Diamondback Founder Raises Over $150M For New Fund (FINalternatives)
As Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital ends its operations as a hedge fund, his brother-in-law has raised north of $150 million for a fund of his own. Richard Schimel, co-founder of the now defunct Diamondback Capital, launched on and offshore versions of his Sterling Ridge Fund last November, according to regulatory filings, less than a year after he closed Diamondback in the wake of the U.S. government’s insider-trading investigation. While the regulatory filings showed the firm had raised $30 million for the offshore fund and $45 million for the onshore vehicle, a source with knowledge of the firm told FINalternatives the actual total raised was “north of $150 million.”
Ex-hedge-fund boss Michael Nock tries hand at art leasing business (South China Morning Post)
Michael Nock, 57, is multitasking: he invests, he collects art and he paints, and he combines his passions for business and art in his art rental business. Now he is hoping the city’s companies will hang more art on their office walls. CEO of Art Lease, a company that leases artwork to offices, Nock has made his office in Lan Kwai Fong a show house for the kind of space he wants his clients to have. Walking into the office, one finds a Bloomberg terminal besieged by paintings.
Hedge fund side pocket secondary market volumes top $1.6bn in 2013 (Opalesque)
A new report out from Setter Capital shows that secondary market volumes for hedge fund side pockets was up again in 2013. Data shows that LP’s are becoming more opportunistic fueling greater market activity. Setter Capital estimates the total secondary market volume for 2013 was $36bn, authors note that the figure may be conservative owing to the limits of their own research. A majority of respondents expect the same or greater level of transaction activity to take place in the first quarter of 2014. The average size of these transactions in 2013 was $28m, and that deal size is also expected to continue.
Ocado revival lifts Lansdowne Partners (Telegraph.co.uk)
A major bet that Ocado would finally triumph over Britain’s supermarket stocks helped Lansdowne Partners generate billions of pounds of profits and become one of the best performing hedge funds in the world last year. Lansdowne’s flagship $10bn (£6bn) hedge fund, which is run by Stuart Roden and Pete Davies, rose 33pc last year. Two other funds jumped 56pc and 46pc, contributing to a record year for the London investment house. Lansdowne is one of Ocado’s biggest shareholders with a 6.3pc stake.
Conman Flees Overseas With Investors’ Money, Raising $40 Million For Bogus Hedge Fund (Business Insider Australia)
An Australian conman has fled overseas with more than $40 million of investors’ money which was thought to be have been invested in gold mines and bullion. News Limited reports John Varoujan, whose real name is Varoujan Yaghldjian, set up the Gold Hedge Royalty Corporation after convincing investors he worked for the royal family in Dubai. Once the chairman of the Armenian Chamber of Commerce in Sydney, Varoujan dazzled at least 70 Australian investors with luxury cruisers and business meetings in Paris, London and Geneva.
U.S. ‘rushed to judgment’ against SAC’s Martoma, lawyer tells jury (Hedgeworld)
Prosecutors “rushed to judgment” in charging former SAC Capital Advisors portfolio manager Mathew Martoma with insider trading, his lawyer told jurors on Friday [Jan. 10]. Richard Strassberg, Martoma’s attorney, argued there were “many, many independent reasons” for the hedge fund to have made the trades at the heart of the case. “The story just doesn’t add up because in the haste to make a case, the prosecution rushed to judgment,” Strassberg said. Arlo Devlin-Brown, an assistant U.S. attorney, acknowledged that Martoma did research before trading in the stocks and making investment recommendations to Steven A. Cohen, the founder of SAC Capital.
