Larry Robbins Made New Bets on Health and Travel Stocks — Here are His Top Moves (CNBC)
Glenview Capital Management made new bets on reopening stocks and national testing labs during last quarter, according to securities filings. The hedge fund, run by famed investor Larry Robbins, has high concentration in stocks related to the health care industry. During the stock market’s furious second quarter rally, Glenview trimmed many of its largest positions while building up smaller stakes in other companies, according to the filing.
Marble Ridge ‘Grave Mistake’ Roils Neiman Marcus Bankruptcy (Bloomberg)
A money manager at Marble Ridge Capital LP acknowledged he committed a “grave mistake” after a federal watchdog accused him of misconduct for trying to stop a competing bidder from buying some of the assets of bankrupt Neiman Marcus Group Inc. The hedge fund’s managing partner Dan Kamensky said he had been vying to buy shares of MyTheresa, the valuable online unit of Neiman Marcus, from creditors, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Justice. He sent messages to Jefferies, an investment bank that was also looking to buy shares in the unit, to try to influence that firm in a move that could upend the company’s planned reorganization process, the report said, citing Kamensky’s messages.
Hedge Fund Titan Seth Klarman Boosted Bets on 3 Healthcare Stocks and Dumped Tech Giants in the 2nd Quarter (Business Insider)
Seth Klarman‘s Baupost Group is relying less on tech giants and more on biotech stocks posting healthy gains in the second half of 2020. The hedge fund saw the value of its long stock portfolio swell 18% through the second quarter as the stock market rocketed out of its March slump, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing disclosed Friday. Klarman maintained large stakes in eBay, Fox Corp, and Liberty Global, but adjusted other elements of his portfolio as investors increasingly crowded cash into popular mega-caps.
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Starboard Joins the SPAC Pack (Institutional Investor)
The activist firm is the latest in a growing number of hedge funds seeking money for a blank-check company. Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value, the hedge fund firm best known for its activism, is seeking $300 million for its first special purpose acquisition company. The SPAC, Starboard Value Acquisition Corp., was created to do an acquisition in a sector that could include technology, health care, consumer, industrials or hospitality and entertainment…
Andros Capital Launches $250m Energy Fund During Downturn (Opalesque.com)
Texas-based Andros Capital Partners has closed its debut Andros Energy Capital fund on $250 million, launching in the aftermath of a pronounced drawdown in energy. The fund will be involved in private equity investments, credit opportunities and direct asset-level investments across the energy sector. Andros is primarily focused on middle-market transactions requiring between $25 and $200 million of equity, with the potential for co-investments. Andros says the mid-market is underserved when it comes to financing opportunities as a number of banks have stopped funding middle market transactions in the energy space.
No Flatlines for Ress Life (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Ress Life Investments has just reached $200 million under management for the first time, successfully building a well-diversified portfolio of life insurance policies that pays off enough to achieve its return objective of 7-8 percent per annum time and time again. “We buy life insurance policies and they pay out randomly during the whole year,” says Cristina Lugaro of Resscapital. The portfolio, however, is large and well-diversified to cover for the annual return objective. After returning shy of one percent in the first five months of 2020, Ress Life Investments gained 1.3 percent in June and an additional 4.2 percent in July to bring the year-to-date performance to 6.3 percent.
Fir Tree Partners Joins Arcesium Technology & Services Platform (Hedge Week)
Privately owned hedge fund sponsor Fir Tree Partners, has selected Arcesium’s fully integrated technology platform and services solution to support its operational model. Fir Tree will leverage Arcesium’s scalable infrastructure designed to power their investment lifecycle, specifically addressing critical reconciliation, portfolio analytics, data management, treasury, and cash settlement functions. Arcesium’s technology provides Fir Tree with a single repository to manage all of their middle- and back-office workflows, unlocking efficiencies for their staff and streamlining operational processes.
Twilio Inc (TWLO) COO George Hu Sold $1.8 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
COO of Twilio Inc., George Hu, sold 7,380 shares of TWLO on 08/17/2020 at an average price of $246.38 a share. The total sale was $1.8 million. Twilio Inc provides a cloud communications platform that enables developers to build, scale and operate communications within software applications through the cloud as a pay-as- you-go service. Twilio Inc has a market cap of $36.6 billion; its shares were traded at around $255.67 with and P/S ratio of 25.53.
