Obama to meet, raise money with connected advocate for Israel (BaltimoreSun)
President Barack Obama, who is attempting to help Democrats maintain their grip on the Senate, will attend a fundraiser Friday at the home of a wealthy Baltimore hedge fund manager who has become one of the nation’s foremost advocates for Israel. Howard E. Friedman, a former president of the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and a leading patron of Jewish political causes, will host Obama for a dinner that will cost guests up to $32,400 — the maximum an individual may give to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in the calendar year.
Investors boost hedge fund holdings in August (Reuters)
Hedge fund investors added more cash than they redeemed from the asset class in September, following performance gains during August, new data showed on Thursday. The SS&C GlobeOp Capital Movement Index, which calculates monthly hedge fund subscriptions minus redemptions, rose 0.6 percent in September to 149.62 points. “Subscriptions were nearly double that of redemptions for September, although capital activity was generally lower overall,” said Bill Stone, chairman and CEO of SS&C Technologies.
Most Hedge-Fund Managers Are Overpaid, Big Investor Says (Bloomberg)
Nine out of 10 hedge-fund managers are overpaid as management fees don’t reflect declining interest rates and fund returns, according to Unigestion Holding SA, which invests $2 billion in hedge funds. The fees, which still make up as much as 2 percent of a fund’s assets, represent a disproportionately high share of the total remuneration unrelated to performance, said Nicolas Rousselet, head of hedge funds at Unigestion. To align managers’ pay more with performance, the fund industry should either abandon the management fee or combine it with a hurdle rate that one must achieve before collecting incentive fees, he said.
Upcoming P&I special report: Hedge fund assets rise 15.4% (PIOnline)
Hedge fund assets increased 15.4% to $1.5 trillion in the 12 months ended June 30, the results of Pensions & Investments’ annual survey showed. That compares with a 15.2% rate of growth in the aggregate assets in the 2013 survey. Assets of the 25 largest hedge fund managers totaled $715 billion as of June 30, up 8.6% from a year earlier. The 2014 growth rate was lower than the 9.9% for the year ended June 30, 2013, but well above the 3.6% pace for the same date in 2012, P&I archival data showed.
A Hedge Fund Manager Delivered An Epic Takedown Of Olive Garden’s Endless Breadsticks Strategy (BusinessInsider)
Activist hedge fund Starboard Value wants Olive Garden to axe its unlimited salad and breadsticks. On Friday morning, Starboard published a 294-slide presentation outlining its transformation plan for Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI), the parent company that owns Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse, among other restaurant brands. Starboard currently owns about 8.8% of Darden. As you’d expect from a presentation this long, Starboard outlines more than a few ways for Darden to maximize profit and turn around its business, and Olive Garden’s unlimited salad and breadsticks is just one of the firm’s targets.
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