David Tepper Says Coronavirus ‘May be a Game Changer’ for Market (CNBC)
Billionaire hedge fund manager David Tepper, who was bullish on the market just a few weeks ago, said the coronavirus outbreak has changed the environment around stocks. Tepper, in an interview with Jim Cramer for TheStreet, said investors should be cautious until more is known about the virus. “You have to be careful, because it may be a game changer. So you’ve just got to be cautious,” Tepper said.
Jana Partners Nominates Directors at Restaurant Chain Bloomin’ Brands (Reuters)
NEW YORK, Feb 3 (Reuters) – Activist hedge fund Jana Partners said on Monday that it plans to nominate several directors at Outback Steakhouse owner Bloomin’ Brands Inc, creating fresh pressure for the company as management continues to review its strategic focus. The New York-based hedge fund told the company late last week that it plans to propose Scott Ostfeld, a partner and portfolio manager at Jana, and John Paul Gainor, a corporate director with experience in the casual dining market, as directors, Jana said in a filing on Monday. It said that it would propose Jennifer Fanjiang, Jana’s chief legal officer, as a third director if three board members stand for election.
Hedge Funds Cerberus, SSG Compete over India Shadow Bank Altico (Bloomberg)
Competition for ownership of Indian shadow bank Altico Capital India Ltd. has revived with the re-entry of Cerberus Capital Management LP into the race. New York-based hedge fund Cerberus submitted a bid for ailing Altico last week, after getting an extension from an initial deadline in the previous week, said people familiar with the matter. The creditor-run debt restructuring at Altico is being keenly followed as a barometer of India’s shadow banking crisis, as well as a potential opportunity for hedge funds and banks trading discounted debt.
Two Sigma’s Private-Equity Arm is Building Out a Data Team — It’s a Big Move that could Serve as a Case Study for PE Firms that are Behind the Ball on AI (Business Insider)
Two Sigma‘s private-equity arm has plans to build out its data capabilities, recruiting engineers, and data scientists to help provide insights to investment professionals and portfolio companies, Business Insider has learned. The PE arm, called Sightway Capital, plans to bring its roster of tech-oriented professionals closer in line with its investment professional staff, one of the sources said. Sightway Capital’s website lists 17 investment professionals, not counting operating, legal and compliance staff. Meanwhile, there are two data scientists displayed. Another source said that Sightway Capital will focus on “measured” growth, with not all positions filled immediately.
David Siegel of Two Sigma Advisors
Hedge Fund Trader Michael Platt Made $2 Billion In 2019 Without Any Clients (Forbes)
Four years ago, Michael Platt decided to go it alone and close his hedge fund firm, BlueCrest Capital Management, to clients. But Platt kept BlueCrest’s trading teams and continued to speculate in financial markets using his own personal wealth. Last year, BlueCrest’s trading operation returned 53.5% net after expenses and made Platt about $2 billion. The majority of BlueCrest’s returns did not come from trading equities, which surged last year, but from significant long fixed income positions early in 2019, according to a person familiar with the situation.
How an Och-Less Och-Ziff Changed Its Attitude, Its Leadership – and Its Name (Institutional Investor)
There was no single meeting on the 40th floor of New York City’s 9 West 57th Street when it was decided that it was time to abandon any reference to Och-Ziff, no come-to-Jesus moment that convinced insiders to cut loose from one of the most famous brands in hedge fund history. Instead, like a wave building toward shore, the evidence gradually became insurmountable. Executives had tried once before to distance the firm’s future from its past, which was both storied and mired in scandal. But it was a soft separation.
Cindicator Capital Launches Digital Assets Quant Fund (Opalesque.com)
Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: Cindicator Capital has launched a new multi-strategy fund focused on cryptocurrencies and digital assets. Cindicator relies on a hybrid quantitative approach that combines human predictions with machine learning algorithms. The fund’s technology uses prediction data from analysts all over the world that have their calls included in Cindicator’s platform. Part of the fund’s revenues will be used to reward analysts for correct forecasts in proportion to their intellectual efforts and the quality of indicators based on their predictions. Yuri Lobyntsev, co-founder & CTO of Cindicator tells Opalesque New Managers that the launch is the result of five years of internal work building the technology, gathering data, and refining the strategy.
