George Soros’s Foundation Cuts 40% of Staff Just 1 Month After 92-Year-Old Billionaire Handed His Empire Over to His Millennial Son (Fortune)
George Soros’s philanthropic foundation is slashing its workforce almost in half just weeks after his millennial and “more political” son took the reins of the multibillion-dollar empire. Open Society Foundations, which was founded by the billionaire investor in 1979, announced on Friday that it would be making “significant changes” to its operating model over the coming months. It comes after Alexander Soros, George Soros’s fourth child, was named chair of the organization’s board of directors in December, and just one month after he inherited complete control of the foundation from his father.
Billionaire Investor Seth Klarman’s Big Contrarian Play: Buying Commercial Real Estate Ahead of a Potential Recession (The Motley Fool)
Key Points: Seth Klarman runs Baupost Group, a hedge fund that focuses on value stocks, distressed debt, liquidations, foreign equities, and bonds. Baupost Group has regularly beaten the market since it was founded in 1982. As a value investor, Klarman said he thinks there may be opportunities in commercial real estate. Many investors believe commercial real estate is the next shoe to drop in this uncertain economy. In this uncertain economy, several sectors have taken hits at various times over the past few years. Some investors think commercial real estate (CRE) could be the next shoe to drop.
16Rock Launches New Muni Hedge Fund (BondBuyer.com)
16Rock Asset Management LLC has launched a new hedge fund aimed at using a multi-strategy approach to capture the $4 trillion municipal markets’ recurring opportunities. The new fund, which launched Saturday and is open to trade, is called the 16Rock Municipal Opportunities Fund LP and will compete in the small universe of municipal hedge funds. With a primary focus on investment-grade securities, the fund has lower leverage, aims to provide capital preservation, and also uses hedging strategies designed to minimize interest rate, event and directional risk, according to James Pruskowski, chief investment officer.
Phongphan/Shutterstock.com
Man Group Takes Majority Stake in Boutique Money Manager Asteria (Hedge Week)
UK hedge fund manager Man Group has agreed to acquire a 51% stake in Asteria, an ESG-focused boutique money manager owned by Italian private bank Fideuram – Intesa Sanpaolo Private Banking (F-ISPB), which will retain the other 49% of the business. The investment team at Geneva-based Asteria, focuses on “innovative solutions for the wealth management space” and already has three funds with sustainable investment objectives.
Barclays Seeks to Stop Being Corporate Banker to Odey Asset Management, Financial Times Reports (Reuters)
Barclays (BARC.L) is looking to terminate its corporate banking relationship with Odey Asset Management (OAM), the Financial Times reported on Sunday, predominantly due to sexual assault allegations against founder Crispin Odey. The British hedge fund has grappled with redemptions since the FT and Tortoise Media on June 8 jointly reported allegations by 13 women that Crispin Odey had sexually assaulted or harassed them over a 25-year period.
A.I. Bull at the World’s Biggest Hedge Fund Warns About Using Chatbots to Make Stock Picks: ‘It’s a Hopeless Path’ (Fortune)
Greg Jensen, co-chief information officer at Bridgewater Associates — the world’s largest hedge fund—is undeniably an A.I. bull, having been an early investor in ChatGPT creator OpenAI and poured funding into A.I. startup Anthropic. He isn’t alone—plenty of investors have proven in recent months that they’re willing to throw money at artificial intelligence, prompting concerns about the hype as well as declarations that the “Gold Rush” is a huge opportunity for traders.
Bowmoor Capital Offers Flagship Strategy to Outside Investors (Hedge Week)
Bowmoor Capital, a London-based trend following, global macro hedge fund manager, is making is flagship long/short, systematic, quantitative Global Alpha strategy, which is designed to benefit from price trends in global markets, available to outside investors for the first time, according to reports. Bowmoor is to launch a new Guernsey-based fund on 1 August anchored by seed investors including London-based investment firm Peregrine & Black.
5 Hot Insider Trades & Hedge Fund Hits: Buffett Picks Up More Occidental Shares (Investing.com)
Here is your Pro Recap of the biggest insider trades and institutional investor headlines you may have missed last week: News out of Occidental Petroleum and Warren Buffett‘s Berkshire Hathaway; AlloVir and Gilead Sciences; and top brass buys at Asana, ONEOK, and MiMedx. Occidental Petroleum gains on more Buffett buys: Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) shares bumped higher on news that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRKa) (NYSE:BRKb) is once again increasing its position in the company, as reported in real-time on InvestingPro.
Hedge Funds on the Brink of Abandoning Bullish Dollar Bets (Bloomberg)
Hedge funds are poised to exit bullish dollar bets on the prospects for an end to Federal Reserve rate hikes. A gauge of leveraged funds’ long positions on the greenback against eight currencies slid by more than four-fifths as of June 27 from a week prior, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission aggregated by Bloomberg. It dropped to 5,196 contracts, the lowest since March 7.
Monday 7/3 Insider Buying Report: ASPI, CCLP (Nasdaq.com)
At ASP Isotopes, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Thursday, Duncan Moore purchased 100,000 shares of ASPI, at a cost of $0.50 each, for a total investment of $49,990. So far Moore is in the green, up about 33.5% on their buy based on today’s trading high of $0.67. ASP Isotopes is trading up about 9.2% on the day Monday. Before this latest buy, Moore purchased ASPI on 2 other occasions during the past year, for a total cost of $24,998 at an average of $0.83 per share. And on Friday, Chief Executive Officer John Earl Jackson purchased $32,500 worth of CSI Compressco, purchasing 25,000 shares at a cost of $1.30 each. Before this latest buy, Jackson made one other buy in the past year, purchasing $12,700 shares for a cost of $1.27 a piece. CSI Compressco is trading down about 1.6% on the day Monday. Investors can bag CCLP even cheaper than Jackson did, with the stock changing hands as low as $1.24 in trading on Monday which is 4.6% under Jackson’s purchase price.
$11M Bet On This Healthcare Stock? Check Out These 3 Penny Stocks Insiders Are Aggressively Buying (Benzinga)
AlloVir: The Trade: AlloVir, Inc. (ALVR) 10% owner Gilead Sciences Inc acquired a total 2,930,870 shares an average price of $3.75. To acquire these shares, it cost around $10.99 million. Augusta Gold: The Trade: Augusta Gold Corp. (AUGG) Executive Chairman Richard Warke acquired a total of 50,000 shares at an average price of $0.64. The insider spent around $32,000 to buy those shares.
