Editor’s Note: Related Tickers: AngloGold Ashanti Limited (ADR) (NYSE:AU), Gleacher & Company Inc (NASDAQ:GLCH), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), ViaSat, Inc. (NASDAQ:VSAT), Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:MRVL)
Paulson’s Advantage fund stung by plunge in gold (Reuters)
Meet Britain’s wealthiest hedge fund chiefs: male, rich and Tory donors (The Guardian)
A secretive Tory party donor who made a fortune betting on the collapse of the Greek economy has been named the UK’s wealthiest hedge fund manager. Alan Howard, founder of Brevan Howard, has seen his personal fortune grow to £1.5bn, up from £1.4bn in 2012, to top the Sunday Times list of Britain’s 25 richest hedge fund managers for the second year in a row. Howard, the publicity-shy son of an engineer, is the 48th richest Briton, according to the list, and is friends with George Osborne. He is followed by fellow Tory donor Alexander Knaster, a Moscow-born US citizen who is based in London and heads Pamplona Capital Management, who has a personal fortune of £1.09bn.
Moscow targets hedge fund boss (Sydney Morning Herald)
Russia is seeking an arrest warrant for British hedge fund manager Bill Browder in a move that will escalate tension between Moscow, the US and Britain. Mr Browder’s company, Hermitage Capital Management, said it had received notice a Moscow court had been asked by Russia’s Interior Ministry to issue a warrant for his arrest in absentia for tax evasion. The fund manager is accused of ”stealing” shares in Gazprom and ”interfering” with the energy company’s strategic policies. In an embarrassing twist, the Moscow judge refused to issue the warrant, saying Mr Browder had not been given enough warning.
Group Backed by Activist Hedge Fund Reports 7.7% Stake in Gleacher (Wall Street Journal)
A group backed by the activist hedge fund Clinton Group reported a 7.7% stake in Gleacher & Company Inc (NASDAQ:GLCH) and released the names on a slate of 12 candidates for the board as a battle for control of the struggling company heats up. The nominees include Gleacher’s Chief Executive Officer Thomas J. Hughes as well as former Gleacher CEO Lee Fensterstock and two executives of the Clinton Group. In a securities filing on Thursday, Clinton Group said the nominees would “help create value” by executing a rapid turnaround plan for Gleacher that includes “redefining it as a publicly traded asset management firm with the capacity to generate a consistent source of revenue and profitability.”
JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) Among Clint Carlson’s +3% Yielders (Insider Monkey)
Carlson disclosed ownership of 1.3 million shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) in the filing, up slightly from three months earlier. One of the most popular financial stocks among hedge funds during Q4 (see more financial stocks hedge funds loved), the bank grew its earnings by 33% in the first quarter of 2013 versus a year earlier (although revenue growth was much lower). JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) trades at 8 times earnings, whether we use trailing results or analyst consensus for 2014, and with a P/B ratio of 0.9 it certainly looks like a candidate for value status to us. The dividend yield here is 3.1%.
Georgetown’s Business School Will Now Offer A Meditation Class Inspired By Hedge Fund God Ray Dalio (Business Insider)
It’s a well-known fact that hedge fund god Ray Dalio, who runs Bridgewater Associates, loves to meditate. In fact, he has attributed the practice to…
…his success as a hedge fund manager. Dalio is one of the world’s most successful hedge fund managers. Just last week, Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business said it would offer meditation as a class, according to Reuters’ James Saft.
David Einhorn, the hedge-fund manager who oversees $8.8 billion, relied on derivatives earlier this year to raise his bet on Marvell Technology Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:MRVL) without falling under regulations designed for corporate insiders. Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital Inc. increased its economic stake in Marvell to 12.4 percent from 9.7 percent by entering into total return swaps in January on about 12 million company shares, according to a regulatory filing last week. Einhorn was required to disclose the swaps because Marvell accelerated its stock repurchase program in December and January, reducing its shares outstanding and briefly pushing New York-based Greenlight’s ownership above 10 percent.
Eight Newedge hedge fund indices positive in March (HedgeWeek)
Eight of Newedge’s 11 hedge fund indices showed positive performance during March. The Newedge Trend Index increased 1.89 per cent in March, followed by the Newedge CTA Index, which gained 1.29 per cent. The Newedge Trend Index and Newedge CTA Index have risen 3.68 per cent and 2.87 per cent, respectively, for the year. The Newedge Short-Term Trading Index was up 0.80 per cent in March and 3.51 per cent for 2013.
ViaSat, Inc. (VSAT): Why Does Hedge Fund Manager Seth Klarman Own This Stock? (Insider Monkey)
ViaSat, Inc. (NASDAQ:VSAT) is a communications infrastructure, equipment, and services company that was added to Baupost Group’s holdings, indicated by their last 13-D filing. Baupost took an 11 million share position in ViaSat, approximately 25% of the shares outstanding. Traditionally Baupost is a value-oriented firm. The investment is somewhat striking, since ViaSat lost money over the past twelve months and forecasts are for it to do so again in FY13. Consensus estimates forecast earnings of $0.89 per share in FY14, and a P/E on FY14 earnings of over 50. The range of estimate for FY14 is very wide, with a low estimate of $0.07 and a high estimate of $2.14.
Onshore hedge fund servicing in Switzerland (HedgeWeek)
The opportunity to leverage onshore administration services for hedge fund managers is gathering momentum in Switzerland. And UBS Fund Services in Switzerland plans to be at the forefront, according to André Valente who heads up the business. This view is based on the premise that, despite regulatory changes, increasing interest for alternative investments will continue. And not just in hedge funds, but other “alternatives” as well. For example, as Switzerland moves its energy policy away from nuclear energy towards clean energy, this will likely create a number of private equity and infrastructure deals in the coming years.
Hedge Fund Cerberus Capital puts together a consortium to purchase gun company Freedom Group (HedgeCo.net)
Cerberus Capital made headlines last year when they announced that they would unload their ownership of Freedom Group Inc, the company that manufactured the Bushmaster rifle after it was used in the Sandy Hook shooting. The move was seen at the time as a symbolic gesture to satisfy the requests of the state pension funds which were pressuring the fund. The sale was announced with the goals to “sell our interests in Freedom Group, and we will then return that capital to our investors”.
Randi Weingarten’s Pension Veto (Wall Street Journal)
Public pension funds are frantically chasing higher yields to reduce their roughly $3 trillion in unfunded liabilities. But don’t tell that to Randi Weingarten, the teachers union el supremo, who is trying to strong-arm pension trustees not to invest in hedge funds or private-equity funds that support education reform. That’s the remarkable story that emerged this week as the American Federation of Teachers president tried to sandbag hedge fund investor Dan Loeb at a conference sponsored by the Council of Institutional Investors. CII had invited Mr. Loeb, who runs Third Point LLC, to talk about investment opportunities and corporate governance. Ms. Weingarten is an officer and board member of CII.
