Billionaire York Capital Founder and Milwaukee Bucks Co-owner Jamie Dinan Sees Big Investing Opportunities in a Post-Brexit UK (Business Insider)
Jamie Dinan, the founder of $17.6 billion York Capital and a co-owner of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, told attendees of Context Summits in Miami that Japan, a post-Brexit United Kingdom, and deleveraging European banks are all attractive areas in the market. Dinan said that you need to have a “rifle-shot” approach to invest in the US and be uncorrelated with the overall market. Within the US, he still thinks there are opportunities around mergers and in the credit markets for investors who look hard enough though.
Ray Dalio Explains How to Hedge Risk Amid the Coronavirus Scare (FNLondon)
“When you don’t know, the best investment strategy is to be smartly diversified across geographic locations, across asset classes, and across currencies.” That’s how Ray Dalio, founder of hedge fund behemoth Bridgewater Associates, said he is approaching the stock market in light of the coronavirus outbreak, according to his latest LinkedIn post. Dalio said fears of the spreading coronavirus have triggered a “flight-to-quality market action” that continues to pressure stocks while giving a lift to hedges such as gold, bonds and the dollar.
Sackler Family Member Sells Upper East Side Townhouse for $38 Million (The New York Times)
The sale, to the hedge fund manager Israel Englander, was New York City’s priciest closing in January.
Another member of the Sackler pharmaceutical family has sold off a Manhattan property. Mortimer D.A. Sackler closed on the sale of a sprawling townhouse at 8 East 75th Street for $38 million – the priciest transaction in New York City in January, in an otherwise quiet month. The buyer was the hedge fund titan Israel Englander. In December, David A. Sackler, a cousin, sold his apartment, with storage, at 200 East 66th Street, a.k.a. Manhattan House, for nearly $6.1 million. Both men, along with other family members, have served on the board of Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, the prescription painkiller widely seen as igniting the opioid crisis. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in September amid mounting federal and state lawsuits.
Image By Monkey Business – Adobe Stock
‘Alarmed and Frightened’: Journalists Brace as Alden Global Capital Acquires Stake in Yet Another Newspaper Chain (Mediaite.com)
The announcement on Wednesday morning that Warren Buffett’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, would be offloading its stable of 31 newspapers to Lee Enterprises in a $140 million deal had just barely begun to register when another bit of news, equally if not more consequential, snuck into the mix: MNG Enterprises, the newspaper group backed by the New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital, had acquired a 5.9 percent stake in Lee. Those familiar with Alden’s reputation for strip-mining regional newspapers around the country – denuding them of resources and wringing them for immediate profit – knew that this could only be bad news for the 81 papers that Lee, a publicly traded company, will soon own.
Company Forced To Relive Its Misplaced Optimism For Acquisition, Pay Fine For The Pleasure (Deal Breaker)
Cantab Capital Partners has already cost GAM Holding a whole lot of money. The asset manager bought the quantitative hedge fund for an upfront $217 million in 2016, plus future performance payouts based on management fee revenue, just in time for one of Cantab’s occasional disastrous years. This led to a $59 million impairment charge, which did come with the silver lining of having to pay substantially less in those future payouts, which GAM took into account in its financial statements. This did not sit well with the Swiss SIX stock exchange, which decided that GAM had not suffered enough vis-à-vis Cantab, and needs to pretend that the deal was not a disaster in its books. And GAM is quite frankly too busy dealing with other, more pressing fires to continue to argue.
Banca Consulia Simplifies Hedge Fund Investment (Hedge Week)
Banca Consulia has launched Dynamic Alternative, a new discretionary mandate in partnership with MDOTM, a fintech that develops AI-driven investment strategies. The mandate studies the performance of a vast panel of hedge funds and applies a proprietary methodology to replicate them by investing in liquid instruments. Banca Consulia’s Dynamic Alternative allows its clients to invest in alternatives, a typical institutional investors asset class, thanks to a replication process that uses liquid ETFs. “We launched with MDOTM a truly unique and innovative product for the Italian financial market” says Antonio Marangi, CEO of Banca Consulia. “The Dynamic Alternative makes hedge funds, [usually] characterised by high costs and barriers to entry, accessible to all our clients.
