Editor’s Note: Related tickers: TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ:TIVO), Alere Inc (NYSE:ALR), Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI), Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL)
For hundreds of years, family offices have been the financial equivalent of social registers — small, musty preserves of the rich that have little impact on the real world. But now, because of a giant regulatory loophole, family offices are becoming major players in financial markets. A string of billionaire hedge funders—including George Soros, Carl Icahn and Stanley Druckenmiller—have all transformed their hedge funds into family offices managing billions of dollars. SAC, the giant hedge fund run by Steve Cohen, could become next in line, as the fund grapples with redemptions and government investigations.
Hedge fund manager takes on Einstein (TheGlobeAndMail)
Eric Weinstein, a New York hedge fund manager, thinks he has cracked one of the biggest mysteries in physics. The science establishment is rightly sceptical, but intrigued enough to admit Weinstein’s theory deserves further study. Even if he is wrong, it’s nice to see for once a Wall Street boffin applying his intellectual firepower to questions of beauty and truth.
TiVo Share Bump Shows How Hedge Fund Lawyers Gain Edge at Court (BusinessWeek)
Tom Claps headed to Texas to scope out developments as TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ:TIVO)’s trial against Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (NYSE:MMI) unit neared, with as much as $1 billion at stake over rights to digital-video-recorder technology. Calling the court clerk June 6 for the location of a hearing, he was told it was off: the case was settled. Understanding the significance, the former Skadden Arps litigator, who joined Susquehanna Financial Group two years ago as a legal analyst, fired off a note that prompted a spike in TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ:TIVO) shares and baffled other investors in the absence of news.
Activist investor sends Alere letter calling for unit sales (Reuters)
An activist investor who has been campaigning for change at Alere Inc (NYSE:ALR) sent the company a letter on Monday calling for the health diagnostics and services company to sell three of its businesses, which it believes can yield more than $3 billion in proceeds. Coppersmith Capital Management, which holds a 5.8 percent stake in the company, has been pressuring the company to make changes since last month. The hedge fund has nominated a slate of three directors to Alere Inc (NYSE:ALR)’s board.
John M. Bader benefitted from being in the right place at the right time (PIOnline)
John M. Bader is always impeccably dressed in formal business attire in the New York headquarters of Halcyon Asset Management LLC and insists other employees are similarly garbed. “Suits are like a uniform. They put you into the frame of mind to focus on work, on investments,” said the chairman and chief investment officer of the hedge fund and credit specialist manager. The legal profession cropped up over and over in Mr. Bader’s youth as his most likely career path, but a stint as a jack of all trades at a software company during an 18-month break in his undergraduate studies at Harvard University changed his mind…
Liquidation model similar to hedge fund side pockets (PIOnline)
Zombie fund restructurings are similar to coordinated liquidations of hedge fund side pockets, said Peter McGrath, president of Toronto-based Setter Capital Inc., an alternatives investment firm that invests on the secondary market. In both cases, investors had been left with illiquid investments and little hope of cashing out. But hedge fund managers and investors in side pocket vehicles are ahead of zombie fund investors in finding ways to redeem their investments, industry insiders say. Zombie fund restructurings are just starting, borrowing some strategies from the hedge fund side pocket liquidation playbook.
Institutions taking divergent paths in revamping hedge fund portolios (PIOnline)
Hedge fund portfolio revamps are front and center on CIOs’ desks as institutions, especially public pension plans, refine their investment approaches. The South Carolina Retirement System Investment Commission and the Teachers’ Retirement System of the State of Illinois are among the most recent to begin gut rehabs. Each is splitting a single hedge fund allocation and regrouping hedge fund strategies by whether their returns are more or less correlated to public equity and fixed-income markets.
Hedge fund that manages SAC money had tough year through April (Reuters)
As billionaire investor Steven A. Cohen deals with a spate of redemptions out of his own hedge fund, another firm in which his SAC Capital Advisors has money saw returns plummet in the first four months of the year. Adams Hill Capital, run by former SAC equity portfolio manager Andrew Schwartz, was down 8.34 percent to the end of April, according to an investor note reviewed by Reuters. In the same period, the S&P 500 stock index rose more than 12.7 percent and hedge funds on average gained about 4.6 percent, according to hedge fund tracking firm eVestment.
