Cooperman’s Lawyer Says He Faced Parallel Criminal Inquiry (Bloomberg)
Billionaire Leon Cooperman invoked his Fifth-Amendment right against self-incrimination while the SEC was investigating him for insider trading because his lawyer disclosed that the hedge-fund manager faced a parallel criminal probe by the U.S. At a hearing Tuesday, Cooperman was in federal court in Philadelphia asking for the suit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to be dismissed. An SEC lawyer said that Cooperman had refused to be questioned by regulators before they filed their insider-trading complaint last year. Cooperman’s lawyer Ted Wells said Cooperman had been merely following his instructions.
Board Revised as Perrigo Settles With Activist Investor Starboard (TheStreet)
Pharmaceutical company Perrigo (PRGO) has settled with activist investor Starboard Value, agreeing to install Starboard CEO Jeffrey Smith and two others to the board. Starboard will also recommend two additional directors. The agreement, announced Tuesday, also includes certain customary standstill restrictions. Shares of Perrigo were trading at $78.40 on Tuesday morning, up 0.4%. Smith, along Advent International operating partner Bradley Alford and Lux Capital venture partner Jeffrey Kindler, are joining Perrigo’s board effective immediately.
Elliott Misfires on Arconic, But It’s Not Wrong (BloombergGadfly)
Elliott Management Corp. may have fumbled on its campaign against aluminum-parts maker Arconic Inc., but CEO Klaus Kleinfeld still has some explaining to do. Arconic split from its mining and smelting business (now Alcoa Corp.) last year, a move Elliott backed. But the activist hedge fund said on Jan. 31 it was nominating five candidates to Arconic’s board and calling for Kleinfeld to be replaced with a CEO better suited to cut costs. Elliott estimated Arconic’s stock could rise to “at least” $33 to $54 a share, from the roughly $23 it commanded at the time.
Hedge Fund Arrowgrass Loans Margate’s Dreamland An Extra £5m (BBC)
Margate’s troubled Dreamland amusement park is borrowing a further £5m, increasing its loan from an offshore hedge fund to £15m. Arrowgrass initially agreed to a £600,000 loan in May 2016. Its investment was increased to £10m in January, with administrators Duff and Phelps saying the money would be used to get the park ready for sale. Dreamland’s interim financial director Steven Mitchell said the company wanted to “create a sustainable business”. The investment will be used for “new park rides and the restoration of existing ones”, as well as “major upgrades” to indoor and outdoor event spaces.
Perry Capital’s Westhus Begins Plans for Distressed Fund (Bloomberg)
Todd Westhus, one of the top money managers at Perry Capital, is in the preliminary stages of starting his own hedge fund, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The new fund, which will focus on investing in distressed assets, will be co-founded by Doreen Mochrie, another partner at Perry who oversees investor relations, the people said. Westhus, who sat on the investment committee at Perry, is planning to start the fund in early 2018, they said. Westhus declined to comment on the plans. Perry, the event-driven hedge fund firm run by Richard Perry, said in September it would wind down its flagship fund after 28 years, citing industry and market headwinds.
A Quiet Giant of Investing Weighs In on Trump (The New York Times)
He is the most successful and influential investor you have probably never heard of. His writings are so coveted and followed by Wall Street that a used copy of a book he wrote several decades ago about investing starts at $795 on Amazon, and a new copy sells for as much as $3,500. Perhaps that’s why a private letter he wrote to his investors a little over two weeks ago about investing during the age of President Trump — and offering his thoughts on the current state of the hedge fund industry — has quietly become the most sought-after reading material on Wall Street. He is Seth A. Klarman, the 59-year-old value investor who runs Baupost Group, which manages some $30 billion.
A Secretive Hedge Fund Firm That Has Legendary Status On Wall Street Is Attracting New Money (Business Insider)
A strategy run by Renaissance Technologies, the secretive multibillion hedge fund firm, is attracting fresh money. The firm’s Renaissance Institutional Equity Fund (RIEF) grew by about $4 billion in 2016, ending the year with $14.9 billion after starting 2016 with about $10.9 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person declined to be named because the information is private. To be sure, most of that increase is from performance, as the fund returned 21.5% last year, equal to about $2.35 billion in gains. Still, a rough calculation shows that the fund probably took in about $1.6 billion in new money in 2016.
