Hedge Fund and Insider Trading News: Bill Ackman, Jeffrey Smith, Christopher Hohn, Elliott Management, Citadel LLC, Point72 Asset Management, Delta Air Lines, Inc. (DAL), Zymeworks Inc. (ZYME), Apple Inc (AAPL), and More

Citadel Made $16 Billion For Investors Last Year, Breaking Hedge-Fund Records (The Wall Street Journal)
Hedge-fund giant Citadel made $16 billion for its investors last year, the largest annual gain ever made by a hedge-fund firm, according to research from LCH Investments. Citadel’s gain, which was calculated after fees, is larger than John Paulson‘s 2007 gain made during the subprime mortgage crisis, according to LCH Investments, part of the Edmond de Rothschild Group. The figures aren’t adjusted for inflation.

Billionaire Ackman Invests in Bremont in Boost for UK Watchmaker (Bloomberg)
Billionaire hedge fund manager and activist investor Bill Ackman is buying a minority stake in Bremont as the UK luxury watchmaker looks to expand in the fast-growing US market. Ackman is teaming with Bremont’s controlling shareholder, Hellcat LP, to invest a combined £48.4 million ($60 million) in Bremont, the watchmaker said in an emailed statement.

Activist Investor Elliott Management Takes Stake in Salesforce – Sources (Reuters)
Activist investor Elliott Management Corp has made a multi-billion dollar investment in cloud-based software firm Salesforce Inc (CRM.N), according to people familiar with the matter. It is unclear what Elliott, one of the world’s most prominent activist investors, is pushing for at Salesforce. “We look forward to working constructively with Salesforce to realize the value befitting a company of its stature,” Jesse Cohn, managing partner at Elliott, told Reuters.

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Rishi Sunak’s Old Hedge Fund Boss, Who Paid Himself $1.9 Million a Day Last Year, Wants Alphabet to Lay Off More Staff and Slash Pay (Fortune)
Britain’s highest-earning investor has called on Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai to cut thousands more jobs than the tech giant announced it would eliminate last week. On Friday, Pichai announced the “difficult decision” had been made to eliminate around 12,000 jobs—or 6% of the firm’s global workforce. However, in a letter dated Jan. 20, Christopher Hohn —who revealed toward the end of last year that his hedge fund held a $6 billion stake in the Google parent company— wrote to Pichai to urge the tech giant to take the job cuts much further.

Point72 Granted UK Regulatory Approval at Third Time of Asking (Hedge Week)
Steve Cohen‘s Point72 has been granted regulatory approval in the UK, a decade after his previous firm paid a record $1.8 billion in fines after pleading guilty to insider trading charges, according to a report by the Financial Times. The Financial Conduct Authority had turned down Point72’s applications two previous occasions following SAC Capital‘s sanctions in 2013, ruling in 2018 that Cohen was not ‘fit and proper’ to offer his new fund to UK investors.