Brevan Howard’s Main Fund Shed $3 bln In Assets In H1 -Source (Reuters)
Investors pulled more than $3 billion from Brevan Howard‘s main hedge fund in the first half of the year, a source told Reuters on Tuesday. The outflows, which came during a torrid six months for many firms, took the fund’s assets down to $15.7 billion, the source said – a near halving of the fund’s total assets three years ago at $28 billion. News of the slide in assets was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. The main fund, which bets on a range of assets including rates and currencies, lost 1.99 percent in 2015 to record its second-straight year of losses and was down 1 percent in the year to end-July, sources told Reuters last week.
Soros’s Clock Stuck on 2008 (BloombergGadfly)
Yes, it’s true that at the end of the second quarter George Soros was sitting on a huge equity-options position that would profit if the market goes down. It’s an intriguing position, though let’s not get too carried away describing it. For one thing, it wasn’t the portfolio’s “biggest holding” in the second quarter, just as it wasn’t its “biggest holding” in 2013, despite what news reports said. The reason for the confusion is the way equity derivatives are reported in 13F filings required by the Securities and Exchange Commission. At the end of the quarter, Soros Fund Management owned puts to sell about 4 million shares of the biggest exchange-traded fund tracking the S&P 500.
Activist Fund ValueAct Takes About 2 Percent Stake in Morgan Stanley (Reuters)
Jeff Ubben-run activist hedge fund ValueAct Capital Management LP took a 1.98 percent stake in Morgan Stanley (MS.N), regulatory filings showed on Monday. ValueAct Holdings LP, a fund of ValueAct Capital Management, said it took a stake of 38 million shares in Morgan Stanley. ValueAct Capital Management played a key role in shaking up Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O) management in 2013. Morgan Stanley, which has struggled to improve its bond trading business for years, showed signs of executing a turnaround when it delivered better-than-expected second-quarter bond trading revenue. Shares of Morgan Stanley have fallen about 8.3 percent this year.
Bain Capital Hedge Fund Chief Ted Pappendick Said to Leave Post (Bloomberg)
Ted Pappendick is leaving as head of Bain Capital’s hedge fund unit and will be replaced by a veteran money manager who had worked at Adage Capital and Och-Ziff Capital Management Group, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. Joshua Ross, who left Adage this year, will take over the post next month, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the information is private. Pappendick will remain as chairman until he retires in mid-2017, capping a two-decade career at Bain, said one of the people. Bain has been making changes to the executive ranks to integrate various business units and continue its global expansion. In April, Bain put John Connaughton and Jonathan Lavine in charge of managing the firm day-to-day. It also changed the name of its hedge fund unit from Brookside Capital to Bain Capital Public Equity to reflect its expanding global operations.
