a complaint unsealed April 17. Lemonis…
The VP & Controller of McCormick & Company is Exercising Options (AnalystRatings)
Today it was reported that the VP & Controller of McCormick & Company (MKC), Christina Mcmullen, exercised options to sell 2,000 MKC shares at $71.10 a share, for a total transaction value of $308K. Following Christina Mcmullen’s last MKC Sell transaction on November 15, 2018, the stock climbed by 6.9%. In addition to Christina Mcmullen, 3 other MKC executives reported Sell trades in the last month.
M&T Bank Co. (NYSE:MTB) Insider Trading Activity – Insider Sold 4,000 shares of Stock (MarketExclusive)
Insider Trading Activity For M&T Bank Co. (NYSE:MTB): Brian E Hickey , Insider of M&T Bank Co. (NYSE:MTB) reportedly Sold 4,000 shares of the company’s stock at an average price of 168.53 for a total transaction amount of $674,120.00.
Insiders Roundup: Facebook, Amyris (GuruFocus.com)
The GuruFocus All-in-One Screener can be used to find insider trades from the past week. Under the Insiders tab, change the settings for All Insider Buying to “$200,000+,” the duration to “April 2019” and All Insider Sales to “$200,000+.” According to these filters, the following are trades from company insiders this week. John L. Doerr, director and 10% owners of Amyris Inc. (AMRS), bought 6,732,369 shares for an average price of $2.87 per share on April 15. The industrial biotechnology company has a market cap of $369.25 million and an enterprise value of $522.24 million. It has insider ownership of 34.15% and institutional ownership of 47.02%.
