Citi: Global institutional hedge fund assets to double in five years (PIOnline)
Global institutional investments in hedge funds will jump 107% to $3.566 trillion by the end of 2018 from year-end 2013, a report from Citi Investor Services predicts. The report, which is the result of 138 interviews with hedge fund managers, investment consultants, asset owners and other investors, estimates total worldwide institutional hedge fund assets of $1.721 trillion at the end of 2013, a total of 4.5% of the worldwide institutional assets of $38.651 trillion. The predicted number of $3.566 trillion at year-end 2018 will account for 8% of the predicted worldwide institutional assets.
Activist hedge fund calls on IHG to consider takeover bid (FT)
Activist hedge fund Marcato Capital Management has revealed itself as one of InterContinental Hotels Group’s biggest shareholders and called on the group’s management to seriously consider a takeover bid. Marcato, a San Francisco-based activist fund that owns about 3.8 per cent of IHG, called on management to appoint advisers to look at a tie-up with a larger rival. The move by Marcato makes it the fifth-largest shareholder in IHG and comes after reports that the hotel group spurned a £6bn approach earlier this year.
To Get an A in Philanthropy Class, Give Away $50,000 (NYTimes)
Vinay Sridharan must make it through microeconomic theory and the writings of Proust before the end of his senior year at Northwestern in June. But in one course, the final project is far less abstract: give away $50,000. It is also far more difficult than it may seem. This course in philanthropy, endowed with a grant from a Texas hedge fund manager, requires students to find and investigate nonprofit organizations and, if they stand up to scrutiny, give them a portion of the five-figure cash pot.
Activist investor Casablanca may sue miner Cliffs in proxy fight (Reuters)
An activist investor trying to win control of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc (NYSE:CLF)‘s board said on Thursday it may take the mining company to court over a “proxy put” that could trigger a liquidity crisis. In a regulatory filing last week, Cliffs said it may be forced to repurchase its outstanding senior notes because of a change of control provision on the notes if all six of hedge fund Casablanca Capital’s nominees were elected to its board. Casablanca, which wants to replace Cliffs’ chief executive and separate the company’s U.S. assets from its international properties, said on Thursday that Cliffs could defuse the problem by approving its nominees “not as an endorsement, but merely for the narrow purpose of not triggering the proxy put.”
Greywolf Posts Strong Gains with Net Short Stance (InstitutionalInvestorsAlpha)
One of the best-performing hedge funds so far this year is net short. The $1 billion Greywolf Capital Overseas Fund, managed by Purchase, New York-based Greywolf Capital Management, posted a 9.5 percent gain in the first quarter and was up more than 12 percent through the end of April. At the end of the first quarter, the event-driven fund was 91 percent long and 137 percent short. Even its event-driven equity portfolio was just 9 percent net long, according to its first-quarter report, obtained by Alpha. Greywolf, which also manages $2.1 billion in CLO (collateralized loan obligation) strategies, was founded in 2003 by Jonathan Savitz and James Gillespie…
Is George Soros Trying to Spark a Japan Rally? (BloombergView)
Takahiro Mitani finds himself between George Soros and a hard place. Mitani is Japan’s $1.26 trillion man. The Government Pension Investment Fund that he runs tops Mexico’s annual output and dwarfs the Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds that investors are always cooing about. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants the notoriously conservative fund to crank up returns by putting more money in stocks — with an unlikely assist from billionaire Soros. In January, the world’s most famous short seller chatted with Abe at Davos, urging him to nudge the pension colossus into the 21st century…
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