Jeneration Capital Raises $622 Million So Far for Tech-Focused Fund (The Wall Street Journal)
Jeneration Capital Management, an Asia-focused firm founded by a former executive from Silver Lake, has raised at least $622 million so far for its latest growth-equity fund, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm has collected capital from at least 30 investors for Jeneration Capital Partners II LP, according to the regulatory filing. The document didn’t specify a target for the fund, which received its first commitment in January 2019.
Nominations: Best Nordic Hedge Funds 2019 (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – HedgeNordic is pleased to announce the nominees for the 2019 Nordic Hedge Award. The annual distinction recognizes the best Nordic hedge funds. Nominees were selected using a quantitative model co-developed with the Stockholm School of Economics. The model translates several of each fund’s performance-related metrics into points, with these metrics including last year’s absolute performance, relative performance in 2019(respective to relevant NHX sub-categories or the entire universe), Sharpe ratio over the past 36 months, absolute performance over the past 36 months, and skewness over the same period.
Monday 2/3 Insider Buying Report: CSFL, PFE (Nasdaq.com)
Bargain hunters are wise to pay careful attention to insider buying, because although there are many various reasons for an insider to sell a stock, presumably the only reason they would use their hard-earned dollars to make a purchase, is that they expect to make money. Today we look at two noteworthy recent insider buys. At CenterState Bank Corp (CSFL), a filing with the SEC revealed that on Friday, Chief Financial Officer William E. V. Matthews bought 5,000 shares of CSFL, for a cost of $22.89 each, for a total investment of $114,443. CenterState Bank Corp is trading up about 1.9% on the day Monday. And on Thursday, Director Scott Gottlieb purchased $36,997 worth of Pfizer (PFE), purchasing 1,000 shares at a cost of $37.00 each. Before this latest buy, Gottlieb made one other buy in the past year, purchasing $104,160 shares for a cost of $34.72 each. Pfizer is trading up about 1.4% on the day Monday. So far Gottlieb is in the green, up about 2.3% on their purchase based on today’s trading high of $37.84.
What Did This CEO Just Do with Personal Shares of Blackrock (NYSE: BLK)? (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the Chairman & CEO of Blackrock (BLK), Laurence Fink, sold shares of BLK for $25.08M. Following Laurence Fink’s last BLK Sell transaction on October 25, 2019, the stock climbed by 70.7%. In addition to Laurence Fink, 2 other BLK executives reported Sell trades in the last month.
Notable Insider Buys Last Week: Anthem, Discover Financial (Benzinga)
Anthem: Anthem Inc (ANTM) 0.31% CEO Gail Boudreaux purchased 7,600 shares of this health benefits giant last week. At $262.93 to $264.36 per share, that totaled more than $2 million. Note that some shares were acquired via a dividend reinvestment plan, and Boudreaux’s stake is now listed as over 26,500 shares. Discover Financial Services: Discover Financial Services (DFS) 1.41% saw chief executive Roger Hochschild add to his stake. He picked up 15,000 shares of this payment services company at between $74.05 and $74.20 each. Three other executives bought 3,000 or more shares each as well. The total for these transactions came to more than $1.83 million. Hochschild had nearly 850,000 shares on last look.
Stern Alumnus Sentenced for Insider Trading – With Minimal Consequences (NYUNews.com)
Stern alumnus Bill Tsai will spend 90 days in a community reentry center, be placed under five-year probation, fined $100 and forfeit his illicit earnings, according to court documents. Bill Tsai was arrested one year after graduating from Stern for illegally earning $100,000 off the stock market, using knowledge he acquired through his junior analyst position at RBC Capital Markets. Tsai learned of Sirius Capital Group’s plan to buy a digital printing company – Electronics for Imaging – and bought call options in EFI before the purchase raised the company’s stocks’ value from $29.40 to $38, allowing Tsai to turn a profit.
WeissLaw LLP: Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is the Subject of a Legal Investigation (Benzinga.com)
NEW YORK, Feb. 3, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — WeissLaw LLP, a national class action and shareholders’ rights law firm with offices in New York, California and Georgia, announces an investigation of Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:PTLA) (“Portola,” or the “Company”). The investigation focuses on possible breaches of fiduciary duty and violations of federal securities laws by the members of Portola’s Board of Directors in connection the with the Company’s flagship drug Andexxa. Notably, Portola recently announced that in the fourth quarter of 2019 Andexxa sales tumbled to $28 million and, as a result, it anticipated full year revenue of only $111 million. These figures represent a significant departure from the projections of $41 million in Andexxa sales in the fourth quarter and $132 million in full year revenue. On this news, the Company’s share price nosedived as much 45.4%.
