Hong Kong Bank Reaches Insurance Deal After Pressure from Elliott Management (The Wall Street Journal)
HONG KONG— Bank of East Asia Ltd. agreed to sell its insurance business to pan-Asian life insurer AIA Group Ltd., marking a milestone in one of the longest-running shareholder activism campaigns in the region. The Hong Kong-based bank said it would sell its BEA Life subsidiary for $650 million and enter an exclusive 15-year agreement under which the bank will distribute AIA’s life and long-term savings products via its 140-plus branches in Hong Kong and mainland China.
Tribune Publishing Board Recommends Shareholders Approve Alden Bid, But Gives Hotel Exec the OK to Pursue Financing for Higher Offer (Chicago Tribune)
Tribune Publishing’s board is recommending shareholders approve Alden Global Capital’s $633 million offer to buy the Chicago-based newspaper company, but gave a Maryland hotel executive the green light to pursue financing for a higher bid, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday. Alden, a New York-based hedge fund and Tribune Publishing’s largest shareholder with a 31.6% stake, reached an agreement last month to buy the rest of the company at $17.25 per share and take it private. The deal, which the company said should close in the second quarter, requires approval from two-thirds of Tribune Publishing’s other shareholders in a proxy vote to be scheduled.
ValueAct’s New CEO Mason Morfit Shows Hedge Fund Succession Can Work (Institutional Investor)
When Mason Morfit interviewed for the first investment analyst spot at hedge fund firm ValueAct Capital in 2000, shortly after its launch, the then 24-year-old was not too concerned about his lack of business school degree. “The firm had no assets under management, so it was a good fit,” he quipped in a June 24, 2019 speech at the Stanford Directors’ College.
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LabCorp Launches Review Following Moves by Activist Jana (Bloomberg)
Laboratory Corp. of America Holdings, which has been pressed by an activist investor to make changes, said its board would launch a review of the company’s strategy because it believed its stock is undervalued. The lab-testing company has faced questions about the durability of its Covid-19 screening business and whether it should spin off its drug-development unit, Covance. LabCorp has hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. as its financial adviser, it said in a statement on Tuesday.
Activist-Backed Proposal for Toshiba Probe Received 58% of Shareholder Votes (Reuters)
TOKYO (Reuters) – About 58% of Toshiba Corp shareholders last week voted in favour of an independent probe into allegations that investors were pressured ahead of last year’s annual general meeting, a breakdown of the results showed on Tuesday. The win for Effissimo Capital Management, Toshiba’s biggest investor with a 9.9% stake, marked only the fourth time an activist shareholder motion has won approval in Japan and the first at a major household name.
Crypto Hedge Fund ARK36 Invests in Concordium (Hedge Week)
Danish-owned cryptocurrency hedge fund ARK36 has participated in a private sale of GTU tokens issued by Concordium, a new blockchain project built for business and focused on regulatory compliance and privacy. Concordium, which is run by a team of Danish innovators and led by CEO Lone Fonss Schroder, has recently completed the second private sale round where they raised USD15 million and thus secured additional funding for further development. ARK36 saw the sale as an opportunity to further broaden its portfolio, recognising Concordium’s groundbreaking potential and a promising, asymmetric risk-to-reward ratio it may carry as an investment.
Hedge Fund Manager Who Bought Near the Lows Reveals Some Under-the-Radar Stocks for the Recovery (CNBC)
Hedge fund manager Ricky Sandler was buying stocks during last March’s coronavirus-driven sell-off. On Tuesday, roughly a year later, the founder and CEO of Eminence Capital told CNBC he was still finding opportunities in the market – although he’s more picky now than in the throes of the pandemic plunge.
Fund of Funds Scoring Big on Crypto Play (Green Street)
An Amsterdam fund-of-funds operator that invests with some of the industry’s biggest names is increasingly focusing on digital-asset plays following impressive gains from a position in Pantera Capital. Theta Capital’s Legends Fund rose 23.6% across January and February, propelled largely by its investment in the Pantera Early Stage Token Fund. That vehicle soared 70% in February. Overall, Theta’s investment in the fund has gained 1,100% since it established the position on July 1, the firm wrote in an investor letter this month. The Pantera boost also pushed the Legends Fund well ahead of the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index (EUR), which was up 1.2% over the year’s first two months.
Hedge Fund Managers Up 2.99% in February (Opalesque)
Opalesque Industry Update – Hedge fund managers were up 2.99% in February – recording their third consecutive month of outperformance against the global equity market as represented by the MSCI ACWI which returned 2.72% over the month. In terms of performance distribution, the top 10% of global hedge funds generated an average return of 11.45% over the first two months of the year, while the bottom 10% declined by 2.68%. In the same vein, more than 70% of the global hedge funds tracked by the Eurekahedge database generated a positive return in 2021.
Former Executive Director of Three-A Resources Convicted of Insider Trading (MSN Money)
KUALA LUMPUR (March 24): Former executive director of Three-A Resources Bhd (3A), Fang Siew Yee, has been convicted and sentenced for two offences related to insider trading by the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court. The Securities Commission Malaysia (SC) said in a statement Fang was sentenced to one-day jail and a fine of RM5 million after she pleaded guilty to two separate charges of communicating inside information and acquiring shares when in possession of the said information.
Anthem Inc (ANTM) EVP & President, Commercial Peter D Haytaian Sold $20.8 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
EVP & President, Commercial of Anthem Inc, Peter D Haytaian, sold 59,500 shares of ANTM on 03/22/2021 at an average price of $349.2 a share. The total sale was $20.8 million. Anthem Inc is a health benefits company offering a network-based managed care plans to the large and small employer, individual, Medicaid and Medicare markets.
The CVP PRIN ACCT OFFICER of FedEx (NYSE: FDX) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the CVP PRIN ACCT OFFICER of FedEx (FDX), John Merino, sold shares of FDX for $2.73M. Based on FedEx’s latest earnings report for the quarter ending February 28, the company posted quarterly revenue of $21.51 billion and quarterly net profit of $892 million. In comparison, last year the company earned revenue of $17.49 billion and had a net profit of $315 million.
