Hedge Fund Firefly Hits Out at Gulfport Energy’s Plans, Demands Board Seat (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Firefly Value Partners on Thursday asked Gulfport Energy for a seat on its board and criticized the “half-measures” which the U.S. gas exploration and production company is taking to improve its financial performance. On Monday, Oklahoma City-based Gulfport announced job cuts, board changes and an end to its share buyback program to focus on debt repurchases, to help reverse a more than 65% slide in its share price over the last 12 months. But Monday’s proposals failed to captivate investors who pushed the stock down further.
Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital to Return Outside Money: Letter (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Louis Moore Bacon, the billionaire hedge fund manager known for his prescient macroeconomic bets over more than three decades, plans to return money from outside investors in Moore Capital Management, LP, according to a letter sent to investors on Thursday and seen by Reuters. “Although this has not been an easy decision,” Bacon wrote, “it will allow me the space to step away for significant periods of time when my other interests abound without the ongoing weight and responsibility of looking after public investors’ capital.”
Ray Dalio Says This Tactic Helped him Go from ‘Hardly Any Money’ to Successful Billionaire (CNBC)
Billionaire Ray Dalio runs one of the world’s largest hedge funds – Bridgewater Associates, which manages about $150 billion in global investments. Dalio, who is worth $18.7 billion, according to Forbes, said Tuesday that one of the most important strategies he used to go from having “hardly any money” to rich and successful was taking into account the opinions of smart people who disagree with him. Dalio first Tweeted on Nov. 14 that one of his principles in business is to listen to and asks questions of experts, because doing so raises his “probability of being right.”
A Secretive $120 Billion Hedge Fund Has Bested Warren Buffett Again And Again. These Are Its 10 Biggest Holdings (Business Insider)
1. Bristol-Myers Squibb: Renaissance‘s biggest holding is its $1.66 billion stake in Bristol-Myers Squibb, a pharmaceuticals giant that makes medicines to treat cancer, HIV/AIDS, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other ailments. Federal regulators approved the company’s proposed $74 billion takeover of biotech firm Celgene this month. 2. Chipotle Mexican Grill: Renaissance has a $1.61 billion stake in Chipotle Mexican Grill. The fast-casual Mexican restaurant chain, which has more than 2,500 outlets, has largely recovered from a series of health scares a few years ago.
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Hedge Funds Sold Netflix and Facebook Stock – and Bought GM and Lowe’s (Barron’s)
Hedge funds doubled down on their health-care and industrials investments in the third quarter, while financials and consumer staples remained out of favor. Mutual funds and hedge funds have to report their holdings to the Securities and Exchange Commission within 45 days of the end of each quarter. Lori Calvasina, head of U.S. equity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, took a look at the data, analyzing the…
Hedge Fund Founder Grabs a Slice of Domino’s (InvestorsChronicle.co.uk)
Activist hedge fund Browning West has been building its position in Domino’s Pizza (DOM). The fund’s founder and chief investment officer, Usman Nabi, was appointed as non-executive director to the pizza group’s board on 12 November. Mr Nabi bought more than 2.8m shares on the same day, and a further 1.4m on the 13th. Neither Domino’s nor Browning West was able to confirm the exact size of the fund’s stake in the group, but it is understood to be in the region of 34m shares, equivalent to more than 7 per cent of the issued share capital.
Hedge Fund Performance Update: October 2019 (Preqin.com)
As progress is made on a US-China trade deal, the Preqin All-Strategies Hedge Fund benchmark returned +1.06% in October, building on returns of +0.40% in September. This pushes the 2019 YTD and 12-month returns to +8.50% and +5.65% respectively. All top-level strategies tracked by Preqin made gains in October, with equity strategies performing best (+1.46%). This factsheet presents the hedge fund performance benchmarks for October 2019. Plus, the 2019 YTD and 12-month return figures for all top-level strategies, structures, denominations and size classifications.
