Steve Cohen’s Hedge Fund Point72 Seeks Another $1 Billion (Bloomberg)
His Point72 Asset Management, which attracted $5 billion in outside money last year in a comeback for the hedge fund investor, is seeking to raise an additional $1 billion by September, according to people familiar with the matter. The firm was one of 2018’s biggest hedge fund launches when Cohen returned to the industry after a two-year ban from managing other people’s money. His prior firm, SAC Capital Advisors, pleaded guilty to securities fraud and paid a $1.8 billion fine. Cohen wasn’t charged with wrongdoing.
35% of Swiss Asset Management Institutions Manage Hedge Funds (Opalesque.com)
According to the Swiss Funds & Asset Management Association (SFMA)’s just published report called Alternative Investments in Switzerland, Swiss asset management institutions offer products and expertise in a variety of alternative asset classes like real estate (38% of the asset management institutions offer real estate products), hedge funds (35%), private equity (32%), commodities (28%), infrastructure (25%), and insurance linked securities (15%). Asset management companies based in Switzerland manage roughly CHF 2,200bn ($2,158bn) for domestic and international investors, says the report.
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Billionaire Ray Dalio Bought his First Stock at Age 12 – Here’s His Lesson for Young Investors (CNBC Make It)
Long before he became a billionaire, Ray Dalio was a successful investor as a pre-teen. Dalio now heads Bridgewater Associates, the world’s largest hedge fund with roughly $160 billion in assets. But when he was only 12 years old in the early 1960s, Dalio just wanted somewhere to invest the money he’d earned caddying on a golf course and everyone he knew was talking up the stock market.
Einhorn’s Greenlight Fund Surges 19% This Year With April Gain (Bloomberg)
Greenlight Capital, the hedge fund firm led by David Einhorn, returned 6.6 percent in April, rebounding from its loss in March. Greenlight’s main fund, which suffered its worst year on record in 2018 with a 34 percent drop, is now up almost 19 percent in 2019, according to an investor letter seen by Bloomberg. The fund’s long positions in AerCap Holdings NV, Brighthouse Financial Inc., General Motors Co., Green Brick Partners Inc. and Deutsche Pfandbriefbank AG supported first-quarter gains, according to an earlier letter to shareholders obtained by Bloomberg.
Allergan CEO Saunders Wins Vote to Keep Chairman Role (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Allergan Plc shareholders have voted down a nonbinding proposal that sought an immediate split of the roles of chairman and chief executive, with 61.3 percent of shareholders backing Chairman and CEO Brent Saunders. Billionaire investor David Tepper’s hedge fund Appaloosa LP made the proposal, arguing that drugmaker Allergan currently has a questionable business strategy and excessive pay for executives. Proxy advisory firms backed keeping the current structure. However, Appaloosa’s success in attracting the votes of a substantial minority highlights the displeasure of many investors.
Pedigreed Quant Pros Launch Equity Strategy (Reuters)
Quantitative-investment startup Pluribus Labs has begun managing money. For now, the San Francisco firm is running insider capital via a quant-equity portfolio that employs models developed by research chief Wachi Bandara. But Pluribus, led by former BlackRock executive Kenneth Kroner, plans to begin marketing a long-only vehicle later this year, followed by a so-called 130/30 offering and possibly a long/short equity vehicle – depending on investor demand. Bandara co-founded Pluribus in 2014 to develop and market big-data and machine-learning programs for asset managers. The firm was recast as an alternative-investment manager last year following its acquisition by San Francisco private equity shop Golden Gate Capital in 2017.
Climate Change has U.S. Fund Managers Adjusting Agriculture Investments (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) – After historic floods devastated Midwestern agricultural states this spring, some fund managers are evaluating how climate change will affect the long-term value of companies that make or sell products ranging from tractors to fertilizer. The issue is not simply the unpredictability of weather. Instead, fund managers say, they are struggling to model how extreme weather events from droughts to more powerful storms will affect commodity prices and, in turn, spending by farmers on equipment or seeds.
Hedge Fund Body Primes Industry for ESG Demand (Funds-Europe.com)
Global hedge fund managers are responding to investors’ increasing interest in responsible investment, according to a trade body for the sector. “Responsible investment is one of the most significant and fast-growing trends in the hedge fund industry today,” claimed the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) as it published a paper on the topic this week. The paper is geared towards helping hedge fund managers approach responsible investment and encouraging dialogue between investors and hedge fund managers.
