Hedge Fund News: Bruce Kovner, Seth Klarman & Brevan Howard

Caxton Hedge Fund Hires Former BNP Paribas Trader Fourcade (BusinessWeek)
Caxton Associates LP, the hedge fund firm co-founded by billionaire Bruce Kovner, hired Philippe Fourcade, a former proprietary trader at BNP Paribas SA (EPA:BNP) Fourcade started at the firm’s London office on Sept. 22, the Financial Conduct Authority register shows. He declined to comment when reached by telephone today, while a spokeswoman for firm in London declined to comment. …Mitesh Parikh, Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS)’s European head of spot foreign-exchange trading, is joining hedge-fund firm Balyasny Asset Management LP after 12 years at the bank, a person with knowledge of the plans said this week.

HedgeCoVest Unveiled At Finovate New York (HedgeCo)
HedgeCo Networks has unveiled HedgeCoVest, their new, real time hedge fund replication platform, at the national Finovate conference on September 23-24, 2014 in New York. HedgeCoVest featured 20 investable hedge fund portfolios at the conference. HedgeCo has already signed up 33 hedge fund managers operating 38 unique strategies to take part in the strategy. Finovate is a conference for innovative startups in the fields of banking and financial technology.

With China Set to Open Stock Trading, Investors Lay Groundwork (NYTimes)
O’Connor, the $5.6 billion hedge fund owned by UBS, has been expanding its presence in Asia. It has hired traders from UBS’s proprietary trading desk to work in its Hong Kong and Singapore offices. In August, it hired John Yu, a former analyst at SAC Capital Advisors It is not alone. Bankers, brokerage firms and hedge funds have all been quietly expanding their Asian operations to take advantage of one event: the biggest opening into China in years.

Baupost Tilts Portfolio Toward Stocks (InstitutionalInvestorsAlpha)
Seth Klarman‘s Baupost Group is often mistaken for a classic value investor. However, the Boston-based firm could be more accurately described as an eclectic investor that seeks undervalued, ignored assets – or very complex ones – mostly in distressed debt, commercial real estate, mortgages and equities. However, equities have typically accounted for a small portion of Baupost’s assets. In recent years the firm’s U.S. equity portfolio managed anywhere…

Steyer’s climate PAC turns to Oregon, Washington state Senate races (WashingtonExaminer)
Billionaire ex-hedge fund manager Tom Steyer’s Super PAC is turning to state Senate races in Oregon and Washington to boost Democratic candidates, a move that would help legislatures there pass climate change bills. Steyer’s NextGen Climate Action PAC has focused on Senate and gubernatorial races. But much like conservative groups funded by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, the move toward state races underscores the belief that state legislatures can act while Congress remains stuck on energy and climate issues.

Why CalPERS left hedge funds (CNBC)