Hedge Fund and Insider Trading News: Elliott Management, George Soros, Vital Therapies Inc (VTL), Digirad Co. (DRAD), and More

New York Hedge Fund Needs the Long Game in Italy (Bloomberg)
Telecom Italia SpA had problems when it was being dominated by its biggest investor, Vincent Bollore’s Vivendi SA. But the arrival on the shareholder register of activist fund Elliott Management Corp., and its wresting of boardroom control from the Breton billionaire, has hardly helped matters. The shares have fallen 29 percent in the last six months on a total-return basis. As such, Paul Singer’s New York hedge fund would probably do well to listen to Telecom Italia’s CEO Amos Genish, who Bloomberg News says is eyeing a Brazilian takeover and asset sales.

Brett Kavanaugh, Christine Blasey Ford and the Links to George Soros (Wheaton Business Journal)
Look at what’s going on with Judge ’s confirmation proceedings for the Supreme Court, and the fingerprints of George Soros are all over it. First there was a report from June in the Daily Caller that “a new political advocacy group that vowed to put $5 million behind an effort to stop … ’s confirmation has significant ties to the liberal financier” Soros. What are those ties? The group, Demand Justice, established in 2018, gets its money from the Sixteen Thirty Fund — and the Sixteen Thirty Fund received roughly $2.2 million from the Open Society Policy Center, one of Soros’ outlets, between the years of 2012 and 2016.

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Invest With the Best: Buffett, Icahn, Ackman, Loeb & More (TheStreet Real Money)
Bill Ackman, Warren Buffett, David Einhorn, Carl Icahn, Dan Loeb and the Markel family are well-known names in the financial world. Indeed, they are arguably among the savviest fund managers of our times, according to George Putnam. The editor of The Turnaround Letter discusses a variety of investment vehicles that allow the average investor to invest alongside these financial elites. Participating in some of the savviest investment funds often requires a minimum investment of $5 million or more, a commitment to tie up one’s money for years and a tolerance for less than full disclosure about the fund’s holdings.

Insider Buying: Digirad Co. (NASDAQ:DRAD) Major Shareholder Buys 68,594 Shares of Stock (XNewsPress.com)
Digirad Co. (NASDAQ:DRAD) major shareholder Cannell Capital LLC bought 68,594 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 11th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $1.75 per share, with a total value of $120,039.50. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission.