Banking & Finance Roundup: Hedge Fund Millennium Management Inks Two South Florida Office Leases (South Florida Business Journal)
Hedge fund giant Millennium Management is doubling down on South Florida with two big leases at Class A office towers. The New York-based firm secured more than 74,000 square feet across three floors at 1111 Brickell Ave. in Miami. The company will house investment professionals and technology teams at the 30-story office building in the Brickell Financial District. WorldQuant, a quantitative investment firm spun out of Millennium in 2007, will also occupy space there. CBRE served as the exclusive agent on Millennium’s lease agreement. 1111 Brickell is owned by KKR and Parkway Property Investments.
Treasury Liquidity is Worsening as Hedge Funds Rokos and Alphadyne Reportedly Incur Losses from Wrong-Way Bets on Yields (Market Watch)
Rokos Capital Management and Alphadyne Asset Management are being identified by Bloomberg News as two of the large hedge funds that have incurred losses as a result of wrong-way positions on government-bond yields. Yields across the world have unexpectedly converged on growing expectations of tighter policy from central banks and a darkening global outlook. The accompanying volatility has caught a number of leveraged players off guard – and is now leading to deteriorating liquidity in the Treasury market, as well as in Europe, Canada, and the U.K., according to BofA strategists.
New Fund Targets Stranded Unicorns (The Wall Street Journal)
MBM Capital is raising funds to buy venture-stage companies with real revenue and products but struggling to raise additional capital. For every $1 billion-plus private company, there is another startup struggling to raise funds in a venture-capital world obsessed with growth. Billions are being poured into the hottest startups, pushing private valuations to new heights and the number of unicorns world-wide to more than 800. But as VC firms search for the next Beyond Meat Inc., they are quick to abandon companies they believe will never become darlings of private and public investors.
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Hedge Funds Deliver for Varma (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Finnish pension fund Varma earned 13.5 percent on its investments during the nine-month period ending September, with private equity investments yielding nearly 40 percent and hedge funds more than 11 percent. Varma had €9.09 billion, or 16 percent, of its €56.6 billion-investment portfolio allocated to hedge funds at the end of September and €8.08 billion allocated to private equity.
Lazard Eyes Credit Opportunities with “Early Mover” Long/Short UCITS Launch (Hedge Week)
Lazard Asset Management has unveiled a new long/short credit UCITS hedge fund which trades investment grade, crossover, and high-yield bonds in Europe and North America. The Lazard Coherence Credit Alternative Fund replicates the original Lazard Coherence Long/Short Credit strategy, which launched in August 2012. The strategy’s “early mover” portfolio is built around Lazard’s view that fixed income markets are an extension of equity markets, and makes investments ahead of yield spread and price changes which are driven by earnings and credit ratings momentum.
EXCLUSIVE Acacia Research Seeks to Buy Comtech Telecommunications – Sources (Reuters)
Nov 1 (Reuters) – Acacia Research Corp (ACTG.O), which buys businesses in sectors such as technology and healthcare, has made an offer to acquire Comtech Telecommunications Corp (CMTL.O), a provider of wireless communication systems for police and other emergency services, for $790 million in cash, the company confirmed on Monday. The bid comes as Comtech faces pressure from one of its shareholders, Outerbridge Capital Management LLC, to explore a sale of the entire company. Comtech angered Outerbridge last month when it announced a deal to sell a $100 million stake in itself through a PIPE deal to hedge funds Magnetar Capital LLC and White Hat Capital Partners LP. In a PIPE deal, investors buy a publicly traded stock below its currently traded price.
Sfermion Raises $100M NFT Fund as Facebook Stokes Metaverse Mania (Coin Desk)
Sfermion, an investment firm led by crypto podcaster and analyst Andrew Steinwold, says it has raised $100 million for a new fund focused on non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with contributions from Marc Andreessen and the Winklevoss twins. Steinwold told CoinDesk that the fund, dubbed simply “Fund II,” will focus in on the “experiential infrastructure that involves the NFT space.” It’s part of Sfermion’s mission to usher in the advent of the “metaverse” – a digital layer sitting on top of the real world, accessible via the internet, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). This sort of thing has been around for years (remember Yelp’s Monocle?), but has yet to capture the mainstream imagination in a significant way.
Monday 11/1 Insider Buying Report: RNR, CCI (Nasdaq.com)
On Friday, RenaissanceRe Holdings’s EVP, Chief Financial Officer, Robert Qutub, made a $490,087 purchase of RNR, buying 3,400 shares at a cost of $144.14 each. Qutub was up about 3.7% on the buy at the high point of today’s trading session, with RNR trading as high as $149.46 at last check today. RenaissanceRe Holdings is trading up about 5% on the day Monday. This buy marks the first one filed by Qutub in the past year. And on Wednesday, Director Kevin A. Stephens purchased $198,310 worth of Crown Castle International, purchasing 1,110 shares at a cost of $178.66 each. Before this latest buy, Stephens bought CCI at 2 other times during the past twelve months, for a total investment of $384,582 at an average of $166.49 per share. Crown Castle International is trading up about 0.5% on the day Monday. Stephens was up about 1.5% on the purchase at the high point of today’s trading session, with CCI trading as high as $181.31 in trading on Monday.
Singapore: The Asset Management Centre of the Future (Hedge Week)
It’s 2035 and Jane Lee, a resort hotel executive in Singapore is planning to invest in one hedge fund and two mutual funds, all Variable Capital Company’s (VCC) managed by asset managers based in Singapore, Asia’s largest asset management centre, fund domiciliation hub and private banking nexus. Her AI digital PA navigates to her personal, cloud based, financial portal reviewing the latest return data and scans her personal, long term financial plan and goals, leading to approval, and Jane is ready to invest. Her AI program using U-Reg, an advanced KYC/AML software, locks into each manager’s online application and completes each subscription form in 30 seconds, supplying certified true copies with a digital watermark of her passport, proof of address and proof of Accredited Investor status. Each fund manager’s AI system checks and verifies all the information resulting in approval within five minutes, with Jane’s AI PA remitting funds in Singapore’s digital currency, the SG-ED.
Director Of Charles Schwab Trades $14M In Company Stock (Benzinga)
Charles Schwab, Director at Charles Schwab (NYSE:SCHW), made a large buy and sell of company shares on October 29, according to a new SEC filing. What Happened: A Form 4 filing from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission states that Charles Schwab exercised options to purchase 150,000 Charles Schwab shares at a price of $13.64 per share for a total of $2,046,000 on October 29. They then sold their shares on the same day in the open market. They sold at a price of $82.02 to raise a total of $12,302,595 from the stock sale.
The COO of Jakks Pacific (NASDAQ: JAKK) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the COO of Jakks Pacific (JAKK), John Joseph Mcgrath, sold shares of JAKK for $1.34M. In addition to John Joseph Mcgrath, one other JAKK executive reported Sell trades in the last month. Based on Jakks Pacific’s latest earnings report for the quarter ending June 30, the company posted quarterly revenue of $112 million and GAAP net loss of -$15,084,000.
