Ubben Sees Profits in Climate; IP on Supply Chains: Green Update (Bloomberg)
Top executives, policy makers, scientists and activists are gathering this week for the first-ever Bloomberg Green Festival. The virtual event focuses on the core issues of climate change. The conference kicked off Monday with speakers, including actor and co-founder of Water.org Matt Damon and HP Inc. Chief Executive Officer Enrique Lores. Tuesday’s lineup includes money manager Jeffrey Ubben of Inclusive Capital Partners, Royal Philips NV CEO Frans van Houten and Iberdrola SA CEO Jose Ignacio Sanchez Galan. They are addressing the need for climate action and discussing climate solutions such as sustainable investing.
Why Warren Buffett’s Japan Bet May Lure Foreigners as US Markets ‘Divorced from Reality’ (FNLondon.com)
Japan – long an investment managers’ graveyard – has become one of the most fertile markets for hedge fund managers in 2020 – and it is no surprise to see Warren Buffett placing a big bet on the country. That’s the view of Patrick Ghali, co-founder of hedge fund consultancy Sussex Partners — a London based firm that advises large investors on allocating to hedge funds. And he says he is not telling them to pull in their Japan bets any time soon. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway declared in late August that it took stakes of slightly more than 5% in five of Japan’s most venerable corporate names, with big investments in energy — Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, Itochu and Marubeni.
Qblue Hires AQR Material (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – After strengthening its client focus with a new hire in August, Copenhagen-based asset manager Qblue Balanced has now reinforced its already experienced investment team with the hiring of Esben Hedegaard. Hedegaard joined Qblue Balanced as a Senior Portfolio Manager at the beginning of September after five years at AQR Capital Management. “We are happy to announce that Esben Hedegaard has joined Qblue Balanced as Senior Portfolio Manager as of 1 September 2020,” writes Qblue Balanced in an announcement. Hedegaard spent close to six years at AQR Capital Management as a researcher, where he worked on the commodities research team and the portfolio construction team. He started his career at Danske Bank as an analyst quantitative research before earning a PhD in Finance at New York University’s Stern School of Business.
Alex Oakenman / shutterstock.com
Billionaire Investor Steve Cohen Finalizes Deal to Buy New York Mets (CNBC)
Billionaire Steve Cohen reached a deal to buy the New York Mets baseball team on Monday. “I am excited to have reached an agreement with the Wilpon and Katz families to purchase the New York Mets,” Cohen said in a statement from the team announcing the deal. It comes after an earlier move to buy the team fell through in February.
For Ray Dalio, a Year of Losses, Withdrawals and Uneasy Staff (Bloomberg)
Ray Dalio is having a very bad year. So very bad, in fact, that the billionaire risks losing his coveted title as king of hedge funds. Dalio’s $148 billion Bridgewater Associates has run up hefty losses this year, even as rivals have minted money in the topsy-turvy markets. The damage as of August: an 18.6% drop in the flagship Pure Alpha II fund.
A multi-Strategy Approach to Volatility Trading Drives Deep Field Capital’s Year to Date Outperformance (Opalesque.com)
2020 has been the year of the long volatility trade. After years of investors being paid handsomely to short volatility, the first quarter of this year reminded investors what realized volatility looks like. For Swiss firm Deep Field Capital, 2020 has been an ideal year to explain why volatility strategies should ultimately have multiple pathways to generate alpha beyond a basic long/short binary. “We think we’re in a heightened volatility environment for the foreseeable future,” said Bastian Bolesta, CEO of Deep Field Capital, in a recent interview. “How does that play out for VIX? Hard to say, but we believe having multiple path dependencies is important.”
Systematic Hedge Fund Quantology’s Earnings-based Strategy Rises on US Internet Bets (Hedge Week)
Paris-based systematic hedge fund Quantology Capital Management – which trades US equities using a quarterly earnings-based quant model – has generated positive returns from IT and internet positions, and now sees US markets firmly in “risk on” territory. The firm’s Quantology Absolute Return Fund – a systematic long/short US market neutral equity strategy which takes long and short positions in Nasdaq and NYSE-listed companies – added 0.3 per cent in its main dollar-denominated share class in August, putting its year-to-date return at 5.4 per cent. Its euro class is up 4.8 per cent in 2020, having risen 0.2 per cent last month.
Aerospace Investors Shoot for the Stars (Preqin.com)
Today, over half a century since Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 crew landed on the moon, a new space race is afoot – this time, fueled by private capital. Deal value has taken off; as of August this year, venture capital deals in aerospace reached an aggregate $3.6bn, the sector’s highest ever deal value. This feat was achieved across half the number of 2019’s completed deals (56 vs. 121), and in eight months as opposed to the whole of 2019. The five largest deals, accounting for $3.2bn of the total, were in companies looking to operate outside the earth’s atmosphere.
