Platinum Partners Fraud Case Has Investigators Casting Wide Net (The Wall Street Journal)
Federal investigators are asking questions about a billionaire New York hedge-fund manager and a Bermuda reinsurer as they examine the alleged fraud by hedge fund Platinum Partners. On Monday, six Platinum executives, including chief investment officer Mark Nordlicht, were arrested and charged with faking the firm’s investment performance. The allegations against Platinum, which had more than $1 billion under management, outline what would be one of the largest investment frauds since Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. As part of the Platinum probe, prosecutors are casting a wide net.
ICAHN: If We’re Going To Get Into A Trade War With China, Maybe It Is Better To Do It ‘Sooner’ (Business Insider)
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn – one day after being named a special adviser to President-elect Donald Trump – said it might be better to have a trade war with China “sooner” so the US could “get it over with.” During a lengthy interview with CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” Icahn was repeatedly asked if he was concerned about the market – which has shot up considerably since Trump won the presidency. Icahn admitted he was “concerned about the market in the short term” because there are “so many factors here that you have to worry about.”
WALL STREETER OF THE YEAR: Anthony Scaramucci (Yahoo Finance)
Anthony Scaramucci had his longest, highest-volatility call option come into the money on Nov. 8. That call option, of course, was Donald J. Trump beating Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Scaramucci, 52, is the founder and co-managing partner of SkyBridge Capital, a fund of hedge funds with $11.8 billion in assets under management. He’s also on Trump’s transition team as an executive committee member. “The Mooch,” as he’s affectionately called, is one of the more visible figures on Wall Street. A former CNBC contributor, he now makes frequent appearances on Fox Business Network where he also co-hosts “Wall Street Week,” the iconic financial program he resurrected. He published his third book this year, “Hopping Over The Rabbit Hole.”
Where Carl Icahn the Adviser and Investor Meet (The Wall Street Journal)
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who has corporate holdings across a variety of industries overseen by numerous federal agencies, faces multiple potential conflicts as he advises the incoming Trump administration on regulatory matters. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday named Mr. Icahn a special adviser to the president on overhauling federal regulation, expanding the activist investor’s potential influence in the Trump administration. Mr. Icahn was already informally advising Mr. Trump on such matters as appointments for departments, commissions and agencies that oversee American business. In one sign of the market’s view on Mr. Icahn’s new appointment, his own publicly traded entity, Icahn Enterprises LP, rose 6.9% to $61.89 Thursday, among its biggest gains of the year.
HD Supply: In Trump We Trust? (BloombergGadfly)
Donald Trump may be able to do more to create value at HD Supply Holdings Inc. than Jana Partners can. Jana, the activist hedge fund founded by Barry Rosenstein, disclosed an 8.1 percent stake in the supplier of sewer pipes, construction tools and maintenance-repair products in October and said it may pursue options to create shareholder value. The stock rose about 2 percent that day — but it’s climbed about 28 percent since the U.S. election as investors piled into a company that stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of corporate tax reform, infrastructure investment and an inflation revival under a President Trump.
