Steve Cohen’s Mets Make Their Move With 10-Year, $341 Million Deal for Francisco Lindor (The Wall Street Journal)
With just hours to go before the first pitch of the 2021 season, Steve Cohen finally made the move that will define the early part of his tenure as New York Mets owner. Cohen, a hedge-fund manager who bought the team for $2.4 billion in November, agreed to give star shortstop Francisco Lindor a 10-year contract extension worth $341 million. The deal, which as of early Thursday morning hadn’t been announced, doesn’t start until 2022, potentially keeping Lindor in Queens for more than a decade.
An Investor Who Used to Work for Baupost’s Seth Klarman Explains Why He Thinks the Archegos Implosion is the ‘Frankenstein Version of GameStop’ — and Shares How to Replicate Hedge Fund Performance without Taking on Huge Risks (Business Insider)
Nearly a week since the implosion of Archegos first spilled into public view, former “Tiger Cub” trader Bill Hwang’s family office and its slew of prime brokers are still in the eye of the storm. “This story, as we’ve heard it so far, is clearly missing some pieces,” Andrew Beer, managing member of Dynamic Beta Investments, said in an interview.
Buyout Firms Swoop to Buy Hedge Fund’s Stake in Co-operative Bank (Sky News)
JC Flowers and Bain Capital Credit are in talks to buy BlueMountain Capital’s holding in the ‘ethical lender’, Sky News learns. The private equity group which led the demutualisation of one of Britain’s biggest building societies is close to buying a stake in the Co-operative Bank in the most significant shake-up of its ownership since it was rescued in 2017. Sky News has learnt that JC Flowers and Bain Capital Credit are in advanced talks to acquire the roughly 10% shareholding in the embattled lender held by BlueMountain Capital, a US-based hedge fund.
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Why the Archegos Debacle is Raising Renewed Fears of Market Excesses (Hedge Week)
The collapse of Archegos Capital Management, which is set to bring hefty losses to a number of exposed investment banks, has again thrown the spotlight onto outsized leverage held by hedge funds and investment managers, and raises renewed fears over excessive liquidity across markets. Patrick Ghali, managing partner and co-founder at Sussex Partners, believes this week’s Archegos upheaval – coupled with the still-unfolding Greensill debacle as well as potential issues relating to SPACs further down the line – are symptoms of “general excess” in markets. Archegos is understood to have built up a highly-concentrated portfolio of hugely-levered positions across a range of stocks, taken via the equity derivatives market mainly in the form of total return swaps.
Twitter to Nominate Elliott’s Cohn for Re-election as Board Member (Reuters)
April 1 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc said on Thursday it will nominate board member and Elliott Management head of U.S. equity activism Jesse Cohn for re-election, as part of an agreement with the hedge fund. The social media company is consulting with Cohn to identify a new independent director to replace him, it said in a regulatory filing, adding that Cohn will resign once a new director was appointed.
