Hedge Funds Increase Bets on Private Companies (The Wall Street Journal)
Hedge-fund firms are stepping up their presence in what has emerged as Wall Street’s hottest area: investing in private companies. Viking Global Investors LP, Maverick Capital Ltd., Lone Pine Capital LLC and others have taken steps recently to increase their investments in private companies. Viking, a large investor in private healthcare and biotechnology companies, is aiming to raise $1 billion from investors for its first dedicated private-equity fund, said potential clients. The new fund is expected to close on Oct. 1.
BlackRock’s Climate Views Put It Center Stage in Exxon Boardroom Fight (Reuters)
Exxon’s 12 directors are up for election on May 26, in a vote that offers a high profile test of BlackRock’s approach to getting companies set a course to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius by 2050. Exxon stresses it is on a path to meet the Paris accord with a market-based approach. Forced board changes or splitting chairman and CEO roles would be a blow to the company’s management. Unlike rivals that predict peak demand within a decade, Exxon’s board has built plans that forecast growing appetite for oil and gas.
Lone Pine’s Mala Gaonkar, a Longtime Lieutenant to Billionaire Stephen Mandel Jr., is One of the Hedge-Fund Industry’s Most Interesting Characters (Business Insider)
Mala Gaonkar has led Lone Pine with Kelly Granat and David Craver since Stephen Mandel Jr. retired. She’s also active outside of investing, working with the likes of David Byrne and Malcolm Gladwell. Insider dove deep on one of the industry’s more interesting characters. An upside-down investing landscape requires an outside-the-box thinker.
‘Big Short’ Hedge Fund Manager Shorts Tesla: Michael Burry Makes a £376m Bet as He Takes Aim at Elon Musk (DailyMail.co.uk)
The hedge fund manager who featured in the blockbuster film the Big Short has taken aim at Elon Musk. Michael Burry, famous for shorting the sub-prime mortgage market before the 2008 crisis, has made a £376million bet against Tesla’s stock price – with ‘put’ options on 800,100 shares in the electric car maker. This allows an investor to sell shares at a certain price in the future. They become more valuable as a share price decreases.
Wednesday 5/19 Insider Buying Report: PFX, TLIS (Nasdaq.com)
On Tuesday, Phenixfin’s Chairman & Chief Exec. Officer, David A. Lorber, made a $337,290 buy of PFX, purchasing 8,800 shares at a cost of $38.33 each. So far Lorber is in the green, up about 1.2% on their buy based on today’s trading high of $38.79. Phenixfin is trading trading flat on the day Wednesday. And at Talis Biomedical, there was insider buying on Monday, by Director Randal W. Scott who bought 20,000 shares at a cost of $10.13 each, for a trade totaling $202,650. Before this latest buy, Scott made one other buy in the past twelve months, purchasing $5M shares at a cost of $16.00 each. Talis Biomedical is trading off about 4.9% on the day Wednesday. Scott was up about 8.7% on the buy at the high point of today’s trading session, with TLIS trading as high as $11.01 at last check today.
The Vice-President of Risk Management of Russel Metals (Other OTC: RUSMF) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the Vice-President of Risk Management of Russel Metals (RUSMF), Ryan Wallace Macdermid, sold shares of RUSMF for $205.2K. Following Ryan Wallace Macdermid’s last RUSMF Sell transaction on February 19, 2020, the stock climbed by 11.7%. In addition to Ryan Wallace Macdermid, 3 other RUSMF executives reported Sell trades in the last month.
Insider Trading Law at Another Crossroads: ‘Blaszczak’ Shows the Need for Legislation (Law.com)
In this edition of his Corporate Securities column, John C. Coffee Jr. discusses that the current scope of insider trading law, which remains unresolved and is unlikely to be resolved by an upcoming Second Circuit decision on remand in ‘Blaszczak’. He writes: The case for a legislative resolution of the issue thus grows stronger, and passage of a revised insider trading law is now feasible in view of the Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the Senate.
