More big-name hedge funds nurse wounds from bond sell-off (FirstPost)
One of last year’s top-performing hedge fund managers, Deepak Narula, is suffering a reversal of fortune as the mortgage bonds that steered him to the top of the industry in 2012 are now delivering losses. His Metacapital Management’s roughly $1.5 billion flagship fund was down 5.66 percent for the year through June 14, according to an investor with knowledge of the numbers. The loss is particularly notable given the fund’s 41 percent gain last year. Narula’s fund is just one of many credit-oriented hedge funds that have seen gains posted earlier this year turn into losses in the wake of a ferocious sell-off in bonds sparked by fears the Federal Reserve could pull back from its easy money policies later this year.
Hedge Fund Glenview Capital Wants New Healthcare Board Of Directors (HedgeCo)
Hedge fund Glenview Capital Management LLC, which owns 14.6% of the common stock of Health Management Associates Inc (NYSE:HMA) today (25th) filed a preliminary Consent Solicitation Statement nominating eight industry leading candidates to replace the current Board of Directors. In an open letter to shareholders the company cited “significant room for improvement” and a “deficiency at both the Board and management level” as reasons for the move. Glenview said Health Management Associates Inc (NYSE:HMA) has “completed a lost decade through 2012? and has underperformed its peers over both the near and medium term.
Hedge Fund Finds Buyer for Manhattan’s Landmark Lehman Mansion (BusinessWeek)
A Manhattan mansion owned and restored by hedge fund Zimmer Lucas Capital LLC is under contract more than a year after it was put on the market. The buyer of the five-story townhouse at 7 W. 54th St. is a local firm that paid cash and is seeking to use it as office space, said Carrie Chiang, a residential broker with Corcoran Group who handled the sale. The property was first put on the market last May for $65 million and was relisted in December for $49.9 million. “It’s somebody who wants a signature building to be their office,” Chiang said in an interview, declining to disclose the sale price or the buyer.
Pine River Shorting Sony (Finalternatives)
Pine River Capital Management doesn’t appear to hold out much hope that Third Point’s Daniel Loeb will succeed in his activist campaign to transform Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE). The hedge fund is shorting the electronics giant’s shares, ValueWalk reports. Pine River opened its short before the beginning of the year, months before Loeb bought a large stake in the company and began pushing it to partially spin-off its entertainment division. Shareholder activism has not proven terribly successful in Japan, and Sony Corporation (ADR) (NYSE:SNE) seems cool to Loeb’s plans.
Texas hedge fund billionaire seeks California pension reform (Reuters)
Texas hedge fund billionaire John Arnold is taking his campaign to reform America’s public pension systems to California, pension reform groups and a spokesman for his foundation told Reuters. Arnold, the founder of Houston-based hedge fund Centaurus Advisors and a former trader at Enron, the defunct energy company, is looking to fund groups supporting ballot initiatives that would scale back what critics regard as overly lavish public employee pension deals.
O’Neill vs. Faber: Is China Liquidity Crunched? (CNBC)
Market veterans Marc Faber and Jim O’Neill — known as Dr. Doom and Mr. BRIC respectively — posted diametrically opposite views when CNBC asked if the Chinese liquidity crunch was real. Faber, the notoriously bearish author of “Gloom Boom & Report”, said he “completely disagreed” with O’Neill’s view that there was no liquidity shortage in the world’s second largest economy. The Shanghai Composite tumbled below the key 2,000 mark on Monday when the Chinese central bank refrained from pumping funds into the markets in order to ease liquidity concerns. The index pared losses on Tuesday on rumors that the central bank will hold a conference with regulators to address liquidity conditions, but still closed lower.
Carl Icahn Fires Back at Dell Committee (HereIsTheCity)
Last week, the activist investor proposed in a letter to shareholders that Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) undertake a tender offer for 1.1 billion shares at $14 each as an alternative to Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners’ proposal to take the computer maker private. “To me the company seems desperate because they keep obfuscating the facts,” he told CNBC. “They now say the $5.2 billion we are raising will not be enough to pay a tender offer of $14/share. The reason they give is that we will need the money to pay back the Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) debt that’s coming due. However the debt doesn’t come due for a year and a half.”
