Billionaire Chris Hohn Becomes A Hedge Fund Giant (Forbes)
Chris Hohn’s hedge fund firm, TCI Fund Management, made more money in financial markets than any of the world’s most successful hedge fund firms in 2019, marking his ascendancy in the trading world. According to LCH Investments’ annual ranking of the 20 most successful hedge funds of all time, TCI Fund Management generated $8.4 billion of net gains last year. That’s more than the after-expense trading profits of Ray Dalio’s Bridgewaer Associates, David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management, Ken Griffin’s Citadel, or Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management.
EJF Capital and AmWest form New Strategic Partnership (Hedge Week)
EJF Capital (EJF), a global alternative asset management firm, and AmWest Asset Management, an affiliate of The AmWest Group (AmWest), have formed a strategic joint venture partnership to manage investments in non-qualified mortgage (non-QM) loans as well as other non-agency mortgage loans acquired from select bank and non-bank originators. As part of the agreement, AmWest Asset Management LLC will have a minority role in the partnership. EJF’s Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer Neal Wilson says: “We are excited to partner with AmWest to take advantage of the attractive investment environment in the non-qualified residential mortgage space, which has begun to experience meaningful growth.
After a Four-Year Freeze, Citadel Securities Can Trade Again in China (The Wall Street Journal)
Citadel Securities’s long wait for resolution in China is over.China’s stock-market regulator on Monday said a Shanghai-based unit of Citadel Securities LLC paid 670 million yuan ($97.6 million) to resolve a probe into its trading practices in 2015, during a historic plunge in Chinese stocks that year.
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Hedge Fund Makes Huge Bet on Korean Governance Change (Bloomberg)
A Seoul hedge fund is making a massive bet that hinges on changes in the chronic issue of South Korea’s corporate governance. It all started in August, when Must Asset Management, a 500 billion-won ($430 million) long-only hedge fund, said in a filing that it will become more actively engaged with a local builder it has a stake in: Taeyoung Engineering & Construction Co. Then in December, it proposed the company, which owns several valuable subsidiaries, should set up a body to improve governance.
First Year, Second Best Performer (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Proxy Renewable Long/Short Energy, an emerging energy transition-focused fund specialising in green and clean energy industries, ranked as the second-best performing hedge fund in the Nordics last year in its first full year of operations. The long-biased long/short equity fund managed by a team of three returned just short of 46 percent net of fees last year, which is a “very strong result regardless of how you measure it,” according to CEO Dan Lindström.
Woodford Fund Shows Vulnerable Side of Shadow Banking, Regulator Says (Reuters)
LONDON, Jan 19 (Reuters) – The closure of the Woodford fund in Britain showed how the $184 trillion shadow-banking sector can be vulnerable even in normal market conditions, the Financial Stability Board (FSB) said in a report on Sunday. Shadow banking refers to investment and credit-like transactions outside conventional banks. It includes open-ended funds, money market funds, hedge funds, special investment vehicles, securitisation and insurers.
Bridgewater’s Year May Have Been Bad – But There’s More to That Story (Institutional Investor)
Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater and Chris Hohn’s TCI Fund Management are the reigning kings of hedge funds, according to data released by London-based asset management firm LCH Investments. In LCH’s annual list of the 20 hedge funds that made the most money for their investors, Bridgewater remains at top of the all-time list, with $58.5 billion in net gains since its inception in 1975. This is despite its major macro fund, Pure Alpha 18, being down 0.5 percent in 2019 – a year that saw equity markets skyrocket.
