Amber Capital Asks for Backing to Replace Lagardere Board – Letter (Reuters)
LONDON, April 15 (Reuters) – Activist hedge fund Amber Capital on Tuesday urged fellow investors to support proposals to replace the majority of Lagardere’s supervisory board members, according to a letter shared with Reuters on Wednesday. Amber, which has been a shareholder in the French multimedia conglomerate for four years and is the largest shareholder, urged investors to vote for its resolutions at the general meeting on May 5. The hedge fund accused Lagardere’s management and supervisory board of a “denial of reality” over the company’s poor financial performance.
Dalio Says Investors ‘Crazy’ to Hold Government Bonds Now (Bloomberg)
Bridgewater Associates’ Ray Dalio, founder of of the world’s largest hedge fund, said investors would be “crazy” to hold government bonds now and possibly for years because of money-printing by central banks to rescue the global economy. “This period, like the 1930-45 period, is a period in which I think you’d be pretty crazy to hold bonds,” Dalio said Wednesday on the Bloomberg Invest Talks webcast. “If you’re holding a bond that gives you no interest rate, or a negative interest rate, and they’re producing a lot of currency and you’re going to receive that, why would you hold that bond?”
Sacramento County Commits $34 Million to 2 Funds (Pensions&Investments)
Sacramento County (Calif.) Employees’ Retirement Association committed a total of roughly $34 million to two investment funds at its Wednesday board meeting, documents from the $9.3 billion pension system show. The board agreed to commit €20 million ($21.8 million) to Summit Partners Europe Growth Equity Fund III; and a follow-on commitment of $12 million to Davidson Kempner Institutional Partners, a hedge fund run by Davidson Kempner Capital Management. SCERA had previously committed $32 million to the Davidson Kempner hedge fund in May.
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Jupiter’s Assets Take 18% Tumble Amid First-quarter Virus Panic (FNLondon.com)
UK fund manager says its purchase of smaller rival Merian Global Investors remains on track. Jupiter Fund Management posted net outflows of £2.3bn during the first three months of the year, with total assets falling by more than 18% as investors became spooked by the Covid-19 pandemic. The FTSE 250-listed group, which announced in February it was acquiring smaller rival Merian Global Investors, saw assets drop to £35bn at the end of March, down from £42.8bn at the end of 2019.
Hedge Fund Manager Claims Bitcoin is Hanging on the “Side of a Cliff” (Bitcoinist.com)
After reclaiming the key support that had been established at $6,800 yesterday, Bitcoin has once again lost this level, surrendering to bears as to navigates back towards its key short-term support that has been established around $6,600. This comes just days after a prominent hedge fund manager noted that he believes Bitcoin is a “textbook short” opportunity, with its strong resistance in the lower-$7,000 region possibly being enough to spark a lasting downtrend. The same fund manager is now doubling down on this bearishness, noting that BTC is currently hanging by its nails on the side of a proverbial cliff – a sentiment that suggests he believes a capitulatory downtrend is imminent.
Bain Capital Credit Owns 9.8% of doValue: filing (Reuters)
MILANO (Reuters) – U.S. credit specialist Bain Capital Credit Member held 9.8% of Italy’s biggest bad loan specialist doValue (DOVA.MI) as of April 6, a regulatory filing showed on Wednesday. The stake is held indirectly trough Sankaty European Investments. The filing also reported that hedge fund EJF Capital cut its stake in doValue to 1.9% from a previous 10.7% as of the same date.
Hedge Funds Look to Regroup After Q1 Pummelling (Hedge Week)
Hedge funds suffered their second biggest loss on record last month, tumbling 7.25 per cent on average as the sharp economic downturn following the Covid-19 outbreak took its toll on performance. New data from eVestment indicates managers fell some 9.87 per cent on average during Q1, while the S&P 500 – which plummeted more than 12 per cent in March – lost close to a fifth of its value in the first three months of 2020. But with hedge fund strategies of various stripes now looking to capitalise on the recent turmoil, raising new capital to tap into cheap assets, the fallout is offering the industry to regroup and prove its worth to a shell-shocked investor base still counting the costs of the collapse elsewhere in their portfolios. Among the names said to be raising new capital are Sir Chris Hohn’s TCI, DE Shaw and Covalis Capital, according to recent media reports.
Activist Hedge Fund Starboard Pounces on U.S. Companies in Turmoil (Reuters)
(Reuters) – Most activist shareholders have refrained from challenging the boards of U.S. companies during this season of annual shareholder meetings, as businesses reel from the economic fallout of the coronavirus outbreak. Not Starboard Value LP. The New York-based hedge fund, which Jeffrey Smith spun out of investment firm Ramius in 2011, is pursuing proxy contests against five U.S. companies, even as rivals remain largely silent, according to a review of regulatory filings.
Wednesday 4/15 Insider Buying Report: TREC, UUUU (Nasdaq.com)
On Monday, Trecora Resources’ CEO, Patrick D. Quarles, made a $38,538 purchase of TREC, buying 7,349 shares at a cost of $5.24 a piece. Bargain hunters can pick up TREC at a price even lower than Quarles did, with the stock trading as low as $4.93 at last check today which is 6.0% below Quarles’s purchase price. Trecora Resources is trading trading flat on the day Wednesday. Before this latest buy, Quarles purchased TREC at 9 other times during the past twelve months, for a total cost of $674,531 at an average of $8.99 per share. And at Energy Fuels, there was insider buying on Monday, by Director Robert W. Kirkwood who bought 10,000 shares for a cost of $1.28 each, for a trade totaling $12,800. Energy Fuels Inc is trading up about 3.6% on the day Wednesday. Kirkwood was up about 25.8% on the purchase at the high point of today’s trading session, with UUUU trading as high as $1.61 at last check today.
Hedge Funds Profiting from Covid-19 ‘Must Give More Back’ (Standard.co.uk)
Hedge fund tycoons have made £1.5 billion in profits by shorting UK shares during the financial crisis, according to Evening Standard calculations that triggered calls for curbs on their activities and a windfall tax. Firms such as Citadel, owned by billionaire US investor Ken Griffin, AQR Capital, co-founded by billionaire hedge funder Cliff Asness, wealthy London financier Crispin Odey’s Odey Asset Management and Sir Paul Marshall and Ian Wace’s Marshall Wace were the most prolific winners from the market crash.
The SVP Gen. Counsel & Secretary of Capital Senior Living (NYSE: CSU) is Buying Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the SVP Gen. Counsel & Secretary of Capital Senior Living (CSU), David Brickman, bought shares of CSU for $4,914. Following this transaction David Brickman’s holding in the company was increased by 2.04% to a total of $242.7K. In addition to David Brickman, 2 other CSU executives reported Buy trades in the last month.
Sen. Tillis Says Fellow North Carolina Republican Burr ‘Owes Everybody an Explanation’ on Self-Dealing, Insider Trading Allegations (NationalReview.com)
Senator Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) on Wednesday said fellow North Carolina Republican senator Richard Burr should respond to recent allegations of insider trading and self-dealing. “I suspect that there is an investigation in the DOJ, and we’ll have to see where the facts lead,” Tillis told radio host Hugh Hewitt on The Hugh Hewitt Show. “Regardless of what happens with the investigation, I think Senator Burr owes everybody in North Carolina and the United States an explanation, and we’ll see where the investigation goes,” Tillis said. Regarding whether Burr should give up his chairmanship of the Senate Intel Committee until the facts are fully known, “that’s a decision…that would be better left to him and the leadership.”
