Marc Lasry Launches Sports Investment Fund for Women’s Sports (Axios.com)
Marc Lasry announced his new fund, Avenue Sports Fund, Wednesday at SALT’s iConnections conference in New York. Why it matters: The fund figures to be a boon to the growing women’s sports industry. Details: The fund will be focused on women’s sports teams in the U.S., basketball teams in Africa and other sports teams in Asia. “There’s massive interest in sports worldwide. With the new fund, we thought we’d invest in women’s sports, basketball, teams in Africa, Asia, and lend money to teams. There’s huge opportunity, and a lot of it is in media rights,” said the hedge fund manager. Lasry recently sold his 25% stake in the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks.
Wagamana-Owner Wins Royal London Backing as Oasis Fight Intensifies (Sky News)
RLAM, which owns 5% of The Restaurant Group, has decided to back its board amid a bitter fight with the activist fund Oasis, Sky News learns. The owner of Wagamama has won support from another of its biggest investors as a fight with the activist hedge fund Oasis intensifies ahead of next week’s annual meeting. Sky News has learnt that Royal London Asset Management (RLAM), which owns just under 5% of The Restaurant Group (TRG), will vote in favour of its board on all resolutions including directors’ re-election and remuneration.
Elon Musk Warns the World About George Soros (The Street)
Since May 15 the world’s most influential CEO daily has been attacking George Soros, comparing him with a Jewish comic-book antihero. He applies the same strategy he has previously used with varying results. Call it a three-act strategy. In the first act, the approach, he makes a cryptic comment about a target. He then waits for the reactions. The second act is the attack. In this phase, he repeatedly hits the target, aiming to stagger it and force it to throw in the towel. If he gets criticized, he hits more and harder.
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Hedge Fund Maverick Capital Reveals Early Ties to ChatGPT’s Sam Altman (Bloomberg)
Firm invested in Altman’s first company, Loopt, in 2010. AI long and shorts now make up biggest theme in public book. Lee Ainslie’s hedge fund firm backed ChatGPT’s creator long before the chatbot became synonymous with the artificial-intelligence boom. Maverick Capital invested in Sam Altman’s first company, Loopt, in 2010, and four years later partnered with Y Combinator while he was president of the startup accelerator.
Ken Griffin Still Keeping A Pretty Close Eye On His High-Frequency Trading Code (DealBreaker)
Like many of his fellow billionaires, Ken Griffin is a stickler for a lot of things: Low taxes. The inviolability of pre-nuptial agreements. Precisely the correct mount of steamed milk on his Starbucks latte. His favorite milkshake, whatever the cost. Residences suitably priced for a man of his stature. The right of billionaires like himself to do whatever they want without social or reputational consequences. His own particular right to hire and then fire every single person who works in financial services. The ability to pretend, if just for a moment while standing in the middle of his Palm Beach estate, that he is the last man on earth.
Hedge Funds Up 5.8% YTD Following 1.1% April Gain, Says Citco (Hedge Week)
Hedge funds recorded another positive month in April, with a total weighted average return of 1.1%, taking YTD returns to 5.58%, according to the latest data from Citco, a global alternative investment asset servicer with one $1.8 trillion in assets under administration. Citco’s data also shows that larger funds delivered a stronger performance in April and that the market seems to show signs of a reduction in returns volatility across funds. According to the data, 65% of funds administrated by Citco had positive returns in April, a big jump from the 48% in March. The rate of return spread meanwhile, dropped to 6.7% in April, showing a reduction in returns volatility across funds.
New Hedge Fund Managers Often Tighten Liquidity Rules as Portfolios Evolve (Opalesque.com)
Amidst an uncertain economic environment, a new report indicates a continuing shift in portfolio dynamics towards longer-held positions necessitating a tightening of liquidity rules into 2022. Hedge fund terms regarding withdrawal frequency, investor-level gates, and so-called “hard lock-ups” all trended toward limiting liquidity last year, revealed the Seward & Kissel New Manager Hedge Fund Study. The share of funds limiting withdrawals to a quarterly (or less frequent) basis rose to 91% in 2022, up from 81% five years ago. The increased restriction was most marked among funds employing non-equity strategies. Only 55% of such funds limited withdrawals to a quarterly basis in 2018, while 93% did last year. Other important liquidity terms followed the trend.
NZ Super Adds UK’s Episteme Capital as Manager of Global Macro Strategy (AsiaAsset.com)
New Zealand sovereign wealth fund NZ Super has hired UK alternative investment management firm Episteme Capital as one of the managers of its global macro hedge fund strategy. The global macro strategy is a hedge fund under NZ Super’s static target allocation approach. The strategy’s holdings are based primarily on the overall economic and political views of various countries. It comes under NZ Super’s static target allocation, one of the four investment approaches used by the wealth fund. The strategy focuses on investments that are less affected by changes in market cycles. NZ Super announced Episteme Capital’s appointment in a stakeholder newsletter on March 17. It expands the manager lineup of the strategy to three. The other two are US firms Bridgewater Associates and Citadel LLC.
Hedge Funds Turned their Attention to Growth in First Quarter (Investopedia.com)
Hedge fund managers and high-profile investors, led by Bill Ackman‘s $1.1 billion stake in Google parent Alphabet Inc., veered toward beaten-down technology stocks that sank in 2022 in the first quarter as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates. Quarterly ownership filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission also reveal that banks stocks hammered by the failure of three regional lenders found favor with some investors, including Scion Capital Management‘s Michael Burry of “The Big Short” fame.
Wednesday 5/17 Insider Buying Report: SOFI (Nasdaq.com)
On Monday, Chief Executive Officer Anthony Noto purchased $504,706 worth of SoFi Technologies, purchasing 108,000 shares at a cost of $4.67 a piece. Before this latest buy, Noto bought SOFI on 17 other occasions during the past twelve months, for a total investment of $11.28M at an average of $4.87 per share. SoFi Technologies Inc is trading trading flat on the day Wednesday. Noto was up about 2.9% on the buy at the high point of today’s trading session, with SOFI trading as high as $4.81 in trading on Wednesday.
$4.7M Bet On ModivCare? Check Out These 3 Stocks Insiders Are Buying (Benzinga)
ModivCare: The Trade: ModivCare Inc. (MODV) Director Adam Gray acquired a total 85,088 shares an average price of $54.89. To acquire these shares, it cost around $4.67 million. American Assets Trust: The Trade: American Assets Trust, Inc. (AAT) Chairman and CEO Ernest Rady acquired a total of 147,540 shares at an average price of $18.79. To acquire these shares, it cost around $2.77 million.
