Editor’s Note: Related tickers: Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL), The Gap Inc. (NYSE:GPS), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (LON:RBS), The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO), Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE:BRK.B), UBS AG (USA) (NYSE:UBS), Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS), AngloGold Ashanti Limited (ADR) (NYSE:AU)
Return for hedge fund managers drops $8bn (Financial Times)
Paulson Loses More Than $300 Million as Gold Declines (Bloomberg)
Billionaire John Paulson lost more than $300 million of his personal wealth on his gold bet, as the precious metal fell to its lowest price in almost two years. Paulson has roughly $9.5 billion invested across his hedge funds, of which about 85 percent is invested in gold share classes. Gold dropped 4.1 percent yesterday, shaving about $328 million from his net worth on this bet alone. In addition to losses from bullion’s decline, investors in Paulson & Co. funds, including the firm’s founder, lost about $62 million yesterday on their gold-stock investments, based on holdings as of Dec. 31, 2012. New York-based Paulson & Co.’s biggest wagers in miners include a 7.35 percent stake in AngloGold Ashanti Limited (ADR) (NYSE:AU).
New York hedge fund in talks over possible bid for Arnotts (Irish Independent)
New York-based hedge fund Anchorage Capital Group has discussed an Arnotts buyout with Ulster Bank, the Sunday Independent has learnt. Anchorage was reported to have been represented in Ireland by former AIB executive Dan O’Connor in past Irish-asset bids. It is not known if it is in this instance working with Mr O’Connor, who was unavailable for comment.
Onetime hedge fund giant Stark Investments winding down (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Twenty years after growing Stark Investments into one of the world’s largest hedge funds, the company is getting out of the business of managing other people’s money. The firm, which expanded from a small office in Mequon to a building overlooking Lake Michigan in St. Francis, at its peak employed some 400 people and had more than $14 billion in assets under management. But by the end of last year, the recession, client redemptions and other factors had pushed those numbers down to $2.1 billion and about 50 employees.
Hedge fund manager is bullish on Midland (Fort Worth Star Telegram)
When clients in Midland complained that they couldn’t find office space, hotel rooms or banquet halls, hedge fund co-founder Joseph Jacobs saw a big opportunity. It turned out to be 53 stories, potentially the tallest office building between Los Angeles and Dallas, and almost twice the height of anything in the onetime hometown of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and his son George W. Bush. Jacobs, the president of Wexford Capital, with $5 billion in assets, views the $350 million Energy Tower office-hotel-condominium project as the centerpiece of the Permian Basin, the source of almost 60 percent of Texas’ oil last year.
SAC’s First Asia-Based Manager to Start Own Macro Hedge Fund (Bloomberg)
Yip Ka-hay, the first Asia-based manager hired by Steven Cohen’s $15 billion SAC Capital Advisors LP, plans to start a macro hedge fund in July to trade currencies, interest-rate securities and equity indexes in the region. Yip, the founder of Hong Kong-based Bright Stream Capital Management Ltd., will start trading with as much as $25 million of his own money, he said in an interview April 12. He expects additional capital from investors will take Bright Stream Macro Fund’s size to as much as $300 million within 18 months.
Dan Loeb, Hedge Fund King With Balls (Reader Supported News)
There’s confidence. There’s chutzpah. And then there’s Dan Loeb, hedge fund king extraordinaire and head of Third Point Capital, who’s getting set to claim the World Heavyweight Championship of Balls. On April 18, Loeb will speak before the…
…Council of Institutional Investors, a nonprofit association of pension funds, endowments, employee benefit funds, and foundations with collective assets of over $3 trillion. The CII is an umbrella group that represents the institutions who manage the retirement and benefit funds of public and corporate employees all over America – from bricklayers to Teamsters to teachers to employees of Colgate-Palmolive Company (NYSE:CL), The Gap Inc. (NYSE:GPS) and Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ).
Jitters fail to spook solid first quarter (Financial News)
Hedge funds posted a solid start to the year as accommodating monetary policy from central banks and governments heralded a widespread move into risk assets and equity markets rallied. Most of the 18 strategy and five regional indices published by data provider Hedge Fund Research posted positive gains for the quarter, with the exception of short-biased funds, indices focused on energy strategies and those investing in Russia/Eastern Europe. The average hedge fund gained 3.9% in the quarter, with equity strategies leading the way.
The Coca-Cola Company (KO): 1 of Buffett’s Biggest Investments Might Be His Worst (Insider Monkey)
RBS Loses Appeal by U.S. Hedge Fund Highland (Fox Business)
Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc (LON:RBS) has lost a high-profile legal dispute against U.S. hedge fund Highland, the Financial Times in London reported Saturday, citing a judge in the case. Three senior judges found that an earlier ruling in favor of RBS had been obtained by the fraud of one of its bankers who had given dishonest evidence in court.
ETF Strategy That Outperforms Hedge Funds (Seeking Alpha)
Firms like UBS AG (USA) (NYSE:UBS), Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) and hedge fund giant AQR have opened numerous mutual funds offering small clients access to esoteric strategies like ‘tactical macro’ or ‘ statistical arbitrage’ and derivatives trading. The allure of the old idea – earning outsized returns like those of George Soros, John Paulson or Steve Cohen – may explain the appeal of these new mutual funds to retail investors. Or investors may be intrigued by the possibility of better diversification. But have these new alternative mutual funds lived up to the old hedge fund ideals of delivering alpha? And what is the ideal by which to measure their effectiveness compared to the conventional equity income investment style?
Ex-Soros Adviser Says BOJ’s Massive Easing to Backfire (Bloomberg)
The Bank of Japan (8301)’s “huge bet” by boosting quantitative easing won’t turn the economy around and is instead sending the nation toward default, said Takeshi Fujimaki, former adviser to billionaire investor George Soros. The BOJ said April 4 it will double monthly debt purchases to 7.5 trillion yen ($76 billion). That’s about 70 percent of planned bond issuance from the world’s most heavily indebted government. Governor Haruhiko Kuroda set a two-year horizon for achieving the 2 percent annual inflation target adopted in January at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s urging and said the monetary base will grow to 270 trillion yen by the end of 2014.
