A Hedge Fund Manager Reluctantly Challenged — Then Collaborated With — Harry Markowitz (Institutional Investor)
When Hudson Bay Capital’s Sander Gerber set out to build a portfolio management system, he didn’t plan to challenge Harry Markowitz. Yet after developing a new statistic to understand how two securities move relative to each other – so-called co-movement – that’s exactly what he ended up doing. Gerber’s goal was to have a clearer understanding of exactly how diversified his portfolio was after finding that historical covariance, the measure used by Markowitz adherents, wasn’t cutting it.
Tiger Global, D1 Capital Signal Pullback From Big Private Tech Deals Amid Market Rout (The Information)
Responding to a steep sell-off in technology stocks, some hedge funds and other investment firms with large public stock portfolios have been turning away from investing in the most mature startups, reducing what’s been a crucial source of funding for the better part of two years. Instead they are focusing on buying beaten-down public tech stocks or investing in younger startups. Tiger Global Management told its investors in a webinar earlier this month that it would no longer focus on backing large, late-stage startups preparing to go public, said a person with direct knowledge of the discussion.
A Woman Claims a BlueCrest Portfolio Manager Raped Her and Later Tried to have Sex with Her in Central Park in Exchange for a Job (Business Insider)
A woman claimed a BlueCrest manager offered to give her a job at the hedge fund if she had sex with him. He had previously pursued and raped her in 2019 before he joined BlueCrest last summer, she claimed. BlueCrest denied the allegations against the firm. Chen did not respond to requests for comment.
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Quant Firm Engineers Gate Attracts Hedge Fund Attention (Hedge Week)
Quant hedge fund Engineers Gate is in discussion with both Millennium Management and Point72 Asset Management over a possible acquisition of the business, according to a report by Bloomberg. Blackstone has an economic interest in Engineers Gate having replaced Canada Pension Plan Investment Board as the firm’s anchor investor in 2020. The business was founded by former Highbridge Capital Management exec Glenn Dubin in 2014.
Millennium Hedge Fund Takes Over Mayfair Members Club for New London Office (Bloomberg)
Millennium Management has signed a lease for a new headquarters in London’s Mayfair district, taking over a building that was previously home to a private members club operated by KPMG.
U.S. Authorities Sue Infinity Q Capital Management, Alleging Fraud (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. authorities filed criminal and civil charges against the founder and former chief investment officer of investment adviser Infinity Q Capital Management LLC, alleging he engaged in a fraudulent scheme to inflate the value of assets the firm advised. Infinity Q was forced last year to liquidate its mutual funds after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission found that James Velissaris made potentially unreasonable adjustments to a pricing model used to value fund investments.
Blue Owl Assets Soar 34% for Quarter, 77% for Year (Pensions&Investments)
Blue Owl Capital on Thursday reported $94.5 billion in assets under management as of Dec. 31, up 34% from $70.5 billion at the end of the prior quarter and up from $53.3 billion and up 77% year-over-year. Blue Owl executives attributed its AUM growth to fundraising as well as the year-end completion of its acquisition of real estate manager Oak Street Real Estate Capital, which added its $15.4 billion in AUM to Blue Owl’s total as of Dec. 31.
London-Based Hedge Fund Continues to Gain from Out-of-Favour Segments of the Market (Opalesque)
A long-biased long/short equity strategy deploying long-term capital into small and mid-cap ideas in out-of-favour segments of the market returned 18% last year – after returning almost 50% in 2020. London-based Eschler Asset Management LLP is an independent investment practice modelled on the original Buffett Partnership. The managers, who invest heavily in the Partnership, look for resilient businesses in capital-constrained markets.
King Street’s Revival (Institutional Investor)
The credit-driven multistrategy firm has heavily expanded beyond its hedge fund roots. King Street Capital Management is enjoying a renaissance of sorts as it undergoes a transformation.The credit-driven multistrategy firm, which intentionally operated under the radar for many years, posted a 14.7 percent gain in its flagship fund in 2021, its best performance since 2009 and its second straight double-digit gain.
Friday 2/18 Insider Buying Report: NOTV, FLNC (Nasdaq.com)
On Thursday, Inotiv’s CEO, Robert Leasure Jr., made a $115,131 purchase of NOTV, buying 5,000 shares at a cost of $23.03 each. Bargain hunters have the opportunity to buy NOTV at a price even lower than Leasure Jr. did, with the stock changing hands as low as $21.01 in trading on Friday which is 8.8% below Leasure Jr.’s purchase price. Inotiv is trading up about 13.2% on the day Friday. This buy marks the first one filed by Leasure Jr. in the past twelve months. And on Tuesday, Director Julian Nebreda bought $104,000 worth of Fluence Energy, buying 8,000 shares at a cost of $13.00 each. This buy marks the first one filed by Nebreda in the past twelve months. Fluence Energy is trading off about 2.3% on the day Friday.
Executives Buy Around $500M Of 4 Stocks (Benzinga)
Kodiak Sciences: The Trade: Kodiak Sciences Inc. (KOD) Director Felix Baker acquired a total of 400,965 shares at an average price of $54.45. To acquire these shares, it cost around $21.83 million. Newmark Group: The Trade: Newmark Group, Inc. (NMRK) Chairman Howard W Lutnick acquired a total of 100,000 shares at an average price of $16.49. To acquire these shares, it cost around $1.65 million. Dun & Bradstreet Holdings: The Trade: Dun & Bradstreet Holdings, Inc. (DNB) Director DNB Holdco Llc bought a total of 2,3425,921 shares at an average price of $19.86. To acquire these shares, it cost around $465.24 million.
