Editor’s Note: Related tickers: News Corp (NASDAQ:NWS), Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO), Kinder Morgan Inc (NYSE:KMI)
Economic Reform Will Spur Political Change, Soros Says (GlobalTimes)
The country’s economic restructuring will bring fundamental changes to its political model, financier George Soros says. “The undervaluation of the renminbi was a secret weapon of the government because it gave them a way of creating productivity of labor without the people feeling the pain,” the 83-year-old Hungarian-American billionaire said in a closed-door meeting during the Davos 2013 World Economic Forum. As a result, “the central authority accumulated assets from abroad rather than collecting it in taxes.”
Hedge fund builds stake in News Corp (CanberraTimes)
A US hedge fund that has allied with billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn has acquired a 12 per cent voting stake in News Corp (NASDAQ:NWS), making it the largest shareholder behind the media company’s chairman Rupert Murdoch. Southeastern Asset Management, a Memphis-based $US33 billion investment company, snapped up 23.8 million Class B shares. The transaction is valued at about $US397 million ($428 million). Overall, the holding accounts for about a 4.1 per cent economic interest in News Corp (NASDAQ:NWS), the publishing business split off in June from Mr Murdoch’s film and television interests.
Andrew Hall’s Astenbeck Surges in July and August (InstitutionalInvestorsAlpha)
Hedge funds managed by Andrew Hall’s Westport, Connecticut-based Astenbeck Capital Management rose 2.84 percent in August after surging 7.29 percent in July. As a result, Hall was able to erase a greater than 8 percent loss earlier in the year and is now up 2.2 percent for the first eight months of 2013. Astenbeck investors no doubt hope this is the start of a longer profitable run for Hall, one of the best-known and most successful commodities traders over the past few years. Last year his hedge fund was up only 3.41 percent after losing 3.83 percent in 2011.
Blackstone, Fidelity team for daily liquidity alternative mutual fund launch (Opalesque)
Daily liquidity alternative mutual funds are the hedge fund gateway for retail investors and now some of the biggest names in fund of hedge fund investing, including Blackstone Alternative Asset Management, are taking to the retail road to raise assets. Like Arden Asset Management and Aurora Investment Management before it, Blackstone, which with $49 billion is the world’s largest discretionary allocator to hedge funds, has launched a quasi retail product for the Fidelity Investments pla…
Asian credit specialist hedge fund Double Haven expands team (Risk)
Double Haven, an Asian credit specialist fund manager, has appointed Greg Donohugh as CEO. Donohugh joins from Wells Fargo Securities Asia platform, which he founded in 2004. He led the regional securities operations, working with regional and central banks, sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurance, private equity and long-only fund clients. Double Haven’s current assets under management total over $360 million.
Aite Group and SunGard: Hedge fund study (Fx-MM)
New global research undertaken by analyst firm Aite Group and SunGard finds that hedge funds see institutional credibility as a key element for achieving success. The research which surveyed 40 senior executives and managers from Tier I and Tier II hedge funds in the U.S., Europe and Asia finds that 82% of firms reported that establishing institutional credibility is extremely or very important. The concept of institutional credibility is the idea of the ability of an investment firm to instill confidence to the outside world surrounding its operational stability and reliability.
Marc Faber’s call on gold (CNBC)
Hedge-Fund Manager Mariner Looks to Green Bonds (WSJ)
Hedge-fund manager Mariner Investment Group is joining the growing ranks of ‘green bond’ investors, announcing on Tuesday that it is incorporating environmentally and socially responsible research into its investment decisions. The announcement by Mariner comes after some other milestones recently in the green-bond investing world, which caters to buyers who want to own bonds from companies and governments seen to be environmentally and socially responsible. In the past, this type of investing has been more prevalent for equity investors.
Greenback rallies in Asia on hedge fund buys (ChinaPost)
The dollar staged an afternoon rally in Asian trading on Tuesday as hedge fund purchases helped push up the unit. The dollar fetched 99.96 yen from 99.69 yen in New York on Monday, while the euro was at US$1.3251 from US$1.3254. The European single currency strengthened to 132.48 yen from 132.10 yen in U.S. trading. “There have been large buying orders of the euro/yen pair by hedge funds,” said a senior dealer at a major bank in Japan. “That’s helping push up the dollar/yen” rate.
Orical LLP adds James Leahy as a Partner (PRNewsWire)
James Leahy, a former naval officer and honors graduate of Boston College Law School and Dartmouth College, has joined founding partners Gregory Florio and Michael Scally of Orical LLP, a law firm dedicated to serving the hedge fund, broker dealer and financial services industries. Jim left Marathon Asset Management at the end of May of this year where he had served as Chief Financial Officer since 2008. Prior to joining Marathon, Jim helped found a Hedge Fund Operations Quality business at Moody’s Corporation (NYSE:MCO) Investors Service where he was also a member of the CDO team.
Two Of The Most Notorious Folks On Financial Twitter Got Into A Huge Fight Last Night (BusinessInsider)
Two of Twitter’s most notorious characters, Keith McCullough, the CEO of Hedgeye, and anonymous financial blogger ZeroHedge got in an epic spat on Twitter last night and it’s still continuing this morning. ZeroHedge is famous for his relentless gloom and mockery of the financial and political system. McCullough is known for trumpeting his endless #timestamps, and for attacking the traditional Wall street system. ZeroHedge started the fight when he called out McCullough on his 26-year-old energy analyst Kevin Kaiser’s bearish call last week on Kinder Morgan Inc (NYSE:KMI). A lot of people on Wall Street have been criticizing that call that knocked $4 billion off the company’s market cap.
DoubleLine’s Gundlach calls Indian stock market ‘scary’ (Reuters)
Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital LP, on Tuesday gave a strongly negative outlook for the Indian stock market, saying it could be hit especially hard by outflows of funds from emerging markets on expected changes in monetary policy by major central banks. Gundlach, head of the roughly $37 billion DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund (DBLTX.O), said in an investor webcast that the Indian stock market looks “very scary.” Gundlach later told Reuters that was his intermediate-term outlook. Gundlach said in the webcast that he is not negative on all emerging markets and recommended Chinese and Russian stocks.
