Elliott Ranks as Busiest Activist Hedge Fund in Third Quarter, Again (Reuters)
BOSTON (Reuters) – Elliott Management, Paul Singer’s $35 billion hedge fund, kept up its blistering pace of pushing for corporate changes during the third quarter, outspending all rivals with campaigns at AT&T and Marathon Petroleum Corp , data released on Friday showed. The firm committed $5.2 billion in new capital during July, August and September, making it the busiest activist both by capital committed and number of campaigns launched, according to data compiled by Lazard.
Billionaire Ray Dalio: The 2 Things You have to Do to Get ‘The Money You Need and the Job You Want’ (CNBC)
The dream, for most people, is to have a truly fulfilling career that is also financially lucrative. Of course, that can seem easier said than done. But hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio believes the dream is achievable, so long as you can master two skills: creativity and flexibility. “To have both the money you need and the job you want, you have to be creative and flexible,” Dalio wrote in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday.
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Element Capital Disbands Group of Non-core Managers (Pensions&Investments)
Jeff Talpins‘ Element Capital Management is dismissing seven portfolio managers as the hedge fund firm refocuses on its main macro strategy, according to people familiar with the matter. The managers were part of a program the New York-based firm started about five years ago that oversaw non-core parts of the portfolio, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private. The amount of money they oversaw was a small portion of Element’s $18 billion, the people said. A representative for the firm declined to comment.
GoPro Spikes as Hedge Fund Increases Stake, Hero8 Black Shipments Start Early (The Street)
Shares of GoPro (GPRO) were rising nearly 12% Friday after the camera maker announced that hedge fund Prentice Capital increased its stake in the company. Prentice Capital now holds 12,467,119 shares, equivalent to about 9.96% of the company ‘s outstanding shares. A previous filing indicated that Prentice Capital held a 6.5% stake. The San Mateo, California-based company also announced that it has begun fulfilling pre-orders of its HERO8 Black camera ahead of its previously announced shipping date of Oct. 15.
Box: Stuck in a Sales Rut and Under Siege by an Activist Investor (Bloomberg)
The cloud company is stuck in a sales rut, and activist Starboard just walked in. Even in Silicon Valley, it’s tough to be the middle child. Wedged between hot new startups and technology giants, midcaps must prove their mettle when the pace of growth dips and competition intensifies. Such is the dilemma of Redwood City, Calif.-based Box Inc., whose revenue growth lags those of its cloud-computing peers and is slowing, compounding investor concerns that the 14-year-old company has yet to turn a profit. Chief Executive Officer Aaron Levie’s answer has been to diversify Box away from its roots as a single-product file-sharing provider and position it in the cloud content management market, with offerings to help businesses secure data and automate workflows.
S&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Performance Index down 0.24 per cent in September (Hedge Week)
The gross return of the SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Performance Index for September 2019 measured -0.24 per cent. Hedge fund flows as measured by the SS&C GlobeOp Capital Movement Index declined 1.16 per cent in October. “SS&C GlobeOp’s Capital Movement Index was -1.16 per cent for October 2019, indicating net outflows consistent with normal seasonal patterns. On a comparative basis, the -1.16 per cent reflects lower net outflows than the -1.37 per cent reported for the same period last year and, in fact, is the lowest net outflow for the month of October over the past five years,” says Bill Stone, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, SS&C Technologies.
New Hedge Funds Survive Better in Asia Than the U.S. (Bloomberg)
New hedge fund firms have a higher rate of survival in Asia than the U.S., according to an internal study by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The research, compiled in July, showed that the bank’s prime brokerage business in Asia worked with 129 hedge fund startups over the 10 years through 2018, with 64% of them still alive. That compares with 52% for the 468 launches Goldman took on in the U.S.
Mercury Systems Inc (MRCY) President and CEO Mark Aslett Sold $925,250 of Shares (Guru Focus)
President and CEO of Mercury Systems Inc., Mark Aslett, sold 12,500 shares of MRCY on 10/10/2019 at an average price of $74.02 a share. The total sale was $925,250. Mercury Systems Inc is a commercial provider of secure processing subsystems designed and made in the USA for critical defense and intelligence programs. The Company delivers affordable solutions, service and support to defense prime contractors.
Stocks With Recent Insider Buying/Selling: Umpqua Holdings Corporation (UMPQ) and Sabra Health Care REIT Inc. (SBRA) (LedgerTelegraph.com)
On Sep 04, Nixon Torran B, Sr. EVP/Chief Banking Officer sold 5,303 shares of Umpqua Holdings Corporation (NASDAQ:UMPQ), with the average selling price of the stock being $15.31 per share. The total amount realized from this sold $81,191. A document was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission to notify the public about the sold of the shares. In addition to that, Director – MACHUCA LUIS sold an extra 10,000 shares of this stock in a transaction that took place a day before, on Jul 23, with a share sold at an average of $16.77 and a total of $167,700 was realized from this transaction. After the transaction, the Director – MACHUCA LUIS was left with 7,954 shares of the company’s stock, which is currently worth around $133388.58.
Ex-Morgan Stanley Advisor Barred After Insider Trading Conviction (Financial Advisor IQ)
The SEC has barred Michael Siva, who had worked as an advisor at Morgan Stanley. Siva worked at the wirehouse for 22 years, from 1996 to 2018. The bar comes after Siva was convicted for insider trading. Exactly one year prior to the SEC ruling, Siva pleaded guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit securities fraud, admitting that he had received nonpublic information about potential M&A transactions and then used the information to buy stocks for himself and his clients. A Morgan Stanley spokesperson declined to comment.
The VP Operations of AxoGen is Exercising Options (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday it was reported that the VP Operations of AxoGen (AXGN), Donovan Michael Patrick, exercised options to buy 6,500 AXGN shares at $4.36 a share, for a total transaction value of $28.4K. This recent transaction increases Donovan Michael Patrick’s holding in the company by 37.2% to a total of $295K. Following Donovan Michael Patrick’s last AXGN Buy transaction on March 14, 2017, the stock climbed by 1.8%.
SEC Charges Two Individuals with Defrauding Main Street Investors Through the Sale of Binary Options (HedgeCo.net)
(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission charged two foreign individuals, Anton Senderov and Lior Babazara a/k/a Lior Bar, with defrauding more than 2,800 U.S. investors and causing them to lose over $5 million through online sales of high-risk securities known as binary options. According to the SEC’s complaint, the defendants conned investors through two online binary options brokers they controlled, LBinary and Ivory Option. The SEC alleges that the defendants also owned and controlled LianTech Finance Marketing, Ltd., which operated a call center in Israel that functioned as a “boiler room.” Employees at the call center allegedly persuaded investors to open binary option trading accounts and deposit large sums into those accounts.
