Icahn Falsely Takes Credit For Family Dollar Sale (BidnessEtc)
Famous activist investor Carl Icahn was assumed to be one of the forces behind the deal between Dollar Tree, Inc. (NASDAQ:DLTR) and Family Dollar Stores, Inc. (NYSE:FDO). However, recent SEC filings show that Icahn didn’t play any significant role in the merger between the two companies; rather, he was an impediment. Furthermore, the retailers were already in talks related to this transaction before Icahn began his lobbying. The founder of Icahn Enterprises LP (NASDAQ:IEP), Carl Icahn is famous for buying active stakes in companies and pushing them for moves such as sales, buybacks, and other structural changes to create instant value for shareholders.
Barclays Losing 60 Quants To Hedge Fund (Finalternatives)
A Barclays PLC (ADR) (NYSE:BCS) trading team that’s leaving this year to start a quantitative investment firm will take 60 bank employees with them, adding to Wall Street’s migration to the $2.8 trillion hedge-fund industry. Olivier Durantel, Gregoire Schneider, Antoine Fillet and Maxime Fortin of the British bank’s nQuants unit will form the venture, according to a person with knowledge of the plans, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The firm, which hasn’t yet been named, will use algorithms to trade mainly equities and other liquid securities globally.
Falcone fights to keep control of LightSquared as bankruptcy maneuvering drags on (FierceWireless)
The fight for control of bankrupt wireless firm LightSquared continues to drag on, with Philip Falcone‘s Harbinger Capital Partners hedge fund submitting a new reorganization plan days after it seemed Falcone would be cut out of the company in a competing restructuring plan. Meanwhile, Bloomberg noted that Mast Capital Management has said it may put forward its own reorganization plan for LightSquared, which would split up LightSquared and separately reorganize debt at the “LightSquared Inc.” and “LightSquared LP” divisions, which have different creditors and own different rights to wireless spectrum.
Hedge fund strategy reinsurer Till Capital signs up to MultiStrat Re (Artemis)
Bermuda domiciled hedge fund style reinsurance and hybrid investment platform Till Capital Ltd., the parent company of reinsurer Resource Re Ltd., has signed two agreements with asset manager reinsurance platform Multi-Strat Re Ltd. Under the two agreements which Resource Re and Multi-Strat Re have entered into, Multi-Strat Re will provide certain underwriting and retrocession services to Till Capital. The Multi-Strat Re platform, a Bermuda-based special purpose insurer, is designed to make it easier for asset managers and hedge fund managers to enter the reinsurance sector by lowering barriers to entry and minimising the start-up capital required.
Majority Of Inflows Go To Brand Name Hedge Funds (Finalternatives)
Since the market correction of 2008, a vast majority of hedge fund net asset flows have gone to a small minority of hedge funds with the strongest brands, marking a change from the pre-2008 environment. A brand is an investor’s perception of the overall quality of a hedge fund based on multiple evaluation factors that evolve over time. A high-quality brand takes a long time to develop, but once achieved, it significantly enhances a firm’s ability to raise capital and retain assets during a drawdown in performance.
McKinsey Report: Alternative Investments growing fast (CNBC)
Islanders owner Charles Wang boosted Islanders’ selling price in bad faith, lawsuit says (NewsDay)
A Pennsylvania investment group led by hedge fund manager Andrew Barroway filed a lawsuit against New York Islanders owner Charles Wang Monday, claiming he backed out of an agreement to sell the team. NY ICE, of Radnor, Pennsylvania, said Wang scuttled the March deal to sell the franchise to the group for $420 million after he learned of the $2 billion offer for the Los Angeles Clippers by former Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer, according to the lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan.
Where To Invest Your Business Assets – Hedge Funds vs Family Offices (Business2Community)
More and more hedge funds are deciding to “privatize” and become family offices in the face of regulatory legislation that subjects them to more scrutiny from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Big names in the hedge fund business like George Soros and Stanley Druckenmiller have opted to avoid any potential governmental intrusion by switching their hedge funds to family offices. But, is that move genuinely necessary? What do hedge funds stand to gain by becoming family offices and what do they stand to lose by remaining hedge funds open to outside investors?..
Cantor Fitzgerald Hires Tomljenovic in Canadian Expansion (BusinessWeek)
Cantor Fitzgerald LP hired David Tomljenovic, a former Sprott Asset Management hedge-fund manager, to help companies raise capital amid an expansion in Canada. Tomljenovic, 45, will be based in Toronto as a manging director and report to Laurence Rose, head of Cantor’s Canadian business, New York-based Cantor said in a statement today. Tomljenovic worked at Beacon Securities Ltd. after leaving Sprott. “We are looking forward to leveraging David’s insight and expertise, along with his well-established network of relationships,” Rose said in the statement…
S&P warns hedge-fund reinsurer model consumes capital (RoyalGazette)
Standard and Poor’s (S&P) said yesterday that the hedge fund reinsurers philosophy of running a higher risk portfolio in order to underwrite at lower rates could be flawed. The idea that hedge-fund reinsurers will earn higher investment returns than a typical reinsurer running a low-risk asset portfolio, with the result that they can compete by underwriting at lower rates, is flawed because hedge fund reinsurers need to allocate more capital as a buffer against the greater investment risk, thus offsetting the benefit of the extra return, the rating agency argued. S&P has not rated the recent hedge fund-backed start ups as yet, such as Bermuda-based Third Point Re, Hamilton Re or Watford Re, which have all received ratings from rival AM Best.
Nancy Pelosi, Tom Steyer’s Hedge Fund, and a Billion Taxpayer Dollars (FreeBeacon)
A top House Democrat to whom billionaire liberal Tom Steyer has donated campaign funds steered more than a billion dollars to an infrastructure project that benefitted his hedge fund. That hedge fund, Farallon Capital Management, bought up large plots of real estate in San Francisco’s burgeoning Mission Bay neighborhood in 2004. The area is now booming and Farallon has sold most of its property there. Steyer, who founded and led Farallon until late 2012, has used his fortune to elect Democratic senators and governors. He has pledged to spend $50 million of his own money in 2014 and to raise another $50 million.
Recommended Reading:
Sothebys (BID) Loses $24.3 Million in Its Proxy Battle with Dan Loeb
UBS Upgrades PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP) to Buy With $100 Target
Newfield Exploration Co. (NFX): Viking Global takes a 5.7% stake
