Editor’s Note: Related tickers: UBS AG (USA) (NYSE:UBS), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS), Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS), Groupon Inc (NASDAQ:GRPN), J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP), Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF), Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (NYSEARCA:GDX), BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK)
Hedge Fund Managers Rake In Billions Yet Can’t Beat A Simple Index Fund (Huffington Post)
Wall St. Vet Langbert Joins Englander’s MA&PS (FINalternatives)
Millennium Management chief Israel Englander’s Managed Accounts and Prime Services division has tapped Wall Street vet Brett Langbert as managing director. Langbert, who just last year became president and COO of HedgeCo Networks and president of HedgeCo Securities, has also worked at UBS AG (USA) (NYSE:UBS), Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) and Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS).
FX Concepts’ Taylor Says Yen’s Decline May Reach 130 Per Dollar (Bloomberg)
The yen may drop to 130 to the dollar before paring losses, according to John Taylor, founder and chief executive officer of the currency hedge fund FX Concepts LLC. Unprecedented stimulus measures announced by the Bank of Japan under Governor Haruhiko Kuroda on April 4 will continue to devalue the currency for the next few months, New York-based Taylor said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Market Makers” with Erik Schatzker and Sara Eisen. The yen will probably stabilize and strengthen back to parity with the dollar by September, Taylor said.
Sharp gold sell off caught many funds off-guard: Burbank (Reuters)
Hedge fund manager John Burbank, a long-time investor in gold, said the recent sharp selloff in the precious metal came as a surprise to many investors as some economic improvement and a general decline in commodity prices took their toll. The San Francisco-based manager called last week’s dramatic decline an “unexpected event” that caught some hedge funds off guard because they were betting that inflation would rise at a time global central banks are sticking to easy monetary policy.
Citadel CEO Ken Griffin’s pay nears 10 figures (Crain’s Chicago Business)
Kenneth Griffin, head of Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel LLC, had a good 2012 — his payday totaled $900 million, according to the New York Times’ DealBook blog. DealBook notes that amid continued criticism of Wall Street titans’ compensation and bonuses, Mr. Griffin is among hedge-fund leaders who “earned their riches the old-fashioned way: by posting big returns on their investments.”
SAC Sued By Drug Co. Investors In Insider-Trading Case (FINalternatives)
An investor in one of the drug companies whose shares were allegedly traded illegally by SAC Capital Advisors has sued the hedge fund. The Birmingham Retirement & Relief System suit, filed in Manhattan federal court on Friday, seeks class-action status, alleging that SAC’s trades hurt Wyeth LLC’s shares. BR&RS is an investor in the pharmaceutical company. Former SAC portfolio manager Mathew Martoma has been accused of trading on confidential information about a Wyeth and Elan Corp. Alzheimer’s drug trial, saving SAC some $276 million.
3D Systems Corporation (DDD), Groupon Inc (GRPN), Pandora Media Inc (P) & More: Hedge Fund Tiger Global’s Small Cap Picks(Insider Monkey)
Tiger Global was founded by several former employees of legendary investor Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management. We track its quarterly 13F filings alongside those of many other hedge funds and other notable investors, and have found that the most popular small cap stocks among the filers we track outperform the S&P 500 by 18 percentage points per year on average. Tiger Global had 
Credit: Groupon Inc (NASDAQ:GRPN)
Hedge fund manager Paulson to start fund for tax reduction (LifeHealthPro)
Legendary hedge fund manager John Paulson, who made an estimated $15 billion for investors by shorting the real estate market before its 2008 crash, is starting a fund to help investors reduce their tax bill. Tax reduction strategies have been a focus for Paulson of late, and he recently considered…
…a move to Puerto Rico to lower his personal tax liability. Bloomberg reports Paulson’s firm “invited prospective clients to an April 24 event at Paulson & Co.’s New York offices, where the 57-year-old founder will talk about the Paulson Partners Premium LP Fund, described as a risk-arbitrage fund for investors looking to mitigate income taxes.”
SAC Capital’s Steven Cohen Had a Profitable 2012 (Businessweek)
The annual ranking of the highest-earning hedge fund managers for 2012 reveals at least two intriguing truths: First, running a large fund, and raking in billions in fees, seems to be as effective a way of making money as earning market-beating returns for one’s investors. And second, in spite of the intense heat of a multi-agency government insider-trading investigation, SAC Capital Advisors’ Steven Cohen is continuing to make a tremendous amount of money. At No. 1 sits David Tepper of Appaloosa Management, with $2.2 billion; Raymond Dalio of Bridgewater Associates is second with $1.7 billion; and Cohen is third, at $1.4 billion. Rounding out the top five are James Simons of Renaissance Technologies, with $1.1 billion, and Ken Griffin, the founder of Citadel, at $900 million.
Global Hedge Fund Assets Top $2.2 Trillion As The Big Firms Dominate (PressReleaseNetwork.com)
Global hedge fund assets top $2.2 trillion as the big firms dominate. Assets in global hedge funds continued to grow in 2012 on the back of solid average fund performance across the industry last year and new inflows from investors worldwide, according to the latest research from leading industry information provider HedgeFund Intelligence (HFI). In the newly-published Spring 2013 issue of its bi-annual Global Review, HedgeFund Intelligence reports that assets in hedge funds of traditional types – which are mostly domiciled offshore or structured as limited partnerships in the US – reached $2.208 trillion (including parallel onshore versions) at the end of 2012.
Einhorn Could Have a Mining ETF Problem (Benzinga)
Ascalon Gets New Top Man In Australia (FINalternatives)
Jason Collins has left the firm to join BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK), where he will start as head of institutional client business in Australia on April 22. Collins had served as head of Ascalon’s Australian arm. In his place will be Robert Lance, Ascalon’s new head of Australia.
Rothschild seeks to buy U.S. fund of funds businesss (Reuters)
Rothschild is looking to double the size of its fund of hedge funds business via a U.S. acquisition to give it the scale it needs to flourish in an industry now dominated by a handful of big players. Rothschild made its first push into the business last year when it bought fund of funds company HDF Finance for an undisclosed amount. It now has 5 to 6 billion euros ($6.54-7.85 billion) under management in its hedge fund business, including a small presence in New York-based funds of funds. “If you look at the U.S. fund of hedge fund business it’s fairly concentrated,” Jean-Louis Laurens, the chief executive of Rothschild’s asset management arm, said in an interview on Monday.
