Crispin Odey Opens His Hottest Hedge Fund to External Clients (Bloomberg)
Crispin Odey, whose main fund has seen excruciating losses and spectacular gains, is opening up his firm’s best performing money pool to external investors. The Odey Concentrated Natural Resources fund, managed by Henry Steel, has gained 32% since inception in March through the end of August, according to an investor update seen by Bloomberg. The MSCI Natural Resources index lost 7.7% during the period. The fund can raise as much as $400 million. A spokesman for Odey Asset Management declined to comment.
Activists Bark Loudly With Smaller Bites (The Wall Street Journal)
Do companies have to listen to every activist who shows up, no matter how small the stake? The phenomenon of cantankerous shareholders staking their claim on very large companies with ever smaller interests has grown since ValueAct elbowed its way onto Microsoft’s roster in 2013. Carl Icahn, Dan Loeb’s Third Point and Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management have all swayed huge targets with a relatively small presence in recent years.
Luis Louro / shutterstock.com
Bridgewater Deputy General Counsel Joins Board of Reynen Court (Bloomberg Law)
Bridgewater Associates’ deputy general counsel has signed on to the board of growing legal tech company Reynen Court, which will function as a legal tech app store and is already backed by a group of major law firms. Sylvia Khatcherian of Bridgewater worked for more than 13 years as the global head of Morgan Stanley’s technology, privacy, IP, and e-commerce law group before joining the hedge fund in 2015. Reynen Court is primed to help law firms and corporate legal departments take advantage of a fast-growing legal tech market, which topped $400 million in funding to legal tech vendors in the first quarter of 2019, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis.
Look Which Precious Metal Is Beating Warren Buffett… (Forbes)
Way back in January, I showed that the price of gold had beaten the S&P 500 Index over a number of different time periods, including the month, quarter, year… and even the century (so far!). Last week it was brought to my attention recently—in a tweet by Charlie Bilello, director of research at Pension Partners—that the yellow metal has also outperformed arguably the greatest living investor, Warren Buffett. For the 20-year period, gold has returned more than 485 percent, beating Warren’s Berkshire Hathaway, which was up 426 percent.
AT&T CEO’s Rumored Exit Reportedly Triggered Activist Hedge Fund Elliott Management’s Recent Investment (T) (Business Insider)
AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson’s rumored departure from the firm reportedly triggered activist hedge fund Elliott Management‘s interest in the company. Jesse Cohn, Elliott’s head of US equity activism, told other investors the hedge fund wants a say in who will run the $270 billion telecommunications giant when Stephenson steps down, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.
Opalesque Roundup: Hedge Fund Databases Report Mixed Results for August: Hedge Fund News, Week 35 (Opalesque.com)
In the week ending September 13th 2019, a report said that the hedge fund industry posted negative returns in August, dropping 0.78%, according to the Barclay Hedge Fund Index, versus a 1.58% dip in the S&P 500 Total Return Index. However, hedge funds remained in positive territory for the year, gaining 6.86% through August 31. The S&P Total Return Index returned 18.35% on the year through August. August’s hedge fund difficulties were fueled by the usual suspects: the U.S.-China trade war, ongoing no-deal Brexit uncertainty, and recession fears, said BarclayHedge. The Wilshire Liquid Alternative Index returned -0.27% in August, underperforming the 0.38 % monthly return of the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index.
Hedge Funds Are Leveraging Alternative Data In An Effort To Transform The Industry (AI-CIO.com)
Hedge funds across the spectrum are becoming increasingly reliant on third-party tools to stand out and defeat their competition, according to a new study from law firm Lowenstein Sandler. The firm surveyed fund managers to determine how often alternative data is used as part of the investment process. According to the report, 82% of hedge funds are using alternative data to reach performance targets. The survey includes responses from 26 fund managers and was conducted in early 2019.
