Hedge fund pushes Wausau Paper to leave Wisconsin, or sell (Appleton Post Crescent)
Manhattan hedge fund that takes credit for forcing Wausau Paper Corp. (NYSE:WPP) to shut down one Wisconsin mill and sell two others now wants the company to move its headquarters out of Mosinee and possibly sell its entire operation outright. Starboard Value LP, which is Wausau Paper’s largest stockholder with 15.2 percent of shares, renewed a pattern Friday of an aggressive, public campaign to alter the papermaker that started along the banks of the Wisconsin River north of Wausau in 1899. In a scathing 10-page letter to the company’s board of directors, Starboard CEO Jeffrey Smith called Wausau Paper “deeply undervalued” and accused its executives of wasting millions of dollars in recent years trying to prop up parts of the business that were destined to fail.
Hedge fund bears take grisly view on China (Asian Investor)
Hedge fund bears are circling the China market, with sceptical managers predicting that 2014 could be the year that will see a reckoning in the world’s second-biggest economy. A mainland stock rally at the end of 2013 has failed to sustain momentum early into the new year, dampening optimism that one of last year’s worst-performing equity markets could be on a path to recovery. Industry veteran George Soros is the latest to join the choir of China bears, which also include Carson Block of Muddy Waters Research, Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital and Jim Chanos of Kynikos Associates.
Eton Park hedge fund up 22.3 percent in 2013, exits some winners (Reuters)
Eric Mindich‘s Eton Park hedge fund posted 22.3 percent returns in 2013 thanks to its holdings in collateralized debt obligations, media company Twenty-First Century Fox Inc (NASDAQ:FOX), and residential mortgage-backed securities, it told investors, adding the fund has already exited some of last year’s winning positions. But there is plenty that Mindich likes for the start of 2014 as well, saying the fund owns some mid-to-large cap stocks where some catalyst should help push prices up. This includes Sothebys (NYSE:BID), where activist hedge fund managers are pressing for an overhaul of operations, and Marathon Petroleum Corp (NYSE:MPC) as well as aerospace supplier Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SPR). The fund owns all three stocks.
Another activist hedgie hovers over Morrisons (CITY A.M.)
Billionaire hedge fund boss Tom Sandell has revealed a small stake in beleaguered supermarket Morrisons, the latest activist investor to pursue an investment in the struggling chain. Sandell, who runs Sandell Asset Management, owns a tiny proportion of the firm’s shares, thought to be well below the three per cent threshold required for public disclosure. People close to the situation yesterday said that Sandell was focused primarily on forcing through changes at another of his investments FirstGroup, instead of pursuing change at Morrison’s.
The Rise Of The Hedge Fund Startup Investor (Again) (TechCrunch)
The first question I thought of when I read that San Francisco hedge fund Coatue Management was the backer behind Snapchat’s $50 million round of funding was which VC firm lost the deal. My second question was why take money from a hedge fund? Coatue isn’t the first “cross-over” fund (an investment fund that crosses over to the private from the public markets) to emerge in technology investing. Integral Capital Partners, co-founded by Roger McNamee and John Powell, was one of the first to start doing this in the nineties. Hedge fund Tiger Global has been doing it more recently, with a venture arm that has backed Warby Parker, Nextdoor, Redfin, Eventbrite and Pure Storage, among many others.
Hedge Fund Lansdowne Buys Twitter Shares, Sells UBS and Ryanair (San Francisco Chronicle)
Lansdowne Partners LLP, the biggest European hedge-fund firm that focuses on stock picking, bought Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) shares in the fourth quarter while selling its holdings in UBS AG (US listing) (NYSE:UBS) and Ryanair Holdings plc (ADR) (NASDAQ:RYAAY). The firm sees an “immense” opportunity for the microblogging service “and discussions with potential advertisers give us decent comfort that more of it will materialize than the market expects,” according to a letter to investors obtained by Bloomberg News. A spokesman for the London-based firm, which manages $17.5 billion, declined to comment.
Short sellers slammed by hedge fund collapse (CNBC.com)
Can Hedge Fund Fortress Investment (FIG) Build The First Profitable Passenger Train System In America? (International Business Times)
A railway set to launch next year will be the first privately run inter-city service in the United States since 1971. Florida politicians have been trying since the 1960s to build a public railway, but when those efforts finally died in 2011 New York private equity firm Fortress Investment Group LLC stepped in. “These guys have been sitting on the sidelines waiting for the government project to be nixed,” Wall Street Journal columnist Holman Jenkins said in this video on Thursday. “No one has ever come up with a project that will pay for itself,” he added.
Why did Blue Ridge Capital buy a position in PBF Energy? (Part 2) (Market Realist)
According to 13Gs Blue Ridge Capital filed last month, the hedge fund disclosed new positions in Zulily Inc (NASDAQ:ZU) and PBF Energy Inc (NYSE:PBF). Blue Ridge revealed a 7.82% stake in one of the largest independent U.S.-based refiners, PBF Energy, in December 2013. The company reported a net loss of $19.8 million in its recent 3Q 2013 results, and cited a negative impact of approximately $40 million in renewable identification numbers (RINs) expenses in the quarter.
Hedge funds’ top five currency bets for 2014 (Sydney Morning Herald)
Hedge funds think 2014 could be the year their currency bets finally pay off, after getting burned last year on trades ranging from the Australian dollar to the greenback. The influence of central banks and competition among nations to weaken their currencies to boost economic growth made 2013 a year to forget for many funds. The average macro currency fund was up just 0.42 per cent in the 11 months to November, according to Hedge Fund Research.
Hedge fund pair bet on British bank Aldermore (Financial Times)
Two leading hedge funds have invested in Aldermore, a small bank that launched in the UK in 2009, in the latest sign of growing investor appetite for British lenders. Toscafund and Lansdowne Partners have injected £40m of fresh capital into the bank, helping to fuel its growth in retail and small business lending ahead of a potential stock market listing later this year. Aldermore said the deal would “establish a wider dialogue with UK institutional investors as the bank continues to review its capital markets strategy which may, among other strategies, include an initial public offering.”
U.S. Investors Back Hedge Fund for Tilt at Southern Europe (Wall Street Journal)
Amber Capital, a roughly $1.5 billion hedge fund manager, has raised $350 million for a new fund targeting southern Europe. The manager, which has offices in London, New York and Milan, raised the money predominantly from U.S. institutional investors. The long-only Amber Southern European Equities Fund launched on December 1 and is targeting high-quality companies in a region that was at the heart of the eurozone crisis.