Hedge Fund Redemption Trend Extends to Four Months in September (Hedge Week)
The hedge fund industry’s redemption trend continued in September as a fourth straight month of net outflows saw monthly redemptions increasing to USD14.7 billion. September’s redemptions represented 0.5 per cent of hedge fund industry assets and were up from August’s USD11.3 billion in net outflows, according to the Barclay Fund Flow Indicator published by BarclayHedge, a division of Backstop Solutions. Coupled with a USD9.1 billion trading profit in September, hedge fund industry assets stood at more than USD3.05 trillion at the end of the month.
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw Settles Alleged Insider Trading Case With SEBI In Infosys Matter (Bloomberg)
Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, lead independent director of Infosys Ltd., has settled with the Securities and Exchange Board of India a case of alleged delay in making disclosure regarding change in her shareholding in the information technology company by paying over Rs 3 lakh as settlement charge. Mazumdar Shaw, who is also a chairman of Biocon Ltd., was alleged to have violated provisions of the Prohibition of Insider Trading regulations.
Ametek Inc (AME) Executive VP – CFO William Joseph Burke Sold $1.2 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
Executive VP – CFO of Ametek Inc., William Joseph Burke, sold 12,510 shares of AME on 11/19/2019 at an average price of $98.51 a share. The total sale was $1.2 million. AMETEK Inc is a manufacturer of electronic instruments and electromechanical devices with operations in North America, Europe, Asia and South America.
2 Officials ‘Milking’ PBC In insider Trade (ModernGhana.com)
Some two officials of the Produce Buying Company (PBC) are reportedly engaged in insider trading that is said to be running the firm into financial trouble. It comes at a time the President Akufo-Addo’s administration is making efforts to revamp the once defunct PBC. Sources have alleged that two senior managers of the company are engaged in what is termed as ‘insider trade’ by clandestinely setting up a transport company and awarding PBC’s haulage contracts to themselves.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi Just Bought Up $6.7 Million Worth of the Stock (Barron’s)
Uber Technologies CEO Dara Khosrowshahi just disclosed his first open-market purchase of shares of the ride-hailing company. Khosrowshahi paid $6.7 million on Nov. 18 for 250,000 Uber shares (ticker: UBER), an average per-share price of $26.75. He now owns 1.53 million Uber shares, according to a form Khosrowshahi filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Other shares Khosrowshahi owns were acquired through awards of restricted stock units, and not all have vested.
The CEO of Plains GP Holdings (NYSE: PAGP) is Buying Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the CEO of Plains GP Holdings (PAGP), Willie Cw Chiang, bought shares of PAGP for $1.03M. Following this transaction Willie Cw Chiang’s holding in the company was increased by 79.89% to a total of $2.3 million. Following Willie Cw Chiang’s last PAGP Buy transaction on February 11, 2016, the stock climbed by 5.3%.
Hedge Funds Are Losing Ground to Alternatives (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Allocations to alternative asset classes remain robust and little changed in the past several years. Still, preferences for specific types of alternatives have been changing, according to EY’s latest Global Alternative Fund Survey. Whereas hedge funds continue to account for the largest share of investors’ allocations to alternatives, more investors are increasing allocations to private equity and other alternative asset classes mainly at the expense of hedge funds. According to EY’s 2019 Global Alternative Fund Survey, surveyed institutional investors, on average, have a quarter of their assets allocated to alternatives.
CEO Charged With Violating Whistleblower Protection Laws to Silence Investor Complaints (HedgeCo.net)
(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed an amended complaint against online auction portal Collectors Café and its CEO Mykalai Kontilai to add allegations that they unlawfully sought to prohibit their investors from reporting misconduct to the SEC and other governmental agencies. The SEC previously charged Collectors Café and Kontilai with a fraudulent $23 million securities offering based on false statements to investors, and alleged that Kontilai misappropriated over $6 million of investor proceeds. The SEC’s amended complaint alleges that Collectors Café and Kontilai attempted to resolve investor allegations of wrongdoing by conditioning the return of investor money on the investors signing agreements prohibiting them from reporting potential securities law violations to law enforcement, including the SEC.