These were the Top 10 Stocks in Billionaire Investor David Tepper’s Hedge Fund in the 2nd Quarter (Business Insider)
Back in May, amid the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and a recovering stock market, billionaire investor David Tepper added to a chorus of concerns that the stock market was overvalued. In fact, Tepper told CNBC’s Scott Wapner that the market was “maybe the second most overvalued” he’s ever seen, barring the dot-com bubble. From there, stocks continued to rally, and just hit record all-time highs earlier this week.
Hedge Fund Billionaire Buys into RedBall Acquisition Corp. (SportBusiness.com)
Israel “Izzy” Englander, founder, chairman, and chief executive of New York-based hedge fund Millennium Management LLC and one of the world’s richest billionaires, has taken a nearly 8 per cent stake in RedBall Acquisition Corp., the newly formed, sports-oriented special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). In a move showing the continued interest in the sports and entertainment industry among the financial and investment communities, Englander’s Millennium Management was shown in a new filing with the US Securities & Exchange Commission to own 4.5m RedBall shares, a stake representing 7.8 per cent of RedBall and worth more than $45m based on the stock’s August 19 closing price of $10.04 per share.
Thursday 8/20 Insider Buying Report: CUTR, NEWR (Nasdaq.com)
At Cutera, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Wednesday, Director J. Daniel Plants bought 59,769 shares of CUTR, at a cost of $14.90 each, for a total investment of $890,648. Plants was up about 13.1% on the purchase at the high point of today’s trading session, with CUTR trading as high as $16.86 at last check today. Cutera is trading up about 10.9% on the day Thursday. Before this latest buy, Plants made one other purchase in the past twelve months, buying $999,999 shares for a cost of $10.50 a piece. And also on Wednesday, COO Michael J. Christenson purchased $510,480 worth of New Relic, purchasing 9,000 shares at a cost of $56.72 a piece. New Relic is trading up about 3% on the day Thursday. So far Christenson is in the green, up about 3.4% on their purchase based on today’s trading high of $58.65.
The SVP Intl. of Ebay (NASDAQ: EBAY) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the SVP Intl. of Ebay (EBAY), Jae Hyun Lee, sold shares of EBAY for $711.2K. Following Jae Hyun Lee’s last EBAY Sell transaction on May 14, 2020, the stock climbed by 15.8%. In addition to Jae Hyun Lee, 2 other EBAY executives reported Sell trades in the last month. Based on Ebay’s latest earnings report for the quarter ending June 30, the company posted quarterly revenue of $2.87 billion and quarterly net profit of $746 million. In comparison, last year the company earned revenue of $2.42 billion and had a net profit of $402 million. The company has a one-year high of $61.06 and a one-year low of $26.02. EBAY’s market cap is $40.39 billion and the company has a P/E ratio of 8.60.
Former Apple Lawyer Fails to Dismiss Insider Trading Indictment (Apple Insider)
Gene Levoff, the former senior director of corporate law for Apple, has been denied a motion to dismiss an indictment over charges of insider trading, after failing to convince a court that the prosecution was unconstitutional. Levoff, who oversaw Apple’s Insider Trading Policy as its corporate secretary and corporate law senior director, fought against the indictment with a filing in April. In a new filing by the US District Court for New Jersey on Wednesday, Levoff had his motion to dismiss soundly denied, forcing him to face the charges.
Netflix Inc (NFLX) Co-CEO & Chief Content Officer Theodore A Sarandos Sold $9.7 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
Co-CEO & Chief Content Officer of Netflix Inc., Theodore A Sarandos, sold 20,000 shares of NFLX on 08/18/2020 at an average price of $484.16 a share. The total sale was $9.7 million. Netflix Inc provides multimedia content through the internet. It provides a subscription based platform for television shows, movies and original series. Netflix Inc has a market cap of $213.69 billion; its shares were traded at around $484.53 with a P/E ratio of 81.71 and P/S ratio of 9.69.
