Carl Icahn is on a Seven-Year Losing Streak, but the Market Still Loves His Stock. (Forbes)
In October 2013, when Carl Icahn started selling his large position in Netflix, many believed the vaunted billionaire investor had done it again. The company had successfully transitioned from a DVD-by-mail rental service to video streaming, and Icahn had made a 457% return in just 14 months. “As a hardened veteran of seven bear markets,” Icahn announced, it was time for him “to take some of the chips off the table.” Icahn’s son, Brett, begged his father not to sell. By 2015 Icahn was out, making a tidy $2 billion profit on Netflix. But since his departure the stock has appreciated another tenfold. Had Icahn held onto it, his profit would have been $19 billion.
Archegos’s Collapse Is a Wakeup Call for Regulators (The Wall Street Journal)
The big damage from Archegos’s collapse seems to have been limited to Credit Suisse and Nomura. But that doesn’t mean all is well in the financial system. As the dust settles on the fund’s implosion, the impact is becoming clearer. Credit Suisse and Nomura were slow to sell shares, costing them dearly relative to early movers Goldman Sachs , Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank . The anticipated losses are enough to cause Credit Suisse and Nomura serious pain, but not to threaten their solvency.
Brevan Howard Runs $50 Billion Unit Like BlackRock’s Aladdin (Bloomberg)
Brevan Howard is making money for its billionaire co-founder Alan Howard and other partners through more than just hedge fund fees. The investment firm best known for running macro trading strategies has persuaded the likes of SoftBank Group Corp., hedge fund Penso Advisors and 15 others to use its high-tech operational infrastructure that once only served as the trading backbone for Brevan Howard’s more than $40 billion in assets.
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Cubic Accepts Sweetened Buyout Offer from Veritas Capital, Elliott (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Cubic Corp said on Wednesday it had agreed to a sweetened buyout offer from private equity firm Veritas Capital and U.S. hedge fund Elliott Management that values the defense electronics maker at about $2.38 billion. The move ends a bidding war for Cubic, which had also attracted a $2.4 billion, or $76 per share, approach from Singapore’s ST Engineering last month.
Billionaire Investor Bill Ackman Trumpeted a Record 70% Return, Touted a $500 million Hedge, and Teased a Second SPAC in his Shareholder Letter. Here are the 5 Key Takeaways (Business Insider)
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman trumpeted his fund’s record performance last year, revealed his latest hedge has tripled in value to nearly $500 million, and touched on his plans for a second blank-check company in his shareholder letter this week. Here are the five key takeaways from Ackman’s letter. Pershing outperformed thanks to pandemic bets: Pershing Square scored a 70% increase in net asset value including dividends in 2020, notching its best annual return in its 17-year history, Ackman said. The fund has delivered a compound annual return of 17.1% since its inception in 2004, outpacing the S&P 500’s 9.8% return over the same period.
