UK Watchdog Fines Hedge Fund BlueCrest $55 Million Over Staff Fund Failings (Reuters)
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s markets watchdog said on Wednesday it will fine hedge fund BlueCrest Capital Management UK 41 million pounds ($54.50 million) for conflict of interest failings over a fund set up for BlueCrest staff. Between October 2011 and December 2015, BlueCrest failed to manage fairly a conflict of interest created by switching portfolio managers working on a fund open to investors outside BlueCrest to an internal fund open only to its partners and employees, the Financial Conduct Authority said in a statement.
Hedge Fund Veteran Brummer Looks to Hire New Traders After Record Loss (Bloomberg)
Patrik Brummer, the 72-year-old founder of Sweden’s biggest and oldest hedge fund, is hoping to hire more equity traders to avoid a repeat of the unprecedented losses suffered this year. His $13.8 billion eponymous partnership wants to add new long-short equity vehicles to Brummer Multi-Strategy, the firm’s flagship fund that gives clients access to several independent, in-house strategies. The fund has lost 0.4% in 2021 while its benchmark index returned 7.4% over the same period.
Urgently Secures Up to $75 Million in New Financing from Highbridge, Onex Credit and Whitebox Advisors (TMCnet.com)
Urgently, a leading provider of digital roadside and mobility assistance services, announced today it has secured up to $75 million in debt financing from certain funds managed by Highbridge Capital Management, LLC (“Highbridge”), Onex Credit and Whitebox Advisors, that will help the company advance its mission to transform the legacy roadside assistance market and to develop and define the new market for connected mobility assistance services for automotive, insurance, fleet, logistics, new mobility and technology transportation companies. In addition, Structural Capital refinanced and increased its existing debt facility with Urgently to $17.5 million.
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11 Hedge-Fund Managers to Watch in 2022, from Rising Star Mala Gaonkar to ‘Meme Stock’ Target Turned Comeback Kid Gabe Plotkin (Business Insider)
The year 2021 was not a quiet one for hedge funds. Retail traders coordinated short squeezes. Variants spooked markets. Capital in private companies set new record, and SPACs attracted everyone from Bill Ackman to Shaq. In the end, managers — for the most part — made it out ok. The average fund was up just under 9% through the first 11 months of 2021 after a nasty November, which tripped up managers like Tiger Global and Whale Rock. This figure trails the S&P 500, but is still close to matching last year’s strong industry-wide performance with a whole month to go.
Sell-Side Mindset (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – After 17 years as a sell-side small-cap-focused equity analyst and strategist, Fredrik Skoglund launched FE Fonder in October 2020 with the backing of Swedish real estate investor Erik Selin. The Stockholm-based asset manager now manages one long-only and one absolute return fund, both focused on the small-cap space in the Nordic region. “As a long-only manager, you must always “play the game” and deliver a good relative performance regardless of the market environment,” says Skoglund, who manages long-only FE Småbolag Sverige and absolute return-focused FE Select with co-portfolio manager Mikael Löfdahl.
Hedge Fund Liquidations Fall to Historic Low (Hedge Week)
New hedge fund liquidations fell to a record low in Q3 as total industry capital surpassed the historic USD4 trillion milestone to begin Q4 2021, according to the latest HFR Market Microstructure Report by HFR. Hedge fund liquidations fell to only 102, the lowest total since Q2 2006, as investors maintained or increased positions in existing hedge funds, driven by the uncertain macroeconomic environment including rising inflation, increased government spending, tapering of Federal Reserve bond purchases and the impact of Omicron coronavirus variant.
It’s One Deal for Elliott, Another Deal for the Rest (Bloomberg)
At holiday time, try not to compare your presents to those of your peers — especially if they include Elliott Management Corp. The activist hedge fund has gotten itself a special deal in return for sanctioning Rocket Internet SE’s plan to exit the stock market. The German tech incubator’s other minority investors don’t do quite so well. It’s a festive reminder that M&A doesn’t always abide by the principle that shareholders should be treated equally.
Tiger Global Leads VC Charge (Institutional Investor)
More than a dozen firms known for their hedge funds made a record number of private investments in 2021. Call it VC mania. Global funding of startups and more seasoned private companies will easily set a record this year. And firms best known for their hedge funds are among the busiest participants.More than a dozen of these firms made more private investments in 2021 than any year in their history…
Wednesday 12/22 Insider Buying Report: CCB, FMNB (Nasdaq.com)
On Friday, Coastal Financial’s Director, Thomas D. Lane, made a $299,984 purchase of CCB, buying 7,407 shares at a cost of $40.50 each. Lane was up about 28.7% on the buy at the high point of today’s trading session, with CCB trading as high as $52.11 in trading on Wednesday. Coastal Financial is trading up about 1.6% on the day Wednesday. This buy marks the first one filed by Lane in the past year. And at Farmers National Banc, there was insider buying on Monday, by Director Edward Muransky who purchased 15,209 shares at a cost of $17.72 each, for a trade totaling $269,556. Before this latest buy, Muransky bought FMNB at 10 other times during the past twelve months, for a total investment of $639,941 at an average of $15.78 per share. Farmers National Banc is trading down about 0.6% on the day Wednesday. Muransky was up about 2.4% on the buy at the high point of today’s trading session, with FMNB trading as high as $18.14 in trading on Wednesday.
What Did This CEO Just Do with Personal Shares of Agilent (NYSE: A)? (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the CEO & President of Agilent (A), Michael R. McMullen, sold shares of A for $18.37M. Following Michael R. McMullen’s last A Sell transaction on October 30, 2020, the stock climbed by 48.9%. In addition to Michael R. McMullen, 2 other A executives reported Sell trades in the last month. Based on Agilent’s latest earnings report for the quarter ending October 31, the company posted quarterly revenue of $1.66 billion and quarterly net profit of $442 million.
Tesla Inc (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk Sold $528 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CEO of Tesla Inc, Elon Musk, sold 583,611 shares of TSLA on 12/21/2021 at an average price of $904.74 a share. The total sale was $528 million.