Third Point Presses Sony, Takes Stand Against Proposed SEC Proxy Adviser Rule (Reuters)
BOSTON (Reuters) – Hedge fund Third Point on Thursday called on Sony Corp (6758.T) to keep divesting non-core assets and said it opposes the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed rule on proxy advisers. The firm, run by Daniel Loeb, praised Sony for last year’s strong returns but said it needs to take a hard look at its portfolio, from which it has divested only Olympus. “Sony has avoided the topic of portfolio optimization, but we continue to believe that Sony’s media and semiconductors franchises can stand alone and create more value independently than together,” the firm wrote in a letter to its investors. A copy was seen by Reuters.
Salesforce.com Inc (CRM) Chairman of the Board & co-CEO Marc Benioff Sold $3.7 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
Chairman of the Board & co-CEO of Salesforce.com Inc., Marc Benioff, sold 20,000 shares of CRM on 01/30/2020 at an average price of $183.56 a share. The total sale was $3.7 million. Salesforce.com Inc is a software-as-a-service company that provides enterprise cloud computing solutions, offering social and mobile cloud apps and platform services, as well as professional services to facilitate the adoption of its solutions.
Friday 1/31 Insider Buying Report: APD, CLDB (Nasdaq.com)
Bargain hunters are wise to pay careful attention to insider buying, because although there are many various reasons for an insider to sell a stock, presumably the only reason they would use their hard-earned cash to make a purchase, is that they expect to make money. Today we look at two noteworthy recent insider buys. On Wednesday, Air Products & Chemicals’ Director, Edward L. Monser, made a $47,519 purchase of APD, buying 200 shares at a cost of $237.59 a piece. Monser was up about 1.3% on the purchase at the high point of today’s trading session, with APD trading as high as $240.65 in trading on Friday. Air Products & Chemicals is trading down about 1.2% on the day Friday. This buy marks the first one filed by Monser in the past year.
SEBI Disposes Of Insider Trading Case Against SpiceJet’s Former Independent Director (Bloomberg)
The Securities and Exchange Board of India on Friday disposed of an alleged insider trading case against former independent director of SpiceJet Ltd., KR Sasiprabhu, saying the charges could not be established against him. It had been alleged that Sasiprabhu had traded in the scrip of SpiceJet while in possession of unpublished price sensitive information pertaining to the company’s quarterly financial results. Sasiprabhu, who was appointed as an independent director of SpiceJet on Dec. 1, 2015, had resigned from the position in May, 2018, SEBI noted.
The President & CEO of Cidara Therapeutics is Exercising Options (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday it was reported that the President & CEO of Cidara Therapeutics (CDTX), Jeffrey Stein, exercised options to buy 32,283 CDTX shares at $2.51 a share, for a total transaction value of $81.03K. The options were close to expired and Jeffrey Stein retained stocks. This recent transaction increases Jeffrey Stein’s holding in the company by 13.38% to a total of $1.94 million. Following Jeffrey Stein’s last CDTX Buy transaction on September 26, 2019, the stock climbed by 1.6%.
WeissLaw LLP: Sealed Air Corporation is the Subject of a Legal Investigation (PRNewswire.com)
NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — WeissLaw LLP, a national class action and shareholders’ rights law firm with offices in New York, California and Georgia, announces an investigation of Sealed Air Corporation (NYSE: SEE) (“SEE,” or the “Company”). The investigation focuses on possible breaches of fiduciary duty and violations of federal securities laws by SEE’s Board of Directors for the alleged dissemination of materially false and misleading information in connection with the Company’s operations. Specifically, the Company is alleged to have improperly deducted $1.49 billion in asbestos claims relating to its purchase of Cryovac, and to have used a conflicted process to hire its independent auditor. As a result of an internal investigation by the Company’s Audit Committee, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer William G. Stiehl, was fired for cause. Additionally, Stiehl and former director Lawrence R. Codey are alleged to have engaged in insider trading.
