Failed Bridgewater Associates Relocation to Stamford Cost State $16 Million (Patch)
Despite two years of courtship and promises of financial aid and tax incentives, the world’s largest hedge fund — Bridgewater Associates in Westport, has rebuffed state and local efforts to move its headquarters to Stamford. The hedge fund, founded by Greenwich resident Ray Dalio, manages $150 billion in assets from its Westport headquarters. On June 27, the firm announced it wouldn’t build a new $750 million headquarters on developer Building Land Technology’s (BLT) site in Stamford.
Nashville nonprofit uses hedge fund returns for world’s poor (Tennessean)
Karen Bruton believes capitalism can accomplish tremendous good. Not that she blindly trusts the morals of the free market, but rather, she says people can use money made from capitalistic endeavors to change the world for the better. She calls this kind of work “impact capitalism.” “I look at impact as an action item,” she said. “Do something. Don’t just think about it, do it.” That is the mindset behind her Nashville-based nonprofit, Just Hope International, which was funded nearly entirely with returns from a hedge fund, one of the most aggressive investment vehicles in today’s financial world.
Hedge Fund Pushes for American Apparel Sale (247WallSt)
The same hedge fund that forced the sale and breakup of Hostess Brands Inc. now aims to work the same trick on American Apparel Inc (NYSEMKT:APP). Monarch Alternative Capital is American Apparel’s leading bondholder and has been pushing for a sale of the company’s U.S. manufacturing plants and shipping the jobs overseas. Monarch also wants the company sold. Monarch may get what it wants, but it won’t happen soon. Last Friday, founder and ousted CEO of American Apparel, Dov Charney, borrowed enough shares in the company’s common stock to raise his stake from 27% to 43%. The lender of those shares was hedge fund Standard General, and late Wednesday Charney handed over the entire 43% of American Apparel stock to Standard General.
Coventry City owners Sisu found to have ‘seriously mismanaged’ club (TheGuardian)
Sisu, the hedge fund owners of Coventry City who moved the proud club to Northampton, have suffered total defeat in a high court judgment damning their “mismanagement” and a “rent-strike” they conducted to imperil the owners of the Ricoh Arena. In the action, Sisu made allegations that Coventry City Council and its officers behaved improperly when the council refinanced a loan to the arena operating company, ACL, in January 2013. Mr Justice Hickinbottom found that the council behaved properly throughout, but was prompted to buy out the loan partly because, in April 2012, Sisu had withheld rent due at the Ricoh in order to financially “distress” ACL and buy a half share of it “at a knockdown price”.
German hedge fund investors interested in broad range of strategies (Opalesque)
German fund allocators are looking at opportunities in a number of strategies, including corporate bonds and equities. That was the comment given by Ahmet Peker, who manages the fund of hedge funds at Deka Investment during the latest Opalesque Frankfurt Roundtable 2014. The Roundtable, sponsored by Eurex and tax and legal consultant WTS, took place in Frankfurt at the office of WTS. “This is a very difficult environment for fixed income strategies in general,” said Peker and added, “Some, like corporate bond selection strategies, can be interesting because they are market neutral.
Bienville Capital Readies an Argentina Investment Fund (InstitutionalInvestorsAlpha)
Ralph Reynolds, Cullen Thompson and William Stimpson, the co-founders of Bienville Capital Management in New York, are going full speed ahead with plans to launch an Argentinean investment fund, despite Argentina’s highly publicized debt repayment problems. As they see it, there are investment opportunities that might not wait. On June 16 the U. S. Supreme Court decreed that Argentina must honor a lower court ruling and pay off $1.5 billion to a subsidiary of Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp., Mark Brodsky‘s Aurelius Capital Management and Thomas Kempner’s Blue Angel fund for bonds that the country defaulted on in 2001 – the investors President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and many of her fellow Argentineans call the “vultures.”
Chairs: Squawk takes a stand (CNBC)
