FS Investments Acquires Chiron Investment Management (Hedge Week)
Alternative investment manager FS Investments (FS) has closed its previously announced acquisition of Chiron Investment Management (Chiron). “By adding the Chiron funds and team to the FS platform, we are better able to serve our clients with a broader set of solutions and expanded distribution,” says Michael Forman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of FS Investments. “Our complementary investment approaches also position us to be a leader in developing model portfolios that combine traditional and alternative strategies.” Chiron is a global multi-asset investment boutique that employs an active investment approach rooted in quantitative analytics and fundamental research. Chiron manages three funds which will continue to be managed as standalone funds within the FS portfolio by Ryan Caldwell, co-founder and Chief Investment Officer of Chiron.
ExodusPoint Up Slightly Amid Market Rout: Hedge Fund Update (Bloomberg)
ExodusPoint Capital Management weathered February’s coronavirus-fueled market carnage and eked out a slight gain for the month. The $8.8 billion hedge fund rose about 0.6%, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. That’s roughly in line with multi-strategy peers such as Ken Griffin’s Citadel, whose flagship Wellington fund was up about 1% in February. ExodusPoint, which has sizable exposure to fixed income and has been building out its equity unit, is up 1.8% so far this year.
Elliott Reaches Truce in Long Battle Over Hong Kong Bank (The Wall Street Journal)
Bank of East Asia is assessing whether it can sell assets or otherwise improve its business. Years of conflict in Hong Kong is finally starting to bear fruit for Elliott Management Corp. The city’s last major family-backed lender, The Bank of East Asia Ltd., on Wednesday called a truce to a long battle with the U.S. hedge-fund manager, saying it had hired bankers to help assess whether it could sell assets or otherwise improve its business.
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‘One of those Once in 100 Years Catastrophic Events’: Billionaire Ray Dalio Says Coronavirus will ‘Annihilate’ Select Parts of the Market – and Warns Further Emergency Rate Cuts will be Futile (Business Insider)
The coronavirus is a unique event that will crush investors who don’t protect for the worst, Bridgewater Co-Chairman Ray Dalio wrote. The billionaire investor commented on the epidemic in a Tuesday LinkedIn post, highlighting his perspectives on the outbreak itself, its economic impact, and markets’ reactions. He noted his aversion to betting on events mired in uncertainty, adding that he prefers to insulate himself from murky risks. Bridgewater’s worst-case coronavirus scenario resembles the Spanish flu case from 1918, and investors should defend against coronavirus escalating to a similar level, Dalio wrote. Those who underestimate the epidemic’s development are likely to suffer for it, he added.
Approval Granted for Adrigo Takeover (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Beginning with April, Stockholm-based asset manager East Capital will manage Adrigo Hedge and Adrigo Small & Midcap L/S following approval from Finansinspektionen, the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority. This follows East Capital’s agreement to acquire hedge fund firm Adrigo Asset Management in November of last year. On February 28, Finansinspektionen granted Adrigo Asset Management permission to transfer the management of the two hedge funds to East Capital Asset Management. Adrigo Asset Management has also delegated the portfolio managers of the funds to an affiliate of East Capital. The funds will be managed under the brand “Adrigo Asset Management” and will benefit from “additional management expertise, organization and distribution channels provided by the East Capital Group,” according to an announcement. The transfer of the management of Adrigo Hedge and Adrigo Small & Midcap L/S takes place on April 1.
A Hedge Fund Pioneer Bets on Higher Rates, Recovery In Stocks (Bloomberg)
A top hedge fund manager in Canada says the coronavirus sell-off is a temporary setback that will soon give way to an economic rebound, sending stocks and interest rates higher. “While there will certainly be an economic hit from the virus, when you go back through these ‘pandemic’ periods of time, there’s really, without exception, a fairly significant recovery that takes place in markets and economies,” David Picton, founder of hedge fund Picton Mahoney Asset Management, said during an interview at Bloomberg’s office in Toronto.
Bill Ackman is Hedging Big Time Because of the ‘Substantial Negative Impact’ from the Coronavirus (CNBC)
Longtime hedge fund manager Bill Ackman on Tuesday told investors in Pershing Square that he’s taken steps in recent days to shore up his investment portfolio to protect against the economic impact of the coronavirus.
Chalkstream’s Tsai Switches Over to PDT (HFAlert.com)
Continuing his longstanding ties with quantitative-investment guru Peter Muller, Chalkstream Capital chief investment officer Andrew Tsai is stepping down to work at PDT Partners. The two men formed Chalkstream in 2003 as a family office for Muller, who at the time led the now-independent PDT as a unit of Morgan Stanley. Soon after, Tsai helped New York-based Chalkstream evolve into a commingled fund operator pursuing a range of investments. Muller has been serving as a nonmanaging partner at Chalkstream while continuing to lead PDT. In his new assignment, Tsai is assuming an undisclosed role as a managing director at the equity-focused PDT. “Since the beginning of Chalkstream, [Muller] and I have always discussed ways for us to work even more closely together,” Tsai wrote in a Feb. 20 letter to Chalkstream’s investors.
SEC Sues Israelis Linked to International Insider Trading Ring (NewsMax.com)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission sued two Israeli citizens linked to a sprawling international insider-trading ring. Tomer Feingold, 40, and Dov Malnik, 42, were accused in a suit filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court of using tips on planned health care mergers to make more than $4 million in illegal profits. The men were named in January trial testimony by Marc Demane Debih, a former Geneva-based trader who has admitted making more than $70 million from his role at the center of the ring. According to the SEC, Feingold and Malnik traded on information passed to them by Demane Debih, who is identified as “Trader A” in the agency’s suit.
Wednesday 3/4 Insider Buying Report: PNC, DOW (Nasdaq.com)
On Friday, PNC Financial Services Group’s Director, Andrew T. Feldstein, made a $2.98M buy of PNC, purchasing 24,168 shares at a cost of $123.49 each. Feldstein was up about 4.1% on the purchase at the high point of today’s trading session, with PNC trading as high as $128.59 in trading on Wednesday. PNC Financial Services Group is trading up about 0.5% on the day Wednesday. And at Dow, there was insider buying on Friday, by Director Jeff M. Fettig who bought 15,000 shares at a cost of $38.13 each, for a total investment of $571,950. Before this latest buy, Fettig made one other purchase in the past year, buying $1.38M shares for a cost of $46.00 a piece. Dow is trading trading flat on the day Wednesday. So far Fettig is in the green, up about 9.0% on their buy based on today’s trading high of $41.55.
A Director at Huntington Ingalls (NYSE: HII) is Buying Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, a Director at Huntington Ingalls (HII), Thomas Schievelbein, bought shares of HII for $831.6K. This recent transaction increases Thomas Schievelbein’s holding in the company by 27.04% to a total of $4.52 million. This is Schievelbein’s first transaction since reporting a Buy transaction on BCO back in March 2011.
Daktronics Inc (DAKT) Chairman, President and CEO Reece A Kurtenbach Bought $132,250 of Shares (Guru Focus)
Chairman, President and CEO of Daktronics Inc., Reece A Kurtenbach, bought 25,000 shares of DAKT on 03/03/2020 at an average price of $5.29 a share. The total cost of this purchase was $132,250. Daktronics Inc along with its subsidiaries is engaged in the design, manufacture and sale of electronic display systems and related products for Commercial, Live Events, Schools and Theatres, and Transportation.
