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.
Curtis Macnguyen Is a Former Hedge Fund Star. And That Is Not Acceptable (Bloomberg)
For fun, Curtis Macnguyen likes to run along the seafloor in 15 feet of water, carrying a boulder. He does it offshore from his house on the blue-watered Kona Coast of Hawaii’s Big Island, Bloomberg Markets reports in its May 2015 issue, not far from similar spreads owned by Michael Dell and buyout kingpin George Roberts. Macnguyen is every bit as intense at Ivory Investment Management, the $3.5 billion hedge fund firm he founded in November 1998. Through the end of 2014, his Ivory Flagship Fund returned 346 percent, or 9.7 percent a year. That’s twice the 139 percent delivered by the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index.
Arrowgrass’s Head of European Credit Said to Leave Hedge Fund (Bloomberg)
Arrowgrass Capital Partners LLP’s credit team just got smaller, according to three people familiar with the matter. Mark Conway, head of European credit, trader Robert Weir and analyst Pareejat Singhal have left the $4.8 billion hedge fund, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Conway joined the hedge fund in 2012, while Weir and Singhal became employees last year, according to their registrations with the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority.
World Peace Through Hedge Funds? Ask The UN (CNBC)
One of the largest pension funds in the world is close to using hedge funds, a move many of its peers have already made. The U.N. is considering investing directly in external money managers or using a broader fund of hedge fund structure-or both-according to a person familiar with the situation. Either way, the pension staff views hedge funds as an important portfolio diversification tool that would add to current alternative investments in private equity funds and a non-hedge fund vehicle managed by Ray Dalio‘s Bridgewater Associates.
Fixed-Income Hedge Funds Wrestle With QE (The Wall Street Journal)
One month into the European Central Bank’s massive bond-buying program, fixed income hedge fund managers are trying to get their heads round how to trade it. At first glance, the answer is simple: buy the bonds that the ECB is buying as part of its more-than-€1 trillion ($1.06 trillion) package. In reality, however, the trade may be more complicated. For starters, the stimulus program, which got underway on March 9, had been widely expected prior to its announcement in January, meaning some gains were quickly arbitraged away.
Bonds, Currencies Propel Gains in Brazil Fund Verde in March (CNBC)
Verde Asset Management, Brazil’s largest hedge fund with over 30 billion reais ($9.8 billion) under management, posted the highest return in six months in March as bets on a stronger U.S. dollar and rising borrowing costs in the country paid off. In a letter to investors on Thursday, Verde money managers led by Luis Stuhlberger said that the fund’s currency positions changed with volatility, selling dollars before the Brazilian real gained while adding more of the U.S. currency as the real strengthened.
