Hedge Fund Manager Dan Loeb’s Attack On Sony Entertainment Looks Pretty Silly Right Now (BuzzFeed)
American Hustle and Captain Phillips helped lead Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE)’s movie division to 21 Academy Award nominations today, tying Warner Bros. for the most Oscar nods among Hollywood studios. The nominations follow the seven Golden Globe wins Sony Entertainment — which consists of the film studio, TV production house and music unit — scored on Sunday. Combined, the strong awards season showing for Sony Entertainment is sweet retribution for an unprovoked attack launched against it last summer from hedge fund titan Dan Loeb. Loeb, who manages Third Point Partners and had been coming off a high water mark after successfully installing Marissa Mayer as CEO of Yahoo and cashing out his stake in the company for a net return of $600 million, called for a breakup of the Japanese conglomerate and a spin out of around 20% of the entertainment unit, which he particularly derided for supposed underperformance.
Berkowitz’s no-hedge hedge fund up 33% (CNBC.com)
For years, Fairholme Capital Management’s Bruce Berkowitz was known as the mutual fund manager who acted like a hedge fund activist. Big and volatile, the Miami-based fund took large positions in companies like real estate developer The St. Joe Company (NYSE:JOE), financial giant American International Group Inc (NYSE:AIG) and international banking group Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) and then pushed for change. A year ago, Berkowitz formally attempted to manage both a hedge and mutual fund simultaneously. He launched the Fairholme Partnership, a private version of his Fairholme fund with $22 million of his and other employee capital. The hope, he said when opening to outside investors in October, was to raise a billion dollars in a year.
Former FX Concepts Executives Savage, DiRusso Start Citic Fund (Businessweek)
Former FX Concepts LLC executives Robert Savage and Ron DiRusso started a hedge fund with Citic Capital Holdings Ltd., the company backed by the sovereign-wealth funds of China and Qatar. Savage, formerly chief strategist at bankrupt FX Concepts, is Chief Executive Officer of CCTrack Solutions and DiRusso is chief investment officer, Citic Capital said today in a statement. The fund is aimed at institutional investors in North America, Europe and Asia and will begin trading in currencies, bonds, commodities, equities and futures in the first quarter, the company said.
Riverbed Balks at $3 Billion Elliot Takeover Bid (EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet)
Last week, hedge fund manager Elliot Management made an unsolicited $19/share bid to acquire WAN optimization vendor Riverbed Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:RVBD). At the time, Riverbed said it would review the offer. On January 15th, Riverbed announced its decision after reviewing the offer, The answer is no. In a nutshell, Riverbed’s management is of the opinion that the Elliot bid undervalues the company. “While the Board will carefully review any credible offer made to acquire the company, any such offer must deliver value to our shareholders in excess of what we believe will be created as we execute on our growth plans and capitalize on the significant investments we have already made in that regard,” Jerry M. Kennelly, chairman and CEO, Riverbed said in a statement.
