As if hedge fund titan Steve Cohen didn’t have enough legal woes. The billionaire founder of SAC Capital — who is busy dealing with a federal insider-trading investigation and a bitter court battle with his ex-wife — has been hit with an appeal in a $6 billion racketeering case brought by insurer Fairfax Financial Holdings. On Friday, Fairfax asked New Jersey’s state appeals court to revive the case, which alleges a conspiracy by SAC and other hedge funds to drive down the insurer’s stock price a decade ago. Toronto-based Fairfax claims that SAC and other hedge funds traded on illegal inside information, including advance notice of a Wall Street research report that was expected to drive down Fairfax ’s stock.
Tiger Global raises Eventbrite stake through secondary deal (Reuters)
Tiger Global Management, a large private-equity and hedge-fund firm, has increased its investment in online ticketing start-up Eventbrite through a secondary transaction. Tiger Global’s private-equity and venture capital business, co-headed by Lee Fixel and Scott Shleifer, invested more than $30 million in the secondary deal, which closed in late May, according to a person familiar with the situation. The person did not want to be identified because the transaction was private. Tiger Global made the secondary investment in Eventbrite just over a month after the firm led a full $60 million financing round for the start-up, headed by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Kevin Hartz.
Soros fund to rival Qatar for Myanmar telco licence (ArabianBusiness)
A consortium led by billionaire investor George Soros is to rival Qatar’s Ooredoo in bidding for a mobile network licence in Myanmar. The CEO of Ooredoo, formerly known as Qatar Telecom, has previously described the South-East Asian nation’s telecommunications sector as “one of the last untapped markets”. Mobile penetration in Myanmar, which transitioned to a civilian government after decades of military rule two years ago, stands at about 5 percent. The Soros consortium, which includes Digicel Group and local property firm YSH Finance, said it would invest $9bn in the country’s mobile phone network if it is granted a licence.
Icahn to dot i’s on Dell plan (NYPost)
Carl Icahn and partner Southeastern Asset Management are laying out the nuts and bolts of a proposal for Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) to pay shareholders a one-time dividend at a cost of $21 billion, The Post has learned. The activist investors plan to file a proxy statement with the details of their $12-a-share leveraged recapitalization proposal as early as next week, according to sources. The partners hope to persuade Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) stockholders that they have a fully funded alternative to the $13.65-a-share buyout offer from founder Michael Dell and private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners.
Long-term bull market in commodities is not yet over: Jim Rogers (Business-Standard)
Global equity markets have been rattled by the comments of the US Federal Reserve that it might wind down the $85-billion-a-month bond-buying programme. On the other hand, investors in the commodity space, especially in gold and crude oil, have seen the value erode with the prices of these two commodities on a downward spiral. Jim Rogers, chairman of Rogers Holdings and author of Street Smarts: Adventures on the Road and in the Markets tells Puneet Wadhwa in an interview most central banks have injected too much liquidity, which is not sustainable. All this will end badly for investors, he says.
