Colleague of SAC Leader Was Not Alerted to Trades (New York Times)
The billionaire investor Steven A. Cohen kept one of his closest associates at SAC Capital Advisors in the dark about the hedge fund’s rapid selling of a substantial stock position in two drug companies, just days before the companies reported disappointing results of a clinical trial for an Alzheimer’s drug. Chandler Bocklage, who for nearly a decade sat next to Mr. Cohen and helped the SAC founder make trades in his own multibillion-dollar account at the firm, said he learned about the big trade only after it had happened.
Hedge Fund Care to Honor Marathon Asset Management’s Bruce Richards (HedgeCo.net)
In recognition of his extraordinary dedication to philanthropy, Marathon Asset Management’s Bruce Richards will be presented with the Award for Caring during the 16th Annual New York Open Your Heart to the Children Benefit on Thursday March 6, 2014 from 6pm-10pm at Cipriani 42nd Street in the heart of Manhattan. The gala, the largest gathering that Hedge Funds Care/Help For Children (“HFC”) holds worldwide, will bring together 1,000 hedge fund executives to honor the work of industry luminary and active philanthropy participant, Bruce Richards, and to raise funds to help prevent and treat child abuse in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Carlson Capital, L.P. Boosts Stake in Exterran Holdings, Inc. (EXH) (Insider Monkey)
Carlson Capital, L.P, managed by Clint Carlson, has increased its stake in Exterran Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:EXH). The latest filing with the SEC shows that the hedge fund has increased its holding to 4,082,319 shares of the common stock from the 2,950,000 shares as disclosed in the last 13F filing. The stake represents 6.2% of the stake of the company’s common stock and is valued at $140.15 million, at the current share price of Exterran. The holding is passive by nature. Exterran Holdings, Inc provides natural gas compression services. The Company is a provider of operations, maintenance, service and equipment for oil and natural gas production, processing and transportation applications.
Peer-to-peer lender Zopa raises £15m to spread the word (Evening Standard)
Peer-to-peer lender Zopa has raised £15 million for a hedge fund to fuel expansion and raise awareness of the alternative lending industry. London-based Zopa, Europe’s largest peer-to-peer lender, has raised the sum from Arrowgrass Capital Partners, a hedge fund manager spun out of Deutsche Bank AG (USA) (NYSE:DB) by traders in 2008. Zopa lets savers lend out their money to people looking for a low cost loan. To date £455 million has been lent through the platform, with £180 million of that last year alone.
German Fin Min worried about hedge-fund risks in EU bank plans (Reuters)
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Thursday he was worried that European Commission proposals on isolating hedge fund risks do not go far enough. “I am a bit worried that the Commission’s proposals on the isolation of high-risk trades at hedge funds don’t go as far as our German rules. This is a point we must look at,” Schaeuble told the Bundestag lower house of parliament.
Bill Ackman Offers a Short-Selling Lesson (Bloomberg)
One of the timeless lessons of hedge-fund manager Bill Ackman‘s recent adventures with Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF), the nutritional-supplements distributor, is that if your reason for shorting a stock is the hope of some sort of future government crackdown, you may not have much of a catalyst. If a company is a pyramid scheme or another kind of scam, it can stay that way for a long time without the government doing anything about it, even if lots of people are begging regulators to act. As long as the scam is profitable, the company will keep making money, which is bad for anyone shorting it.
