From black to green: U.S. billionaire’s ‘Road to Damascus’ (Reuters)
Billionaire Tom Steyer has rapidly become one of America’s most visible environmental advocates, vowing to punish lawmakers who don’t oppose climate change and pledging to spend up to $100 million to put the issue center stage in the November 4 elections. His in-your-face tactics have made him fierce enemies on the right who accuse him of hypocrisy and claim that he made much of his fortune through investments in fossil fuel energy at Farallon Capital Management, the San Francisco-based hedge fund he founded in 1986.
BlueCrest Ratings Said Cut by Albourne on Internal Fund (Businessweek)
Michael Platt’s BlueCrest Capital Management LLP had the ratings on its hedge funds reduced for a second time by a top investment adviser, who said the $30.6 billion firm still hasn’t provided sufficient information about a proprietary fund run for the benefit of its partners. Albourne Partners Ltd., which advises pension plans and endowments, told clients last month it hadn’t received an adequate response after giving BlueCrest 10 weeks to answer queries about the fund, said a person with knowledge of the matter who asked to remain anonymous because the report is confidential. That pool, open only to senior BlueCrest partners, in February drew scrutiny from Albourne, which said it may pose conflicts of interest for the firm.
Paulson-Backed Detour Plots Supersizing Gold Mine (Bloomberg)
Everything about Detour Gold Corp. (DGC) is big, from its shovels that scoop up 100 tons of rock at a time to its index-leading share price. Now it’s exploring ways to make Canada’s largest gold mine even bigger. The company, whose biggest shareholder is billionaire John Paulson’s hedge-fund firm, plans to reach full production at its Detour Lake mine in northern Ontario at the end of the year while it considers options to boost output.
Hedge Fund Inflows Hit $50B YTD In April (FINalternatives)
Net asset flows into hedge funds reached US$50 billion year-to-date in April, as the investment vehicles posted their second consecutive month of negative returns. The Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index was down 0.15% in April. Year-to-date, hedge funds are up 0.78%, slightly ahead of the MSCI World Index which has returned 0.75% in the first four months of the year. North American managers attracted US$24.8 billion of that $50 billion in allocations, while European managers pulled in US$25.1 billion.
THE GREAT HEDGE-FUND MYSTERY: WHY DO THEY MAKE SO MUCH? (New Yorker)
This is the time of year when publications that cover the hedge-fund industry do their annual rankings, and people get irate about the vast sums of money that the top hedgies make—in some cases, billions of dollars. At the top of this year’s list, according to a survey from Institutional Investor Alpha, are four familiar names: David Tepper, of Appaloosa Management, who made $3.5 billion; Stephen Cohen, of SAC Capital ($2.4 billion); John Paulson, of Paulson & Co. ($2.3 billion); and James Simons, of Renaissance Technologies ($2.2 billion).
Lehman Trade a Gift That Keeps Giving for Paulson to King Street (Bloomberg)
Almost six years after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for the largest bankruptcy in history, triggering a global market meltdown, hedge funds are still feeding on its remains. A small group of firms that waded into the morass in the aftermath of the financial crisis, including Paulson & Co., King Street Capital Management LP, Varde Partners Inc., Halcyon Asset Management LLC and Solus Alternative Asset Management LP have made billions of dollars trading in the debt. As claims are being paid out, often at a multiple of initial estimates, investors that have spent years analyzing the bankruptcy are ploughing money back into newly available loans, such as those between the investment bank’s Hong Kong and U.S. units, fueling a rally unmatched by stocks and high-risk bonds.
Hedge fund 100 list (CNBC.com)
Ackman asks for Allergan’s stockholder list (Reuters)
William Ackman plans to communicate with other Allergan shareholders after the Botox maker on Monday rebuffed a bid to be bought by the billionaire investor and Valeant Pharmaceuticals Intl Inc (NYSE:VRX). In a regulatory filing on Monday, Ackman’s hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management said that it has requested a complete list of holders of record in Allergan, Inc. (NYSE:AGN) to be able to “communicate with fellow stockholders of the company.”
Anaplan Gets $100 Million in Round Led by DFJ To Expand (Bloomberg)
Anaplan Inc., a provider of Web-based business planning tools, raised $100 million in a round of financing led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson to expand its business. Brookside Capital, Sands Capital Management and Workday Inc (NYSE:WDAY), as well as existing investors including Granite Ventures and salesforce.com, inc. (NYSE:CRM), participated in the round, the company said in a statement today. Anaplan, which delivers cloud-based software for companies to manage and plan their sales, operations and finance, is the latest technology startup to raise more than $100 million in a financing round.
Prosecutors Seek Sentence of More Than Five Years for SAC Employee (Wall Street Journal)
Federal prosecutors asked a judge for a stiff sentence of more than five years in prison for Michael Steinberg, a former senior employee of SAC Capital Advisors LP convicted of insider trading last year. In court documents filed late Friday, prosecutors asked U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan to sentence Mr. Steinberg to a prison term of 5¼ to 6½ years to send a strong message to the market—more than double the time Mr. Steinberg’s lawyers recently requested.
Vinci Zafferano Turns First Profit (FINalternatives)
For the first time since its founding more than two years ago, Vinci Zafferano Capital has turned a profit. The London-based firm, headed by former Tudor Investment Corp. executives John Macfarlane and Nigel Whittaker, earned £121,243 last year, it said in a regulatory filing. The firm, which launched its first fund late in 2012, took in £1.2 million in management fees in 2013.
Oxford University wins best allocator to hedge funds (Financial News)
Of the UK’s two oldest universities, it was Cambridge that set the trend towards a more sophisticated approach to managing its endowment – it hired Nick Cavalla from Man Group as its first chief investment officer in 2007, and drafted David Swensen on to its advisory board, after his success in transforming Yale University’s endowment – and with it the way the sector manages money. However, it is Oxford that has fully embraced the US model. While Cambridge retains the bulk of its funds in public equities, with only modest allocations to private equity and absolute-return hedge funds, Oxford University Endowment Management has placed alternative investments at the centre of its strategy.
