CQS Shuts $525 Million Hedge Fund as Narayanan Joins Citadel (Bloomberg)
CQS is shutting one of its best-performing strategies because the fund’s chief investment officer is leaving to join Citadel, adding to a string of departures from Michael Hintze’s hedge-fund firm. Prakash Narayanan, who ran CQS Global Relative Value, is exiting after more than three years, according to people with knowledge of the matter. He is joining Citadel’s Global Credit business as a portfolio manager to run a strategy similar to the one at CQS, a spokesman for Citadel confirmed.
More Than 50 Hedge Funds have Handed Bill Ackman’s SPAC $818 million to Find a Takeover target. Here are the Top 20 Hedge Fund Backers of Pershing Square Tontine Holdings (Business Insider)
Special-purpose acquisition companies are one of the hottest investing trends right now. SPAC launches more than tripled in 2020 compared to 2019. And roughly five SPACs have gone public every trading day this year, according to a recent analysis by Goldman Sachs. Everyone from retail investors to celebrities and sports stars is jumping on the SPACs bandwagon. Hedge funds are betting big on SPACs. Insider recently published a list of the 15 most popular SPACs among hedge funds according to Goldman Sachs. Legendary investor Bill Ackman‘s $5.8 billion Pershing Square Tontine Holdings (PSTH) took top position in the list.
U.S. Utility Evergy Adds Directors in New Agreement with Activist Firm Elliot (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Midwestern utility Evergy Inc said on Friday it would name two additional directors to its board as part of a new settlement with activist investment firm Elliott Management Corp. The announcement commits Evergy to maintain focus on its Sustainability Transformation Plan (STP) announced in August, with Elliott agreeing to support management until the 2022 annual shareholder meeting, according to a statement from Evergy.
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Investment Managers Are Adjusting to ESG as a Requirement, Not a Request (Preqin)
Alternative assets managed under an ESG framework continue to accumulate, and are now estimated at 40% of the $14tn industry. As ESG momentum gathers pace, demand is growing for investment managers to prove their efforts What can managers expect from clients and regulators in the future, and how can ESG investing be improved? Industry experts Bobby Turner, Principle and CEO of Turner Capital, and Dazzle Bhujwala, Director, Investor Network at Ceres, shared their thoughts in Preqin’s Motivating ESG in Alternatives webinar on 28 January.
SA Hedge Fund Manager Peregrine Capital Partners with Prescient Fund Services for First Global Equity UCITS Fund (Hedge Week)
Peregrine Capital (Pty) Ltd (Peregrine Capital) is to start marketing its Peregrine Capital Global Equity Fund, which launched on 18 November 2020. The fund, which sits on the Prescient Global Funds ICAV platform and is authorised by the Central Bank of Ireland, will initially be distributed to investors in South Africa, and subsequently to investors in other key European markets.
GameStop Resurgence Reinforces New Reality for Hedge Funds (The Wall Street Journal)
Investors have pared back their bearish bets a full month after the GameStop frenzy took off, showing the lasting effects of the Reddit-fueled saga on funds that make money by shorting. Firms across the hedge-fund industry unloaded short positions that gain when stock prices fall, after a handful of stocks touted on Reddit and other social media platforms surged in January. They feared other stocks might experience the same meteoric rise.
