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.
Mid-Market Private Equity: 2.0 (Preqin)
Mid-market private equity has grown in popularity as investors seek to invest in the high-growth companies that drive economies. The relatively small scale obf deals compared with the large buyout funds means the focus of mid-market private equity is local. That is, the segment is dominated by domestic private equity funds investing primarily in domestic companies. Investing in single countries or regions can make sense – the closer you can get to investee companies, the more likely you are to select the ones with the greatest potential. However, the model lacks diversification; investors are potentially exposed to countries and regions that have structurally slow growth or suffer from geopolitical problems.
Jana Partners Pushes TreeHouse for Sale After Buying Stake, Shares Jump (Reuters)
Feb 10 (Reuters) – Hedge fund Jana Partners is pushing TreeHouse Foods to explore options, including a sale, after taking a 7.3% stake, the packaged food company disclosed in a filing on Wednesday, sending its shares up 22%. Jana bought more than four million shares in TreeHouse as it viewed the stock to be undervalued even after nearly three years into a turnaround, the fund said in the filing.
Wednesday 2/10 Insider Buying Report: AMG, NWBI (Nasdaq.com)
At Affiliated Managers Group, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Tuesday, CEO Jay C. Horgen bought 4,000 shares of AMG, at a cost of $136.23 each, for a total investment of $544,920. So far Horgen is in the green, up about 7.4% on their buy based on today’s trading high of $146.29. Affiliated Managers Group is trading up about 2.7% on the day Wednesday. Before this latest buy, Horgen purchased AMG on 4 other occasions during the past year, for a total cost of $2.29M at an average of $65.56 per share. And at Northwest Bancshares, there was insider buying on Tuesday, by Director Timothy M. Hunter who purchased 10,000 shares at a cost of $13.50 each, for a trade totaling $134,970. Before this latest buy, Hunter bought NWBI at 2 other times during the past twelve months, for a total cost of $254,975 at an average of $10.20 per share. Northwest Bancshares is trading up about 0.7% on the day Wednesday. Hunter was up about 2.7% on the purchase at the high point of today’s trading session, with NWBI trading as high as $13.86 in trading on Wednesday.
Mettler-toledo International Inc (MTD) CFO Shawn Vadala Sold $1.5 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CFO of Mettler-toledo International Inc, Shawn Vadala, sold 1,287 shares of MTD on 02/08/2021 at an average price of $1194 a share. The total sale was $1.5 million. Mettler-Toledo International Inc supplies weighing and precision instruments to customers in the life sciences, industrial and food retail industries. Its products are laboratory scales, pipettes, pH meters, thermal analysis equipment and others.
The COO of Veritex (NASDAQ: VBTX) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the COO of Veritex (VBTX), Lavonda Renfro, sold shares of VBTX for $52.95K. Following Lavonda Renfro’s last VBTX Sell transaction on August 12, 2020, the stock climbed by 10.2%. In addition to Lavonda Renfro, 4 other VBTX executives reported Sell trades in the last month.
Bobblehead Maker Funko Sued Over Insider Trading Allegations (Bloomberg Law)
A Funko Inc. shareholder sued it in Delaware, seeking internal files to probe claims that the toymaker’s board falsely hyped its prospects while its chief executive and financial backers at ACON Investments LLC sold more than $100 million worth of stock at inflated prices. There’s “more than a credible basis to believe” the board offered “misleading statements about Funko’s capabilities, inventory, and finances” while some of its members, along with ACON and CEO Brian Mariotti, made insider sales “after the company raised its near-term guidance and before it announced disappointing financial” results, the complaint says.
