Buffett, Icahn Remember the Late T. Boone Pickens for ‘Great Wit’ and Inimitable Texas Personality (CNBC)
Magnates and friends of T. Boone Pickens remembered him fondly in comments to CNBC following his passing. Pickens died Wednesday of natural causes at age 91. “They grow big personalities in Texas, but none could top Boone,” billionaire investor Warren Buffett told CNBC’s Becky Quick on Thursday. “I never was with him that it wasn’t fun.”
Paulson’s Gold Investor Group Urges Deals, Costs Purge (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Gold bull John Paulson’s investor coalition on Thursday urged the world’s largest gold miners to immediately cut what it called excessive governance and administrative (G&A) costs and said smaller rivals should pursue no-premium mergers to boost shareholder returns. Concerns over global growth and trade uncertainties have pushed gold prices to multi-year highs, stoking expectations of deals among miners and reviving anxieties over cost control. This month, gold climbed to its highest level since 2013 hitting $1,503.04 per ounce Thursday.
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A Fond Farewell to T. Boone Pickens (Bloomberg)
I used to tell people that I was in the room when the 1980s – the bull-market-greed-is-good ‘80s – began. It was June 1982, and the room was a luxe Waldorf Towers suite leased by Lazard Freres. An investment banker at the firm had loaned the suite to a Texas oilman named T. Boone Pickens Jr., the founder and chief executive of Mesa Petroleum, based in Amarillo, Texas. Boone, who had a big reputation in Texas, and virtually no reputation outside it, was making an audacious play: He was trying to take over Cities Service, a company ten times Mesa’s size. And I was sitting right next to him, watching him try.
High-tax New York Slaps NJ-based Hedge Fund Manager with Major Tax Bill in Dispute Over Vacation Home (Fox Business)
The New York State tax department scored a major legal victory in a case against hedge fund manager Nelson Obus – emphasizing how diligent individuals need to be in order to avoid getting hammered by auditors. A judge ruled Obus must pay taxes as a “statutory resident” of New York State because of his Northville, New York, home – even though he is domiciled in New Jersey.
Union Says AT&T Must Reject Elliott’s Restructuring Plan (Reuters)
(Reuters) – AT&T’s (T.N) main labor union on Thursday called on the company to reject hedge fund Elliott Management’s proposals for a major shakeup of the United States’ second-largest telecommunications carrier. The Communications Workers of America, which represents over 100,000 AT&T workers, said the hedge fund’s plan would eliminate jobs, send work to low-wage contractors and harm the interests of customers and long-term investors.
Ex-Atreaus Hedge Fund Manager Goes to Adrian Lee (FNLondon.com)
Michael Ridewood, co-founder of Atreaus Capital, a global macro hedge fund that shut its doors in January, has joined up with currency manager Adrian Lee & Partners. Ridewood will become a senior member of Adrian Lee’s portfolio management team, the company said in a September 12 statement. Ridewood said the job would be “a new challenge and a new chapter for me”. The former Barclays proprietary trader set up Atreaus in 2012 with seed capital from Goldman Sachs, and was managing partner. His colleague and co-founder Todd Edgar was chief investment officer.
Xavier Rolet on Hong Kong Exchange’s Bid for LSE, CQS’s Strategy (Blomberg)
Xavier Rolet, former chief executive officer of London Stock Exchange Group Plc and now CEO of CQS, a London-based hedge fund, talks about Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Ltd.’s unexpected $36.6 billion bid for the U.K. bourse. Rolet also discusses CQS’s strategy. He speaks with Tracy Alloway on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Middle East.” (Source: Bloomberg)
Month in Review – August 2019 (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Nordic hedge funds were down 0.4 percent on average in August (84 percent reported), the second negative month the Nordic industry has seen thus far in 2019. In August, Nordic CTAs recorded their best monthly performance year-to-date, whereas the four remaining strategy categories in the Nordic Hedge Index posted losses.
Aberdeen Goes Passive in Hedge Fund Markets (Institutional Investor)
Aberdeen Standard Investments is pushing into the hedge fund market with a series of passive investment offerings. The firm said Thursday it has signed an agreement with Hedge Fund Research under which Aberdeen will soon offer an investment product tracking an index comprised of 500 hedge funds across strategies. The registered investment vehicle will later provide access to a wide group of HFR indexes so investors may choose from about 30 strategies and sub-strategies.
