Ken Griffin’s $125 Million Gift Gets His Name on Chicago Museum (Bloomberg)
Ken Griffin has buildings, wings and exhibitions named after him in Palm Beach, New York and Chicago. The billionaire hedge fund manager’s latest gift of $125 million will put his name on an entire museum. The Museum of Science & Industry in Chicago will become the Kenneth C. Griffin Museum of Science & Industry after a board vote Thursday accepting what it calls the largest single gift in its history. The donation is the Citadel chief executive officer’s biggest ever to a museum.
Jacob Rees-Mogg Reminds Britons That Crispin Odey Has Not Made Enough Money Engineering/Betting On Brexit (Deal Breaker)
Whether you believe that Crispin Odey has been fomenting, funding and betting on Brexit, or not, it is pretty clear that ol’ Cripsy would benefit oh so much from the catastrophe of Britain leaving Europe with no deal. Odey has some pretty sizable positions that would look great if the Pound Sterling dropped through the floor as the British economy imploded, and that’s irked some members of Parliament who see something rather starkly fishy with the whole thing.
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Huge Pay Rise for Hedge Fund Boss Who Owns Waterstones (Yahoo Finance)
The hedge fund financier behind Waterstones saw their pay surge 175% last year, new accounts show. The highest paid director of Elliott Advisors UK was paid £11.9m last year, according to accounts recently filed with Companies House. The top boss’ pay represents a huge rise from the £4.3m given to the highest paid director in 2017. The big pay rise came in the same year that Elliott acquired Britain’s best-known bookseller Waterstones. The US money manager bought the chain for an undisclosed sum last April.
Can a Family Live on an AQR Capital Management Salary? (eFinancialCareers.com)
It’s hedge fund results season in London. Quant fund AQR Capital Management (Europe) LLP is the latest entity to release results for its U.K.-based operation. They show that AQR did quite a bit of hiring last year. They also suggest that pay was pretty steady on previous years – when AQR wasn’t exactly known for being hugely lavish. AQR Capital Management (Europe) (‘AQR’) hired 14 people in 2018 and increased its headcount by 45% in the process to 45 people. 39 of those 45 were ‘operations’ staff, the rest were in ‘admin’.
Alcur Select Leads in Close Battle (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – This year’s race for the best-performing hedge fund in the Nordics has been intense, with no clear winner at any point throughout the year. At different points in time, HCP Focus, Proxy Renewable Long/Short Energy and Alcur Select held the position of the best-performing Nordic hedge fund of 2019. As of the end of September, long-biased small-cap-focused equity hedge fund Alcur Select is leading the way with a year-to-date return of 36.9 percent.
Move To Zürich Leads Directly To Near Tripling Of Hedge Fund’s Returns (Deal Breaker)
We’ve never been to Schaffhausen, but it seems like a nice enough place: Swiss, with a Renaissance old city, views over a particularly scenic part of the Rhine, proximity to cut-rate German pizza. Maybe a bit too nice, too comfortable. Because a couple of years ago, a little Schaffhausen hedge fund picked up and moved to the hustle and bustle of Zürich (full disclosure: we have also never been to Zürich), and suddenly, that hedge fund, Quantica Capital, which had managed double-digit returns just twice in between 2009 and 2016 (three times if you count the 15.4% drop in 2015, a bigger drop than any annual gain ever enjoyed by the CTA), is on its way to its second double-digit year in three (albeit wrapped around a 3.7% decline last year).
Rising Hedge Fund Launches Not Enough (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – New hedge fund launches are on the rise, but closures continue to outpace launches for a fourth consecutive quarter. According to HFR, an estimated 153 new hedge funds were launched in the second quarter, whereas 186 funds closed their doors during the quarter. According to the latest HFR Market Microstructure Report, an estimated 289 hedge funds opened up in the first half of 2019, with new launches increasing for a second consecutive quarter. The industry welcomed 561 new hedge funds last year, which represented the lowest annual figure for launches since 2000. Hedge fund closures amounted to 399 in the first half of 2019, the highest annualized pace for liquidations since 2016, when 1,016 funds were closed. The second quarter of 2019 represents the fourth consecutive quarter in which hedge fund closures exceeded new launches.
Brazil’s Ex Richest Man Receives Additional Sentence for Inside Trading (MercoPress.com)
Eike Batista, formerly Brazil’s richest man, was sentenced to an additional eight years and seven months of prison time this week for insider trading. Batista, 62, had already been convicted for paying US$ 16.6m to get government contracts as part of a sprawling corruption probe known as Carwash and sentenced to 30 years, which he is serving under house arrest. Batista’s lawyer Fernando Martins said in an email that the ruling will be appealed. The decision is the first of three cases against Batista for financial crimes, federal prosecutors said in a press release. He was convicted of selling shares in his shipbuilding and logistics company OSX before announcing changes to the company’s business plan that included austerity measures, the prosecutors said.
Altair Engineering Inc (ALTR) CEO James Ralph Scapa Sold $855,304 of Shares (Guru Focus)
CEO of Altair Engineering Inc., James Ralph Scapa, sold 25,156 shares of ALTR on 10/01/2019 at an average price of $34 a share. The total sale was $855,304. Altair Engineering Inc is a provider of enterprise-class engineering software. It also provides services related to its software including consulting, training, implementation services, and support, along with technical services for product development.
Second Party of SodaStream Insider Trading Investigation Revealed (CalcalisTech.com)
Thirty-year-old student Ayala Cohen is the second party in the insider trading investigation surrounding Daniel Birnbaum, the former CEO of SodaStream International Ltd. Tel Aviv district court removed the gag order on her name Thursday. A former SodaStream employee and long-term acquaintance of Birnbaum, Cohen is accused of making use of insider information on three separate occasions, one of them being the 2018, $3.2 billion acquisition by PepsiCo Inc., to make profits of almost NIS 200,000 (around $55,500) on the stock market.
The EVP, Chief Stores Officer of Stage Stores (NYSE: SSI) is Buying Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the EVP, Chief Stores Officer of Stage Stores (SSI), Russ Lundy, bought shares of SSI for $30.8K. Following this transaction Russ Lundy’s holding in the company was increased by 23.3% to a total of $155.6K. In addition to Russ Lundy, one other SSI executive reported Buy trades in the last month.
Johnson Controls International Plc (JCI) Chairman & CEO George Oliver Sold $946,555 of Shares (Guru Focus)
Chairman & CEO of Johnson Controls International Plc., George Oliver, sold 21,805 shares of JCI on 10/01/2019 at an average price of $43.41 a share. The total sale was $946,555. Johnson Controls International PLC manufacturers, installs, and services HVAC systems, building management systems and controls, and industrial refrigeration systems. The firm along with Tyco International offers fire and security products and services. Johnson Controls International PLC has a market cap of $33.08 billion; its shares were traded at around $41.57 with a P/E ratio of 6.32 and P/S ratio of 1.20.
CFTC Orders Interdealer Brokers to Pay $25 Million for Fraud in FX Options Markets (HedgeCo.net)
(HedgeCo.Net) The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced today that it issued orders filing and settling charges against two interdealer brokers: BGC Financial, LP and GFI Securities, LLC. The orders find that brokers employed by BGC and GFI on their respective emerging markets foreign exchange options (EFX options) desks made false representations that certain bids and offers were executable and that certain trades had occurred. The orders were entered on Monday, September 30, 2019. The respective orders require BGC to pay a civil monetary penalty of $15 million and GFI to pay a civil monetary penalty of $10 million.
