Inside $30 billion Hedge Fund Lone Pine’s Stellar 2020 — and the Bets Driving One of the Tiger Cub’s Funds to Deliver More than 38% Returns (Business Insider)
Lone Pine – the $30 billion Tiger Cub headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut – has soared in 2020. The equity manager has returned more than 23% in its flagship long-short fund after gaining roughly 1.6% last month, sources say. Its long-only fund though has been the real star of its offerings – the fund is up more than 38% for the year after returning nearly 11% in November.
Citadel Hires Morgan Stanley’s Former Head of Commodities (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Citadel, the Chicago-based hedge fund giant, has hired former Morgan Stanley commodities trading chief Jay Rubenstein, a Citadel spokeswoman said on Monday. Rubenstein is expected to join the firm next year and will report to Sebastian Barrack, Citadel’s head of commodities, who leads the investment teams trading energy, agriculture and other commodity products, spokeswoman Megan Ingersoll said.
Inside the Retreat of Jamie Dinan’s York, a One-Time Star Hedge Fund (LiveMint)
York Capital Management’s hedge funds were flailing. Its credit hedge fund, which lost $700 million on energy bets gone wrong, was down about 50% since 2018. Other York hedge funds were also in the red. Longtime partners were leaving the firm and weren’t being replaced. Resentment simmered among some inside the firm that the head of York’s Asia hedge fund, a bright spot the last several years, wanted more money for his team and had threatened to leave, according to current and former employees. The end came in a half-hour Zoom town hall late last month where 61-year-old York founder Jamie Dinan, nearing tears at times, broke the news to his roughly 180 employees that York was essentially getting out of the hedge-fund game, some of the employees said.
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Fears as US Giant Elliott Management Snaps Up Funding Circle Debts (The Times)
The City regulator is coming under pressure to review a sale by Funding Circle of hundreds of small business owners’ personal guarantees to a firm owned by one of the world’s largest hedge funds. Funding Circle, the listed online lender, sold 300 personal guarantees – a business owner’s personal promise to repay outstanding company debt – to Azzurro Associates, a debt buyer which is ultimately owned by Elliott Management, a New York investment fund.
Singapore Hedge Fund to Offset Carbon From Commodity Shipments (Bloomberg)
A Singapore hedge fund that specializes in slow and steady returns from financing commodity trades will begin offsetting carbon emissions from its shipments. Tradeflow Capital Management Pte will purchase carbon offsets through partners such as Carbonfund.org Foundation and AirCarbon Exchange, the company said in a press release. It’s starting by tackling shipping emissions, with plans to expand to potentially cover millions of tons of commodity life-cycle emissions.
Some Small Hedge Funds Reap Big Gains in Tough Times (The Wall Street Journal)
Hedge funds are trailing the U.S. stock market this year. Some of the smallest funds are emerging as some of the best performers, driving greater demand for these types of managers. Funds with less than $1 billion in assets are benefiting from their more manageable portfolios. They can dart in and out of holdings to protect gains or minimize losses amid the market volatility that has characterized this year. They also get more bang for their buck – making investments that require less firepower to affect their overall performance.
Exxon Faces Proxy Fight Launched by New Activist Firm Engine No. 1 (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Engine No. 1 LLC, an investment firm newly launched by hedge fund industry veteran Chris James, on Monday asked Exxon Mobil Corp to focus more on investments in clean energy and plans to nominate four directors to the oil major’s board. Engine No. 1 said it has the backing of pension investor California State Teachers’ Retirement System (Calsters), which has a stake valued over $300 million in the Irving, Texas-based Exxon.
A Golden Age for Hedge Funds (Hedge Week)
Optima Asset Management: Best Multi-Manager Hedge Fund (Equity Strategies) – Dixon Boardman founded New York-based Optima Fund Management* in 1988. Since inception, Optima has been at the vanguard of hedge fund investing, navigating across diverse market environments while providing its clients access to differentiated opportunities. In Optima’s June edition of its investor newsletter, Boardman pointed out that the whipsaw action of the markets in 2020 has been a challenge not just for hedge funds but for all asset managers.
Stop the Count! (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Nordic equity hedge funds are on pace for their best year since 2015 after gaining 4.7 percent on average in November (90 percent reported), the group’s second-best month on record since 2005. The group gained 10.3 percent year-to-date through November. Exactly half of the 50 equity hedge funds in the Nordics outpaced the 9.5 percent advance of the MSCI World Index in the first 11 months of 2020, with those 25 funds returning 26.6 percent on average. Global equity markets gained 10.1 percent in Euro terms last month, as market participants reacted favourable to the progress of potential Covid-19 vaccines and the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election.
Insider Trading: December 7, 2020 (BIV.com)
Insider Sean Patrick Pownall, Director. Company: Tudor Gold Corp. (TSX-V:TUD). Shares owned: 4,556,371. Trade date: Nov 27. Trade total: $1,365,600. Trade: Sale of 455,200 shares at a price of $3.00 per share. Insider Jason Lawrence Krause, officer. Company: Sierra Wireless Inc. (TSX:SW). Shares owned: 17,902. Trade date: Nov 27. Trade total: $386,000. Trade: Sale of 20,000 shares at prices from $18.32 to $19.80 per share.
Monday 12/7 Insider Buying Report: MPLN (Nasdaq.com)
At MultiPlan, there was insider buying on Friday, by Director Glenn R. August who bought 826,265 shares for a cost of $7.00 each, for a total investment of $5.78M. This buy marks the first one filed by August in the past twelve months. MultiPlan is trading up about 5.7% on the day Monday. August was up about 17.6% on the buy at the high point of today’s trading session, with MPLN trading as high as $8.23 in trading on Monday.
Ecolab Inc (ECL) CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD & CEO Douglas M Jr Baker Sold $32.7 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD & CEO of Ecolab Inc, Douglas M Jr Baker, sold 148,107 shares of ECL on 12/03/2020 at an average price of $220.48 a share. The total sale was $32.7 million. Ecolab Inc produces and markets cleaning and sanitation products for the hospitality, healthcare, and industrial markets. It offers a variety of products and services, which include dish and laundry washing systems, pest control, and repair services.
What Did This CEO Just Do with Personal Shares of US Physical Therapy (NYSE: USPH)? (Analyst Ratings)
On December 4, the CEO of US Physical Therapy (USPH), Christopher Reading, sold shares of USPH for $640K. In addition to Christopher Reading, 3 other USPH executives reported Sell trades in the last month. The company has a one-year high of $134.11 and a one-year low of $45.13. USPH’s market cap is $1.4 billion and the company has a P/E ratio of 44.90. The insider sentiment on US Physical Therapy has been negative according to 31 insider trades in the past three months. This sentiment is lower than the average sentiment of company insiders in this sector.
Notable Insider Buys of the Past Week: Foot Locker, Icahn Enterprises, Kraft Heinz And More (Benzinga)
A Foot Locker, Inc. (FL) beneficial owner returned lasts week to purchase almost 1.15 million more shares of this footwear retailer at $36.94 to $39.00 apiece. That totaled less than $43.65 million, and it raised that owner’s stake to more than 12.72 million shares. The total float is reported to be over 96 million shares. The company also announced that its chief financial officer will step down this coming April. In the past week, residential real estate investment trust (REIT) American Homes 4 Rent (ANH) saw a beneficial owner pick up 152,000 of its shares via trust. At prices of $28.82 to $29.25 per share, that added up to more than $9.93 million. That owner’s 16.93 million-share stake compares with a float of more than 270 million shares. Note that a couple of other insiders parted with 139,500 shares last week as well.
