Activist Investor Jeff Smith Sparked a Rally in Two Stocks Thursday – Here’s his Pitch (CNBC)
Activist investor Jeff Smith pitched two new stocks at a conference on Thursday, sending shares jumping in early trading. The CEO of Starboard Value discussed those new positions in Corteva and ON Semiconductor with CNBC’s David Faber on “Squawk on the Street.” Smith did not disclose the size of either stake but said Starboard would be among the biggest shareholders for both companies.
Dan Loeb Believes In The Magic Of Hollywood Again (Deal Breaker)
Dan Loeb has, in a sense, come home. Like a minor superhero in a Marvel Comics Universe film, his transformation is both complete and, in a cinematic way, that journey has brought him full circle. Seven years ago, the Third Point chief had forgotten his roots. He’d been in New York too long, become too focused on vulgar matters like making as much money as possible, perhaps a bit too enamored of his own rhetorical and persuasive abilities to force companies to do what they didn’t want to do but which he wanted them to do. And thus, this child of Los Angeles had decided that the pictures business was a mug’s game best gotten out of as quickly and completely as possible.
Hedge Fund Makes £1.1bn Takeover Bid for TalkTalk (Yahoo News)
Telecoms group TalkTalk (TALK.L) has received a £1.1bn ($1.4bn) takeover approach from a London hedge fund, which hopes to take the business private. TalkTalk said in a statement on Thursday it had received a preliminary offer from Toscafund Asset Management to buy the business for 97p per share. The offer values TalkTalk at around £1.1bn and represents a 16% premium on Wednesday’s closing price.
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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Shocked Investors with Its Snowflake and Barrick Gold Bets. A Veteran Shareholder Explains Why They Might be Part of a New Strategy (Business Insider)
Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway stunned investors when it revealed a $560 million stake in Barrick Gold in August, and shocked them again with its $735 million bet on Snowflake when it went public in September. After all, the billionaire investor has blasted gold as an inferior asset and repeatedly warned against backing aggressively valued, lossmaking technology companies, and IPOs.
Billionaire Wealth Reaches a New High of $10.2tn Amid COVID-19 Crisis (Opalesque.com)
Billionaire wealth reached record high levels amid the COVID19 pandemic, a report by Swiss bank UBS and accounting firm PwC found, as a rally in stock prices and gains in technology and healthcare helped the wealth of the world’s richest break the $10 trillion mark. The “Riding the storm” study found that global billionaire wealth climbed to $10.2 trillion between April and July this year, up from $8 trillion at the start of April. That reflected an increase in wealth of 27.5% and exceeded the previous peak of $8.9 trillion recorded at the end of 2017.
Activist Investor Dan Loeb Urges Disney to End Dividend to Fund Streaming Content (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Activist investor Daniel Loeb on Wednesday urged Walt Disney Co DIS.N to forgo paying a dividend and use the cash to make and buy more programming for its Disney+ streaming service as it battles tech giants Netflix NFLX.O and Amazon AMZN.O. Loeb, whose hedge fund Third Point bought into Disney during the second quarter, said the company could double the programming budget for Disney+ by reallocating a dividend of a few dollars per share.
Upward Trend Continues (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – After enjoying their best summer on record, Nordic equity hedge funds continued on an upward trend by posting their sixth consecutive month of positive returns. Equity funds in the Nordic Hedge Index advanced 1.3 percent on average (89 percent reported) last month to bring their year-to-date performance to 6.4 percent, which is just shy of the group’s 6.5 percent gain for the entire 2019. Global equity markets gained 3.4 percent in Euro terms in the third quarter despite falling 1.3 percent last month, turning in a second quarter of gains to continue a stock market recovery few anticipated during the March downturn.
