US Hedge Fund Reportedly Dumps its Entire Stake in Barclays (CNBC)
U.S. hedge fund Tiger Global Management has sold all of its stake in British bank Barclays, according to a report by the Financial Times. The New York-based hedge fund had been one of the top 10 investors in Barclays and held a stake of 2.5 percent in the bank. It, however, started reducing its position last summer before selling the entire stake this year, the FT reported on Sunday citing anonymous sources. Tiger was not immediately available for a comment when contacted by CNBC. Barclays declined to comment on the report.
Brexit Donor Odey Renews Sterling ‘Short’ Position, Does Not See Hard Brexit (Reuters)
(Reuters) – British hedge fund manager and Brexit supporter Crispin Odey said on Monday he was again positioning for sterling to weaken, calling the currency “mortally damaged”. The trade reverses a move, reported by Reuters in early January, that Odey was positioning for the pound to strengthen as he expected Britain to stay in the European Union despite the outcome of the 2016 referendum. He had told Reuters at the time he expected sterling to rise to “$1.32 or $1.35”. It was trading then around $1.27 but rallied to a four-month high of $1.3218 on Jan. 25, before retreating to around $1.29 now.
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A Very Special Situations Hedge Fund (HedgeNordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – After a relatively difficult first year since launching in December of 2015, Danish special situations fund Formue Nord Markedsneutral is providing more evidence of its uniqueness with each passing month. The market-neutral fund focusing on special situations delivered a return of 13.6 percent last year when most players in Nordic hedge fund arena stumbled, but more importantly, has exhibited close to zero correlation with global equities since inception.
Hedge Funds Accelerate Oil Buying: Kemp (Reuters)
LONDON (Reuters) – Investors bought crude oil futures and options at the fastest rate for almost six months in the week to Feb. 12. Hedge fund managers are becoming steadily more bullish on the outlook for oil prices as Saudi Arabia makes deep cuts in production, sanctions hit Venezuela and Iran, and the U.S. and China inch toward a trade deal. Hedge funds and other money managers were net buyers of 32 million barrels of Brent crude futures and options in the week to Feb. 22, according to position records published by ICE Futures Europe.
Windstream Woes: Hedge Fund Prevails in Bond Fight (LightReading)
Windstream may be headed for bankruptcy — or at least back to court to prevent it — following a court ruling late Friday that said the company defaulted on its debts in 2015. At issue was whether the carrier’s bond provisions allowed it to spin off its Windstream Services subsidiary into a real estate investment trust (REIT) called Uniti Group — a transaction that happened in 2015. Light Reading reported on Windstream’s plan back then. The carrier wanted to put its physical network assets –- like its copper and fiber distribution networks –- into a REIT, with the communications service providers using those assets as “tenants.” The arrangement would give Windstream a way to reduce its debt, cut its dividend and, the company said, move more quickly to expand its broadband footprint. The hedge fund Aurelius Capital Management, a major holder of Windstream bonds, said that Windstream violated the condition of its bonds by forming the REIT.
Insider Trade: Richard Rawson Sold 55,834 Shares of Insperity, Inc. (NSP); Shorts at World Wrestling Entertainment Class A Common (WWE) Raised By 1.86% (FinHeadlines.com)
World Wrestling Entertainment Inc Class A Common (NYSE:WWE) had an increase of 1.86% in short interest. WWE’s SI was 6.47M shares in February as released by FINRA. Its up 1.86% from 6.36M shares previously. With 936,500 avg volume, 7 days are for World Wrestling Entertainment Inc Class A Common (NYSE:WWE)’s short sellers to cover WWE’s short positions. The SI to World Wrestling Entertainment Inc Class A Common’s float is 15.53%. The stock decreased 1.59% or $1.41 during the last trading session, reaching $87.46. About 864,119 shares traded. World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) has risen 152.07% since February 18, 2018 and is uptrending.
Insiders Roundup: Twitter, Apollo Management (GuruFocus)
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 “February 2019” and All Insider Sales to “$5,000,000+.” According to these filters, the following are trades from company insiders this week. Arix Bioscience Plc, Gadicke Ansbert, MPM BioVentures 2014 LP, New Leaf Ventures III LP, Oncology Impact Fund (Cayman) 10% owners and Luke Evnin, Chin Mark and Hunt Ronald directors and 10% owners of Harpoon Therapeutics Inc. (HARP) bought a combined 2,964,284 shares for an average price of $14.00 per share on Feb. 12.
Insider Trading at Apple: Objectivity Under Cloud (Nyoooz.com)
According to the suit filed, he continued with insider trading from 2011 to 2016, a long period of five years. Last week Apple’s former lawyer, Gene Levoff, was accused of insider trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Ironically, Levoff was the company’s lawyer responsible for overseeing insider trading policies. Prosecutors have been after violators of corporate governance norms using digital trails, phone tapping, and circumstantial evidence in general. The brazen show of utmost disregard to the corporate governance norms in a cash-rich company like Apple has undoubtedly raised the issue of top leadership and the efficacy of checks and balances.
The Co-Founder of Kinder Morgan Has Bought Millions More in Stock (Barron’s)
An energy executive is snapping up his company’s stock, and he can’t seem to stop. Barron’s reported earlier this month that Kinder Morgan (ticker: KMI) co-founder Richard Kinder bought $10.3 million of the company’s stock. He wasn’t finished. Since that article ran, Kinder has bought another $12.9 million of stock on the open market, from…
Lawrence Hedge Fund Founder Murray Huberfeld Sentenced in Bribery Scheme (LiHerald.com)
Lawrence resident Murray Huberfeld, who founded Platinum Partners hedge fund, was sentenced on Feb. 12 to 30 months in prison for his role in a bribery scheme that also resulted in the incarceration of Norman Seabrook, the former head of the Correction Officers Benevolent Society. Huberfeld pleaded, 57, guilty last year to wire fraud conspiracy in connection with funds used to bribe Seabrook, former president of the nation’s largest municipal correction officers union. Huberfeld, according to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, conspired with a go-between, Jona Rechnitz, to have the hedge fund pay $60,000 to Rechnitz’s company by falsely representing that the money was payment for courtside tickets to eight New York Knicks basketball games in 2014.
Rozendal Partners Year-End Letter 2018 (Seeking Alpha)
Rozendal Worldwide Flexible Prescient Qualified Investor Hedge Fund is fully flexible and actively managed with an objective to earn a higher total rate of return than the JSE All Share Index in rand terms. It aims to achieve this without a greater risk of loss over the long term. Disappointingly, the process of getting the Rozendal global fund up and running is still beset with regulatory delays. Hence this letter will again deal primarily with the QIHF. The fund’s return since inception has been modest in absolute terms, but strong in relative terms. ‘Strong’ on both counts would have been more satisfactory, but we are not displeased with the outcome to date.
