Activist Investor Litt Pushes for Sale of Aimco REIT (Bloomberg)
Activist investor Jonathan Litt has built a new position in Apartment Investment & Management Co. and has met with management to discuss ways to improve value for shareholders, including exploring a sale of the real estate investment trust, according to people familiar with the matter. Litt’s Land & Buildings Investment Management owns a stake of just under 5% in Aimco, and believes there is a large pool of potential buyers for the company, the people said, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private. Land & Buildings agrees with the company’s assessment that its assets are worth at least $12 a share, they added, a 30% premium to where they closed Thursday.
Steve Cohen Quietly Setting Up Crypto-only Asset Manager (Blockworks.co)
Hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen is laying the groundwork for an investment firm focused exclusively on cryptocurrency, according to four sources familiar with the matter. Though the new entity is in its early innings, sources said the business plans to trade spot cryptocurrencies – a segment Cohen’s multi-strategy hedge fund firm, Point72 Asset Management, has yet to touch. It would also trade digital asset derivatives, as well as look to write checks to outside digital asset-focused hedge fund managers, including possible seed deals.
Meister’s Corvex Lifts Kindred Stake to 15% (Casino.org)
Keith Meister’s Corvex Management has boosted its investment in Kindred Group. It could be the latest indication the hedge fund wants the Swedish gaming company to put itself up for sale, and do so soon. Meister’s investment firm now owns 15% of Kindred’s shares outstanding, meaning that since the start of 2022, the hedge fund’s stake in the gaming company has tripled. Under the terms of the European Union’s Transparency Directive, Kindred is obligated to notify shareholders when an investor’s stake falls or rises in increments of 5%.
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Dalio’s Bridgewater Exits Alibaba, JD.com, NetEase, Bilibili and Didi Global in US$1 Billion Sale Amid Delisting and Geopolitical Tensions (South China Morning Post)
Bridgewater Associates, the world’s biggest hedge fund, sold its US$1 billion worth of holdings in five major Chinese technology stocks last quarter after a drubbing from a regulatory crackdown and heightened delisting pressure. The Connecticut-based firm dumped all of its stakes in Alibaba Group Holding, Bilibili, NetEase and JD.com in the three months to June 30, according to its latest 13F filing early on Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund also completely exited Didi Global, the controversial ride-hailing group.
The Fate of Millennium’s Index-Rebalance King Glen Scheinberg, and his Profitable Team, has the Hedge-Fund Industry Abuzz (Business Insider)
A corner of the hedge-fund world can’t stop talking about one of Millenium Partners‘ most prominent trading teams. Glen Scheinberg, the portfolio manager whose team has minted billions of dollars for Millenium, became a hot topic on Wall Street. 1. Hedge funders seemingly can’t stop chatting about the fate of Millennium’s index-rebalance king. Searches on the Bloomberg terminal for Glen Scheinberg — the portfolio manager whose team has met with much success at Millenium — spiked to 1,300 one afternoon in June.
Hedge Funds Won’t Want to Hear This (Institutional Investor)
Evidence is piling up that allocators may be better off replicating the returns of the best hedge funds — a more complex version of indexing — rather than investing in them directly. The finding grew out of research from Markov Processes International into the performance of a benchmark that it developed eight years ago. Although the study is small, its conclusions are a challenge for the hedge fund industry, which has long argued that its active managers shouldn’t fall victim to indexing and cheaper alternatives.
Activist Investor ValueAct Takes Stake in The New York Times (The New York Times)
ValueAct, an activist investor that has taken stakes in major companies including Microsoft, Reuters and 21st Century Fox, said on Thursday that it had bought nearly 7 percent of The New York Times Company’s common stock and would push for changes to some of the publisher’s business operations. The purchase of the stock, made public in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, makes ValueAct one of the largest shareholders in The Times, alongside Vanguard and BlackRock Fund Advisors. The Times is controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, which limits the influence outside investors have on the company.
Apollo Raises $2.35bn for Its First Direct Lending Fund (Opalesque)
The global alternative asset manager Apollo Global Management Inc. has closed on its first-ever $2.35 billion direct lending fund. The American global private equity firm said in a press release that Apollo Origination Partnership Fund I (AOP) contributes to Apollo’s more than $50 billion of AUM across its direct lending strategies and platforms. “AOP is Apollo’s flagship closed-end, direct lending strategy focused on large corporate borrowers based primarily in North America and Western Europe,” said the release. The Fund focuses on originating top of the capital structure financing solutions to companies that predominantly generate more than $100 million of EBITDA.
Insider Buying: The WeWork Inc. (NYSE:WE) Executive Chairman of the Board & CEO Just Bought 2.9% More Shares (Nasdaq.com)
Investors who take an interest in WeWork Inc. (NYSE:WE) should definitely note that the Executive Chairman of the Board & CEO, Sandeep Mathrani, recently paid US$4.98 per share to buy US$249k worth of the stock. Although the purchase only increased their holding by 2.9%, it is still a solid purchase in our view. The Last 12 Months Of Insider Transactions At WeWork: Notably, that recent purchase by Executive Chairman of the Board & CEO Sandeep Mathrani was not the only time they bought WeWork shares this year. They previously made an even bigger purchase of US$250k worth of shares at a price of US$8.46 per share.
Lyft, Northrop Grumman And 2 Other Stocks Insiders Are Selling (Benzinga)
Kellogg Company: The Trade: Kellogg Company (K) 10% owner Kellogg W K Foundation sold a total of 146,153 shares at an average price of $75.27. The insider received around $11 million from selling those shares. Northrop Grumman: The Trade: Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC) Corp. VP & General Counsel Sheila Cheston sold a total of 4,025 shares at an average price of $473.99. The insider received around $1.91 million as a result of the transaction.
