Editor’s Note: Related Tickers: Netflix, Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL), Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE:HPQ), Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (USA) (NYSE:CP)
D. E. Shaw’s David Shaw and Utimco’s Bruce Zimmerman to be Honored along with 40 Investor and Consultant Nominees in Institutional Investor’s Hedge Fund Industry Awards (DigitalJournal.com)
Blue Valley Ranch pledges $4 million in proposed Highway 9 safety improvements (SkyHiDailyNews.com)
A project to expand State Highway 9, which runs north through Grand and Summit counties, received a $4 million matching grant from the owner of Blue Valley Ranch. The announcement came during Tuesday’s meeting of the Grand County Board of Commissioners, who all voiced their support for the project. The Blue Valley Ranch, located outside of Kremmling, is owned by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul T. Jones II of Greenwich, Conn. Jones previously donated $945,000 to kickstart the improvement project. The project will be submitted to the Colorado Department of Transportation’s Responsible Acceleration of Maintenance and Partnerships (RAMP) program, which seeks to expedite important road improvement projects in the state.
Hedge fund fees hot topic at R.I. Investment Commission (The Providence Journal)
Rhode Island has moved about $1 billion of its $7.6-billion state pension fund into hedge funds over the past 18 months, a move that General Treasurer Gina M. Raimondo defended against critics Wednesday in a meeting of the state Investment Commission. For the first eight months, the state paid nearly $16 million in fees. Facing withering criticism from recent stories by a Forbes magazine blogger accusing her of rewarding Wall Street fund managers, Raimondo and commission consultants argued that the strategy will help cushion the pension fund from a stock market crash such as the one in 2008 that cost the fund $2 billion.
Switzerland Set For Hedge Fund Influx (FINalternatives)
Switzerland went 0-for-2012 in terms of hedge fund launches last year. This year promises to be quite different—thanks in part to the country’s new hedge fund regulations. Among the new launches will be offerings from veteran JPMorgan Chase & Co. trader Deepak Gulati and former GLG Partners portfolio manager James Berger. The new launches could boost the size of the US$24 billion industry by one-third, according to Credit Suisse.
Netflix, Inc. (NFLX): The 10 Most Bullish Mega-Hedge Funds (Insider Monkey)
Steel Partners CEO Sues Ex-Spear Leeds Chief Over Support (Bloomberg)
Steel Partners LLC Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Warren Lichtenstein sued Andrew Cader, former head of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)’s Spear, Leeds & Kellogg LP, claiming he helped wrongly inflate child support payments for the mother of Lichtenstein’s 5-year-old daughter. Cader, 54, part owner of the Tampa Bay Rays Major League Baseball team, is in a relationship with…