Editor’s Note: Related Tickers: Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Visa Inc (NYSE:V), Foster Wheeler AG (NASDAQ:FWLT),
Tepper’s Short Hills hedge fund turns 20, but the real party is the returns: report (The Star-Ledger – NJ.com)
SAC Capital’s Indictment May Affect All of Wall Street (The Fiscal Times)
The Wall Street firms that do business with SAC Capital are right to be privately worried about possible legal contamination from the criminal indictment against the hedge fund. Publicly, Wall Street is standing behind SAC Capital. It’s “business as usual,” according to reports. Gary Cohn of Goldman Sachs recently praised SAC as “a great counter party” in an interview with my colleague Kate Kelly. But behind the scenes, Wall Street executives are worried, according to people familiar with the matter. All the biggest Wall Street firms have extensive ties to SAC Capital—ties that could put them in legal jeopardy, particularly under much larger exposure spelled out in the Dodd-Frank banking reform regulations.
Sony rejects hedge fund chief’s proposal to spin off entertainment division (The Guardian)
Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE)’s board has unanimously rejected a US hedge fund manager’s proposal that it sell part of its entertainment business, sending the Japanese company’s shares down more than 5%. In a letter to Daniel Loeb, CEO of Third Point, Sony said that continuing to own 100% of Sony Pictures and Sony Music was “fundamental” to the company’s success. Besides distributing blockbuster films such as the James Bond hit Skyfall, Sony’s entertainment divisions make popular TV shows including Community for NBC and Breaking Bad for AMC. Sony Music artists include Beyoncé, Adele, Bob Dylan and Kenny Chesney. Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE) operates 124 pay TV channels in more than 159 countries.
The Top 25 Hedge Fund Managers Earn More Than All the 500 Top CEOs Together (Forbes)
The best chance of becoming Super Rich is to be one of the highest paid hedge fund masters of the universe. In 2010 the top 25 hedge fund managers combined earned roughly 4 times as much ALL 500 of the CEOs at the top of the 500 giant corporations that make up the S&P 500 index. The average pay of these 25 hedge fund managers was $134 million in 2002, peaked at over $1 billion in 2007 and was sliced to a measly $537 million in 2012. Private Equity is your next best shot at becoming a Forbes billionaire Private equity fees have averaged $34 billion a year in the period, 2005 to 2011. And in 2012 the three founders of Carlyle each received a distribution of $300 million; while the founder of Blackstone got over $200 million, and Henry Kravis and George Roberts of KKR each received more than $130 million.
Clooney vs. Loeb continues (CNBC)
Stamford hedge funder gets 2 years in prison (The Advocate)
Berton Hochfeld, a 66-year-old Stamford man, was sentenced Monday to two years in federal prison for fleecing his hedge fund’s investors out of more than $2 million. Hochfeld, the former manager of Hochfeld Capital, which was based in New York City, pleaded guilty in January to one count of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud. The charges stemmed from his inflating the firm’s assets in monthly reports to investors and secretly pulling out millions of dollars for himself — part of which he spent on vacations and antiques, federal prosecutors said.
SAC Capital’s Steve Cohen is buying these stocks (MarketWatch)
A series of 13G filings with the SEC show that billionaire Steve Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors is far from idle as some outside investors seek redemptions due to the fund’s legal problems relating to insider trading investigations and charges. 13Gs are filed when a hedge fund or other major investor controls 5% of a stock’s total shares outstanding. This does mean that they only disclose positions in smaller cap stocks rather than larger cap names—Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Visa Inc (NYSE:V) were two of SAC’s largest holdings at the end of March, but the fund certainly fell far short of 5% ownership. The fund now owns 5.2% of Foster Wheeler AG (NASDAQ:FWLT), a $2.3 billion market cap company specializing in engineering and construction of infrastructure facilities including for processing of oil and gas.
Burbank’s Passport Sells Off Entire Agency Mortgage Portfolio (San Diego Source)
San Francisco-based hedge-fund firm run by John Burbank, sold its entire portfolio of mortgage debt backed by the U.S. government in the second quarter, according to a letter to investors obtained by Bloomberg News. “When we recognized prospects in the agency space had changed, we cut risk,” Passport wrote in the July 31 letter, referring to mortgage securities backed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or Ginnie Mae. The firm retained its holdings of home-loan bonds without government backing, “viewing the prospects there as brighter.” Passport sold the agency debt in its $162 million M1 fund, a mortgage strategy run by Jeff Kong and Raphael Gonzalez, and in its $1.2 billion Passport Global Fund, which allocates to M1 and is run by Burbank, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Billionaires’ Battle Over LightSquared Breaks Into the Open (New York Times)
The hedge fund tycoon Philip A. Falcone may be down, but he’s not out, taking on the satellite television mogul Charles W. Ergen in a bankruptcy brawl. Their months-long fight took a new turn on Tuesday as Mr. Falcone filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Ergen of colluding with another hedge fund in a “fraudulent scheme” that prevented his broadband wireless company LightSquared from emerging out of bankruptcy. Mr. Falcone’s complaint comes just over a week after Mr. Ergen, the chairman of both Dish and EchoStar, raised a bid for LightSquared to $2.2 billion from $2 billion.
Indices – Greenwich Global Hedge Fund Index regains 1.15% in July (+4.22% YTD), UCITS Alternative Index up 0.80% in July (+1.74% YTD) (Opalesque)
The Greenwich Global Hedge Fund Index gained +1.15% in July based on preliminary estimates. Hedge funds benefited from the global equity market rally as measured by the S&P 500 (+5.09%), MSCI World Equity Index (+5.19%) and FTSE 100 (+6.05%). Long-Short Equity led the way this month, up +2.10% on average. The gain brings the year-to-date total for Long-Short Equity strategies to +7.08%. Long-Short Equity is now a leading strategy for 2013, second only to Event-Driven strategies (+7.21% YTD).
Hedge Fund Association Adds High-Net-Worth Expert Hannah Shaw Grove to Advisory Board (EON: Enhanced Online News)
The Hedge Fund Association announced today the appointment of prominent global wealth consultant Hannah Shaw Grove to its High-Net-Worth Advisory Board. “The HFA is very pleased to welcome Hannah to our global leadership team. As hedge funds prepare to communicate directly to affluent investors and their financial advisors in new ways, Hannah’s knowledge will be instrumental to HFA members around the world,” said Mitch Ackles, HFA President.
