Hedge Fund Eton Park Eyes Energy Sector, Avoided 2014’s Pitfalls (Reuters)
Eric Mindich’s $8.5 billion hedge fund, Eton Park Capital Management, is now ready to pick through the debt of beaten-up energy companies, an area it avoided last year as the price of oil tumbled. “We have completely avoided exposure to the high yield debt of energy companies and to energy-impacted emerging markets, but as the price of these bonds trade down, we are spending increasing amounts of time researching opportunities in this space,” Eton Park wrote in a letter to clients dated Jan. 16 and seen by Reuters.
PepsiCo Reaches Truce With Nelson Peltz After 2 Years of Locking Horns (New York Times)
Nearly two years of public saber-rattling between PepsiCo and the billionaire investor Nelson Peltz appeared to end on Friday, as the two announced a truce of sorts. PepsiCo, the food and beverage giant, said that it would add William R. Johnson, the former chief executive of H. J. Heinz, to its board. Mr. Johnson, who will serve as an independent director, is also an adviser to Mr. Peltz’s investment firm, Trian Fund Management. The settlement will most likely end a long-running campaign by Mr. Peltz and his team to break up PepsiCo, who have asserted that investors would benefit by spinning off the company’s beverages business from its better-performing snacks unit.
Hedge Fund Worker Gets 3 Years for Stealing from State’s Richest Man (NBC Chicago)
A brilliant, young hedge fund worker who stole trade secrets from Citadel LLC was sentenced Thursday to three years in prison by a federal judge who told him he’d been “naive.” Yihao “Ben” Pu, was just 23 when he illegally downloaded information about algorithms developed for use in high-frequency trading by Citadel, the hedge fund and financial services firm founded by billionaire Ken Griffin, Illinois’ richest man, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.
UK Hedge Fund Boss Faces Jail After $536 mln Fraud Conviction (Reuters)
Magnus Peterson, founder of failed hedge fund Weavering Capital (UK) Ltd., was found guilty of fraud-related offences by a London court on Monday, Britain’s Serious Fraud Office said, and faces up to 10 years in jail. Peterson has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced on Jan. 23, a spokewoman for the prosecutor said. After a 12-week trial that tested the jury’s grasp of financial wizardry, 51-year-old Magnus Peterson was found guilty of eight fraud and forgery-related offences over a six-year period that cost investors $536 million. (Reporting by Nishant Kumar and Carolyn Cohn; editing by David Clarke).
Everest Capital Falls Victim To Swiss Franc, Shutters Largest Fund: Report (CNBC)
Switzerland’s unexpected decision to allow its currency to float freely once more against the euro may have claimed another victim – Everest Capital’s Global Fund. Bloomberg News, citing a person close to the firm, reported Saturday that Everest’s $830 million fund, its largest, took a bath after the Swiss National Bank unyoked the franc from Europe’s single currency this week. The Miami-based firm is run by Marko Dimitrijevic, a hedge fund veteran who has a long history in turbulent emerging markets.
Oil Price Slump Claims Hedge Fund Abydos (WSJ)
London-based Abydos Capital Management has become the latest hedge fund victimized by the slump in oil prices after calling the bottom of the market too early. The commodities equities fund, which was set up by former BlueGold founding partner Jean-Louis Le Mee in 2012 and based on London’s upmarket Piccadilly, shut mid-December after large demands from investors for their money back.
Hedge Funds Cut Oil Bets After Worst Drop Since 2008 (Bloomberg)
Oil bulls finally caught a break as prices capped their first weekly advance since November. Hedge funds raised their net-long position in West Texas Intermediate crude by 12 percent in the week ended Jan. 13, U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. Long wagers jumped the most since March 2011. WTI climbed 6.1 percent in the three days following the report period, after dropping more than 50 percent since June. U.S. oil drillers took a record number of rigs out of service since Dec. 5, spurred on by OPEC’s decision to maintain output. Production growth will slow this year among countries outside of OPEC, the International Energy Agency said Jan. 16.
Hedge-Fund Bulls Retreat From Soy as Silos Fill Up: Commodities (Bloomberg)
Hedge funds cut bullish wagers on soybeans as forecasts for record global inventories sparked the biggest price slump in more than six months. U.S. farmers will reap their biggest-ever harvest and domestic stockpiles last month were the highest since 2006, government data show. That’s adding to a global glut that will swell global inventories to an all-time high and money managers are now the least bullish on prices since October.
