Hedge Fund News: Bill Ackman, Steven A. Cohen, Paul Singer

Ackman Group Pays $91.5 Million for Condo at NYC’s One57 (Bloomberg)
A group including billionaire investor Bill Ackman paid $91.5 million for a duplex penthouse at Extell Development Co.’s One57 condominium tower, one of New York City’s most expensive home purchases ever. The purchase of unit 75 in the luxury skyscraper overlooking Central Park closed on March 27, according to property records filed Thursday. The buyer was listed as 57157 Co. LLC, a single-purpose entity that Ackman controls.

Steve Cohen’s Point72 Hires Head For Its Training Program (CNBC)
Steven A. Cohen has hired a hedge fund industry veteran to head a new training program designed to pass the billionaire investor’s famous stock picking skills to a new generation as he rebuilds after an insider trading scandal. Cohen’s $11 billion firm Point72 Asset Management said on Thursday that Jaimi Goodfriend, a college lecturer in Illinois who previously worked for hedge funds Citadel Investment Group and Balyasny Asset Management, will become Point72 Academy’s first director.

Goldman, Singer and Mittal Join $835 Million Espirito Loan Fight (Bloomberg)
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp. and one of India’s richest men joined a legal battle over who should repay an $835 million structured loan made to Banco Espirito Santo SA weeks before its collapse last year. The lawsuits relate to a special purpose vehicle, Oak Finance Luxembourg SA, set up by Goldman Sachs to raise funds for Banco Espirito Santo so the Portuguese bank could finance an oil refinery in Venezuela. The case is one of the first over the division of the lender’s assets between a good and bad bank.

Former Enron Trader Arnold May Launch National PR Push to Reform Pensions (Reuters)
Former Enron trader and hedge fund billionaire John Arnold may be about to launch a national publicity campaign to convince U.S. voters of the need to reform public pensions, according to a document seen by Reuters. Arnold, who has given tens of millions of dollars to politicians and groups backing reforms of public pension plans in over a dozen states since 2008, is viewed by some labor unions as an enemy out to destroy their members’ promised retirement benefits, something Arnold fiercely denies. He says he wants to find long term structural solutions, fair to all parties, to bring fiscal sanity to public pensions.