Hedge Fund News: David Einhorn, Hugh Hendry, John Arnold

Herbalife Falls After Fund Manager Queries Disclosure (Bloomberg)
Herbalife Ltd. (HLF), a maker of nutritional supplements, dropped 20 percent after hedge-fund manager David Einhorn asked why it has stopped providing information about distributors in filings. Herbalife fell $14.02 to $56.30 at the close in New York, its biggest drop since Feb. 25, 2009. The company had gained 36 percent this year before today.

Ex-JPMorgan trader Lee readies Asia hedge fund (Reuters)
The former head of JPMorgan Chase & Co’s equity derivatives group for Asia-Pacific is set to strike out on his own in the fourth quarter as the MIT-educated Hong Kong native seeks to build a hedge fund with a capacity of up to $2 billion. William Lee, who returned to Hong Kong from Singapore in 2000, is among dozens of traders globally in the last three years to move from a proprietary trading desk to his own fund.

Struggling Hedge Fund Under a Cloud (NYT)
The Man Group, a London institution known for its computer-driven trading and famed literary prize, has taken a pounding in the eyes of investors and clients, raising questions about whether the $59 billion firm could be the object of a takeover. … The Man Group’s chief executive, Peter Clarke, tried to stamp out such speculation on Tuesday.

UPDATE 2-Natgas trade whiz Arnold shutting Centaurus fund-source (Reuters) Legendary natural gas trader John Arnold is closing down his flagship Centaurus fund, a source said on Wednesday, as the former Enron wunderkind struggled to maintain outsized returns with prices near 10-year lows and regulations tightening. Centaurus, famed for gaining more than 300 percent in 2006 by taking bets opposite to those held by failed rival Amaranth Advisors, will return capital to investors, according to an investor in the fund who said he had received a letter from Arnold earlier on Wednesday.

China Skeptic Hugh Hendry Turns Bullish on U.S. Stocks (Bloomberg) Hugh Hendry, whose Eclectica hedge fund returned 31 percent in 2008 betting against U.S. growth, turned bullish on the world’s biggest economy and repeated his concern that a real-estate bubble will derail China’s boom. “We are more bullish on U.S. growth than most,” the 43- year-old Scot wrote in a letter to clients last month that was obtained by Bloomberg. “We are also more pessimistic on Chinese growth than ever. This makes us bearish on most Asian stocks, bearish on industrial commodity prices, interested in some U.S. stocks, a seller of high variance equities and deeply concerned that Japan could become the focal point of the next global leg down.”