Maverick Capital CEO Explains How He Founded His Hedge Fund At Age 28 (BusinessInsider)
Finance career site OneWire scored another great interview with one of the hedge fund world’s Tiger cubs-this time with Lee Ainslie, the rarely-interviewed head of Maverick Capital. In the video, Ainslie breaks down his career path – from discovering his passion for investing back in junior high, to earning an engineering degree, to working for the legendary hedge fund, Tiger Management, to founding his own hedge fund at only 28 years old.
Soros to Goldman Poised to Win on Crisis-Era Housing Bet (Bloomberg)
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS), JPMorgan Chase & Co (NYSE:JPM) and billionaire George Soros are poised for gains from a housing bet placed in the depths of the financial crisis. Essent Group Ltd., the Bermuda-based mortgage insurer that raised $500 million from a group including those backers in 2009, filed last week to sell shares in the first initial public offering of a home-loan guarantor in almost two decades. The industry is rebounding from record homeowner defaults that triggered payouts, forced almost half the companies out of the business and pushed some of the biggest survivors to the brink of default…
Steve Cohen seeks settlement for SAC (MalaysiaSun)
Hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen is crying “uncle” — Uncle Sam, that is. The embattled founder of behemoth hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors recently approached federal prosecutors about a sweeping settlement of its criminal case against the firm and its civil case against him, according to a report. The stakes are high for the 57-year-old investor — perhaps the best-known and most successful hedge fund manager in the country. Losing the criminal case — US Attorney Preet Bharara, in announcing the case in July, called SAC “a magnet for market cheaters” — could cripple the firm. The civ…
Former hedge fund manager John Tausche gets four and a half years in prison for fraud (Opalesque)
Sixty-two year-old hedge fund manager John C. Tausche was sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison in a federal penal colony after he was found guilty of participating in a $311m scheme to defraud his investors. A report by Philly.com said that Tausche and his co-accused, German national Helmut Keiner, ran the Oceanus Funds from his offices in Wichita, Kansas, and connived to convince investors that Keiner’s K1 hedge funds were making more money than they actually were.
GLG shuts EM special sits hedge fund (AsianInvestor)
GLG Partners has closed its emerging markets special situations fund less than a year after the exit of the firm’s EM co-heads. The strategy was down about 60% in 2012. A spokeswoman for UK-based Man Group, the parent of GLG, confirmed the fund’s closure but declined to provide further information. The GLG Emerging Markets Special Situations Fund had a focus on illiquid and private equity-style opportunities in emerging markets. Investors are said to have been subject to three-year lock-ups.
Long-term view of hedge fund returns (FT)
Sir, Dan McCrum’s long-term perspective on hedge fund performance (“Hedge funds and the post-Lehman equity rally”, Alphaville, Markets & Investing, September 18) shows that over a 20-year period the industry in aggregate has outperformed traditional asset classes such as equities and bonds. Figures from Imperial College’s Centre for Hedge Research show the industry has generated over 4 per cent per annum of “alpha” or performance above the market, after fees. Of course, during much shorter time periods the industry cannot always outperform every asset class, and Mr McCrum’s point about recent equities performance should be seen in that light.
How The Economic Machine Works by Ray Dalio (YouTube)
Hedge funds and private equity are thriving … thanks to pension funds (TheGuardian)
Five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and two years after the Occupy Wall Street protests erupted in Zuccotti Square, hedge funds and private equity funds are alive and well. This was not a foregone conclusion during the darkest days of fall 2008. Many critics were more than eager to write their obituaries, dismissing these alternative funds as simply a byproduct of the excesses that plagued an era now clearly drawing to an end. In the cold light of day, hedge funds and private equity funds would be revealed as the financial flim-flam artists that many doubters assumed them to be.
US Hedge Funds Dominating and Outpacing Peers (ai-CIO)
US-based hedge funds have outperformed the global benchmark so far this year, seeing an increase in assets of over $150 billion, according to Preqin. European funds, on the other hand, experienced a rise of only $33 billion in assets in 2013. The research found that US hedge funds recovered faster and grew stronger than other regions, managing over $508 billion in assets, or 65% of capital handled by hedge funds globally. Examining data from more than 2,700 US institutional investors and more than 3,200 fund managers, Preqin concluded that US hedge funds produced a net return of 13.54%, much higher than the global average return of 11.09%.
John Paulson goes long on Puerto Rico (FT)
John Paulson, the hedge fund manager who came to prominence betting against the US housing market before its crash, has taken another contrarian position, with an investment in Puerto Rico that he says could be the first of several in the island. The vote of confidence comes as the Puerto Rican government tries to reignite economic growth and stave off concerns about its creditworthiness. Paulson & Co took an 80 per cent stake in an upscale hotel and condominium complex outside the capital San Juan, in a bet that recent tax changes will lure rich financiers to the island.
Carl Icahn’s Bet On ‘Grand Theft Auto V’ Paying Off As Sales Top $1 Billion (Forbes)
Like many of America’s teens and twenty-somethings, legendary corporate raider Carl Icahn has been anxiously awaiting the release of Grand Theft Auto V. He may never buy an actual copy of the video game, and he likely doesn’t spend a whole lot of time on an Xbox 360, but few stand to gain more from the highly anticipated release last Tuesday from Rockstar Games than the corporate agitator and billionaire investing savant, who has a 12.6% stake in parent company Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) +1.35%.
Nouriel Roubini: it’s time to buy equities (AFR)
Nouriel Roubini, the New York University economics professor whose bearish view of the world economy has earned him the nickname Dr Doom, says investors should focus on equities as tapering of quantitative easing in the US is bad news for bonds and commodities. ”You probably want to be underweight in bonds, and overweight in equities, mainly in the US,” Professor Roubini said at IndexUniverse’s Inside Commodities conference. “Higher interest rates will be a negative for commodities prices.” He said the US is coming out of recession and bringing the world with it, but commodities would not recover in the short term, IndexUniverse.com reported.
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