Steve Cohen Takes On A-Rod in Push to Buy New York Mets (Bloomberg)
Steve Cohen hasn’t given up on buying the New York Mets. The hedge fund billionaire, who’s already a part-owner of the franchise, has been connected to the sale of the Major League Baseball team since last year. Mets fans believe that Cohen — who has a net worth of $10.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index — will be able to spend more aggressively on free agents if he can take control from the current owners, the Wilpon family. The Point72 founder is among those who have bid to buy the team, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
“A Healthy Dose of Scepticism”: How Cheyne Capital’s Richard Woolf is Building Success with Thematic Equity Hedge Fund (Hedge Week)
As manager of Cheyne Capital’s Thematic Long/Short Fund, Richard Woolf brings what he describes as a “healthy dose of scepticism” to his portfolio management style and trading approach. His contrarian perspective on markets is underpinned by a broader mix of ideas influenced by technological disruption, societal changes, and economic dislocations arising from the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
PE Daily: PE Deal Volume Plummets | Oaktree’s Airline Lifeline | Pandemic Alters Secondary Game (The Wall Street Journal)
Happy Friday! Many U.S. readers may still be on vacation after the Independence Day holiday. For those at work, first-half fundraising and deal numbers are streaming in, and both are heading lower after the coronavirus brought travel to a halt and shifted deal-sourcing and due-diligence online. As Laura Cooper writes this morning, U.S. private-equity investments fell, with the dollar value of deals falling more sharply than the number of deals. Meanwhile, Oaktree Capital Management is offering a $1.3 billion bankruptcy lifeline to one of Latin America’s biggest airlines, and our latest survey of secondary investors illustrates…
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A $6 Billion UBS Hedge Fund Crushes Peers (Bloomberg)
A UBS Asset Management hedge fund beat peers in the first half with relative-value trades that shorted pandemic-struck stocks, and is now pouncing on the market’s next dislocations. The $6.1 billion UBS O’Connor fund gained 11.5% through the end of June, according to a person with knowledge of returns who declined to be identified as the data isn’t public. A spokesman for the firm declined to comment on performance. Funds that follow a similar approach lost 5.1% over the period, according to Hedge Fund Research Inc.
This Hedge Fund Is Betting On a Transformation in the Economy. So Far, It’s Right. (Institutional Investor)
Worm Capital has gained more than 100 percent this year. Here’s how. Worm Capital founder Arne Alsin’s belief in a transformative economy has become this year’s biggest hedge fund success story.The La Jolla, Calif. firm’s long-short equity fund jumped 21.35 percent for the month, giving it an eye-popping gain of 131.29 percent for the first half of 2020.
Hedge fund managers grudgingly accept Mayfair life will stay in the ‘Zoomosphere’ (FNLondon.com)
Many in the hedge funds industry, which is among the most relationship-based in finance, realise that life may be slow to return to normal. For the $3tn hedge fund industry – which heavily revolves around networking, meetings, in-person conferences and events – remote working has been a wake-up call. Tech apps like Zoom, and the UK government’s easing of lockdowns and reopening of pubs and restaurants have come as little comfort to workers in one of the most relationship-dependent corners of the industry.