What Is A Hedge Fund? (Fool)
Hedge funds are supposed to make money for their investors regardless of market conditions. They can trace their roots back to a man called Alfred Winslow Jones who is regarded as the brainchild of this type of fund. AWJ reckoned that he could make money regardless of market conditions. His strategy involved buying undervalued shares and selling overvalued ones. He reckoned that this was a good way to make money regardless of whether the market went up or down. He believed that if the market rose, his pick of undervalued shares might rise faster. But if the market should fall, then his crop of overvalued shares might fall more heavily.
Donors Pledge More Than $4 Billion to Tackle Global Malnutrition (BusinessWeek)
Donors pledged as much as 2.7 billion pounds ($4.15 billion) to tackle global malnutrition at a summit in London, the U.K. government said. The pledges made at the Nutrition for Growth summit included 655 million pounds from the U.K. from 2013 to 2020, the government said on its website today. The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, or CIFF, which is funded by Chris Hohn’s hedge fund TCI, committed $787 million. “Today marks the start of a sustained financial and political commitment to ending under-nutrition within a generation,” said Jamie Cooper-Hohn, president and chief executive officer of CIFF.
Kames adds manager to fixed income team (InvestmentWeek)
Kames Capital has hired Scott Fleming as fund manager on its fixed income team to focus on exotic bond analysis. He will report to John McNeill and work closely with Colin Finlayson, focusing both on the existing government and corporate bond investments and broadening the potential investible universe. Fleming (pictured) joins from multi-asset hedge fund Nuvest Capital, where he was a fixed income portfolio manager. Previously he has worked at Mondrian Investment Partners, ABN Amro Bank and UBS Investment Bank.
Former Soros Adviser and Abe Critic to Enter Japanese Politics (BusinessWeek)
Takeshi Fujimaki, a former adviser to billionaire investor George Soros and critic of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic policies, today announced he will run in next month’s Japan parliamentary election. Fujimaki, a 63-year-old former banker, said he will campaign in the July 21 election from the Japan Restoration Party. He criticized Abe’s policy of pushing aggressive Bank of Japan monetary easing as a means to end deflation, saying it will exacerbate the country’s debt problems.
Carl Icahn is considering Oracle’s Mark Hurd to replace Michael Dell (TheInquirer)
CORPORATE RAIDER Carl Icahn reportedly is drawing up a shortlist of potential Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) CEO replacements for Michael Dell should his bid for the company be successful. Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management have made a bid to rival that of Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners in the high stakes fight over Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) and its board. Now it is being reported that Icahn has already started drawing up a list of candidates that he and Southeastern Asset Management will propose as replacements for Michael Dell as CEO of Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL). Icahn has previously warned that should his offer for Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) be accepted by the shareholders he would look to not only oust Michael Dell as CEO but replace the firm’s board of directors.
Meet The New York Hedge Funder Who Is Marrying A Swedish Princess (BusinessInsider)
New York-based hedge funder Christopher O’Neill is marrying Swedish princess Madeleine tomorrow in a ceremony at the Royal Palace chapel in Stockholm, the Associated Press reports. O’Neill, 38, is a partner and head of research at Noster Capital, a value investing hedge fund. He’s originally from London and holds a dual U.S.-U.K. citizenship. He graduated with his bachelor’s degree in international relations from Boston University. He holds an MBA from Columbia.
Sofia and Nick’s Hamptons fete (NYPost)
Sofia Vergara and her fiancé, Nick Loeb, hit the Hamptons this past weekend and were spotted at a party thrown at the house of hedge fund playboy and Mitt Romney backer Marc Leder. The couple sat at a table in the back yard chatting with former Gov. David Paterson, and billionaire Jeff Greene and his wife, Mei. A fellow partygoer tells us, “Sofia didn’t like the house music the DJ was playing and went to the booth asking him to play Pitbull. But with the loud music and her accent, he couldn’t understand what she was saying. After repeating herself a few times, the DJ said he had no clue who Pitbull is.”
