Exclusive: Hedge Fund Sachem Head Targets International Flavors – Sources (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Sachem Head Capital Management LP has amassed a roughly $1 billion stake in International Flavors & Fragrances Inc and nominated four directors to the chemical company’s board, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The activist hedge fund’s board challenge comes as IFF earlier this month completed a $26.2 billion merger with DuPont’s nutrition unit, creating a food ingredients and consumer goods materials giant.
Biden ‘Better Not Rely’ on Private Sector to Police National Security: Hedge Fund Manager Kyle Bass (Fox Business)
President Biden “better not rely on the private sector to police U.S. national security,” Hayman Capital Management founder and CIO Kyle Bass warned on Tuesday. Bass also argued that “leadership from President Biden” is required to prevent the reliance on the private sector to “police” U.S. national security. Bass made the comments on “Mornings with Maria” on Tuesday responding to a question from host Maria Bartiromo regarding will the policy towards China “change aggressively now” with a new administration.
Hedge Fund Anson Goes Big on Retail Trades, Outperforming Peers (Bloomberg)
Canadian hedge fund Anson Funds, which returned more than double the S&P 500 in 2020, recommends skipping the fundamentals and focusing on sentiment as retail traders take an outsized role in the market. That is what pushed Anson to trade on themes and stocks popular with individual investors last year, including positions in Apollo Healthcare Corp., Genius Brands International Inc. and Hertz Global Holdings Inc.
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Inside Billionaire Izzy Englander’s Massive 2020: Millennium’s Blockbuster Performance, Hiring Spurt, and Fundraising Drive (Business Insider)
Eurekahedge called last year the best stretch for hedge funds in over a decade and billionaire Izzy Englander wouldn’t argue with that assertion. Millennium, with its nearly $50 billion in capital, made 25.9% last year, and made money on 72% of trading days in 2020, surpassing the 10-year average of 62% at the manager, according to the firm’s annual letter which was sent to investors last week. The firm’s dozens of portfolio managers didn’t rest on their hands either – the firm trades on 150 different exchanges now, and thanks to last year’s volatility, the number of average daily transactions was up 35%.
Redhedge Taps into Credit Market Dislocations with New Relative Value UCITS Hedge Fund (Hedge Week)
Redhedge Asset Management has launched a new relative value hedge fund focusing on European investment-grade credit markets, tapping into increased demand from institutional investors. The Redhedge Relative Value UCITS strategy fuses quantitative and qualitative investment processes, and aims to offer returns decorrelated from broader financial markets.
Coleman Leads $23 Billion Payday for 15 Hedge Fund Earners (Bloomberg)
His Tiger Global gained 48% to put him atop Bloomberg ranking. Jim Simons, Ken Griffin, Bill Ackman also land in the top 15. It’s more than enough money, at going prices, to buy one GameStop, two AMC Entertainments and four Bed Bath & Beyonds. Not shares — those darlings of the r/wallstreetbets crowd – but the entire companies. The estimated sum is $23.2 billion, and it’s the amount that the hedge fund managers on Bloomberg’s annual list of the top 15 earners collectively made in 2020, a year that will loom large in the annals of Wall Street.
As Humbled Firm Rues Short Bet Fiasco (Green Street)
A hedge fund manager has issued the mother of mea culpas after losing more than a third of its assets in last month’s GameStop short squeeze. “Who is that idiot in the mirror?” Central Square Management founder and portfolio manager Kelly Cardwell wrote to investors on Feb. 1, characterizing the firm’s performance as a “calamity.” His letter lays out in unusual detail how Central Square, a small operation in Naperville, Ill., lost its way by selling naked call options as the stock price soared, a move that resulted in Cardwell’s Central Square Fund shedding 35% of its value over six trading days and 36.9% for the month.
