A Hedge Fund Manager Says SAC ‘Taint’ Is Manageable (NYTimes)
Dmitry Balyasny is one hedge fund owner who isn’t afraid of hiring traders from SAC Capital Advisors as long as they were far away from the “messiness” that engulfed the firm during the federal government’s crackdown on insider trading. “There were people there who did the wrong things and it seems to have been an aggressive culture,” Mr. Balyasny said in a conference call last month with investors in his fund, Balyasny Asset Management. “Quite a number of people are completely clean and had no contact with the messiness that was going on.”
Third Point nominating 3 for Sotheby’s board (BusinessWeek)
Hedge fund Third Point LLC is nominating three people for Sothebys (NYSE:BID)‘s board, including its founder and CEO Daniel Loeb. Third Point — which is Sotheby’s biggest shareholder with a 9.2 percent stake — said in a regulatory filing on Thursday that it is nominating Loeb, Harry Wilson and Olivier Reza for the auction house’s board because it thinks current board members “lack the fresh perspective necessary to overhaul the company’s challenged operational structure and cure its cultural malaise.”
Prominent shareholder urges Nintendo to develop and sell mobile games (GameSpot)
Prominent Nintendo Co., Ltd (ADR) (OTCMKTS:NTDOY) shareholder Seth Fischer, one of Asia’s most distinguished hedge fund managers, has urged the company to break with its decades-old strategy of only releasing software on proprietary systems and instead develop and sell mobile games for iOS and Android devices. “Nintendo needs to embrace this thematic change in consumer demand, behavior, and expectations to stay relevant,” Fischer said in a letter addressed to Nintendo president Satoru Iwata and obtained by Reuters. Fischer is the chief investment officer at Hong Kong-based Oasis Capital Management, which owns shares of Nintendo. The company maintains that releasing its content on third-party platforms would negatively affect its business model, but Fischer wants this to change.
Camp’s Tax Plan Hits Hedge Funds, Private Equity in the Gut (TheFiscalTimes)
The tax reform proposal released by House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp on Wednesday was already taking fire from Wall Street before the Michigan Republican stepped up to a podium in the Capitol and released a 32-page discussion draft of his proposal. Details of the plan had been leaked to the media the day before, and one element – a proposal to tax as regular income so-called “carried interest” payments – a form of compensation typically paid to hedge fund and private equity fund managers –has infuriated many in the financial services industry.
HedgeServ Tops Institutional Investor’s Alpha Awards For Second Consecutive Year (SacBee)
HedgeServ, a global fund administrator, announced today that, for the second year in a row, it was named top administrator in the 2014 Institutional Investor Alpha Awards for Administrators, leading its competition in 7 of 9 categories. The independently run firm continues to outpace its peers, including Citco Fund Services, Morgan Stanley Fund Services, Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services, and State Street Alternative Investment Solutions. “We are committed to providing our clients with outstanding service, supported by expert professional service teams and the only real-time platform in the industry. We look forward to continued collaboration with our clients on evolving the HedgeServ model, which delivers uniquely customized service, real-time technology, and institutional-quality controls,” said Justin Nadler, president of HedgeServ.
Hedge fund Elliott acquires 11 percent derivatives stake in F&C Asset Management (Reuters)
U.S. hedge fund Elliott Management Corp acquired derivatives equivalent to a stake of almost 11 percent in UK-based F&C Asset Management (FCAM.L), a filing showed on Wednesday. The activist hedge fund purchased derivatives equivalent to around 63.8 million ordinary shares, the filing showed. A spokesman for F&C declined to comment while Elliott could not immediately be reached. In January, Bank of Montreal (USA) (NYSE:BMO) struck a deal to buy F&C for 708 million pounds. F&C’s second largest shareholder, Standard Life Investments, said at the time the deal represented an “attractive valuation” of the asset manager for the Canadian bank and it may support a rival bid if one emerges.
Activist round-up: Loeb, Icahn & Peltz (CNBC)
Man Group shares soar on earnings, dividend hike, share buyback (Reuters)
Hedge fund firm Man Group announced a share buyback and bumped up its dividend on Thursday, sending its stock price soaring, after it drew more new investment in the last quarter of 2013 that help it beat full-year profit forecasts. The results cap a year of upheaval at one of the world’s biggest hedge fund managers that saw it cut staff, replace a host of managers including the chief executive, and merge some strategies to boost the fund and company performance and stop clients taking their money elsewhere.
Hedge Fund Founder Speaks At Harvard Business School (HedgeCo)
George Schultze, Founder and Managing Member of hedge fund Schultze Asset Management, LLC., was a lead speaker in Harvard Business School’s Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring course taught by Professor Stuart Gilson yesterday. During the three sessions, he discussed both potential risks and opportunities for distressed securities investors in mature industries as demonstrated by the Harvard Business Review case (“Arch Wireless, Inc.”), which Mr. Schultze helped to develop based on his experiences investing in that company.
A Former Hedge Fund Manager Is Selling His Florida Beach House For $13 Million (BusinessInsider)
Alberto Franco, emerging market expert and former hedge fund manager at Quantek Frontier, is selling his modern South Florida beach front home, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the listing, the 8,960 square foot residence offers an oversized dock with private boat slip – all for just a hair under a cool $13 million. The house is listed with Franco’s real estate agent wife, Rossana Franco of Carrington Real Estate Services.
BlueCrest Internal Fund May Pose Pay Conflict, Albourne Says (BusinessWeek)
BlueCrest Capital Management LLP, Michael Platt’s $32 billion hedge-fund firm, has a potential conflict of interest over a fund that it runs for the benefit of its partners, according to a report by one of the world’s largest advisers to institutional investors. Albourne Partners Ltd., whose clients include pension plans, endowments and family offices, issued a report this month that said it recently became aware that BlueCrest has a $1.5 billion internal fund called BSMA Ltd., according to two people with knowledge of the report, who asked not to be identified. BlueCrest said the fund has existed for years to retain talent and the firm has procedures in place to protect against conflicts of interest.
Funds underperform, but hedge fund kings rake in $24.3 billion (NYPost)
Hedge-fund titans are still the kings of Wall Street. Last year, the top 25 hedge-fund earners pulled down $24.3 billion, up about 50 percent from 2012, according to a report Wednesday. The mouth-watering moolah poured in while most hedge funds in 2013 underperformed the broader markets. But that didn’t stop six men from earning more than $1 billion, according to the report in Forbes. The group includes Steve Cohen, founder of the besieged SAC Capital.
Vicis Capital To Pay $7.5M In Petters Clawback Settlement (Law360)
Hedge fund Vicis Capital Master Fund Ltd. will return $7.5 million it received on an investment in Thomas Petters’ $3.7 billion Ponzi scheme, resolving a bankruptcy clawback suit through a settlement approved Tuesday by a Minnesota federal judge. U.S. District Court Judge Ann D. Montgomery signed off on the deal, which resolves a clawback suit brought against Vicis by Douglas A. Kelley, who serves as a receiver for Petters’ personal creditors and Chapter 11 trustee for bankrupt Petters Co. Inc.
The SEC Should Really Start a Hedge Fund (BloombergView)
It’s hard to pick stocks that will go up, so most people can’t do it consistently. It’s about equally hard — probably a bit harder — to pick stocks that will go down, so most people can’t do that consistently either. But if somehow you knew in advance what banks were going to be investigated for bank-y malfeasance, or which biotech companies were cooking their books, then you could sell their stocks and avoid losses, with consistent repeatable outperformance. Who might know that sort of thing in advance?
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