Editor’s Note: Related Tickers: Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF), Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL), NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)
BP Capital’s T. Boone Pickens and three of his children have sued the fourth, accusing him of airing the family’s dirty laundry on his blog. Michael Pickens’ online adventure, “5 Days in Connecticut,” began as a chronicle of his battle with drug and alcohol addiction, but came to be filled with allegations of abuse, theft and addiction. According to the 58-year-old, the billionaire hedge fund manager routinely abused his wife and children. “Long, frightening, yelling and screaming ‘matches’ were common,” he wrote. “It was my father against us, always. He hated and despised all of us and we knew it. We needed to ‘run our lives in a business-like manner,’ he would say.”
Is China Headed for a Crash? Jim Chanos Has The Answer (Insider Monkey)
The main attraction of this year’s “Wine Country Conference” was Jim Chanos’s presentation on China. The conference, which was held in Sonoma, CA on 5th April 2013 covered an array of topics including China, monetary policies, resource constraints and growth. The speakers include think tanks like John P. Hussman, Ph.D., Michael Pettis, John Mauldin, Mike “Mish” Shedlock, Chris Martenson and Jim Chanos. Jim, a graduate of Yale from the batch of 1980, is the president and founder of Kynikos Associates, an American hedge fund well practiced at the art of short selling. Jim is known for his short positions in Enron and WorldCom before the companies collapsed. Also in 2010, Jim cautioned about the accelerating pace at which China is growing and said that this growth is not sustainable. He specifically questioned the growth of real estate, commercial real estate in particular and stated that China is heading for a crash.
Howard Is Wealthiest U.K. Fund Manager, Times Says (Bloomberg)
Alan Howard, co-founder of Brevan Howard Asset Management LLP, saw his personal fortune climb to 1.5 billion pounds ($2.3 billion) during the past year, keeping him at the top of the annual Sunday Times list of the wealthiest U.K. hedge fund managers. His net worth rose an estimated 100 million pounds in the past year, according to the Sunday Times, which will publish its full “Rich List” of the 1,000 wealthiest people and families in Britain and Ireland on April 22. Sixty-one hedge fund managers worth at least 75 million pounds were on the list. Brevan Howard’s $27.8 billion Master fund, a macro hedge fund that wagers on currencies, interest rates and commodities, earned its clients $800 million last year, LCH Investments NV estimated in a report last month.
Ex-Diamondback Fund Manager Todd Newman Seeks Leniency (Bloomberg)
Former Diamondback Capital Management LLC fund manager Todd Newman, facing sentencing May 2 for his role in a $72 million insider-trading scheme, asked for a lesser sentence than the 78-month maximum prison term sought by the U.S. court officials. Newman was convicted by a federal jury in Manhattan in December of one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and four counts of securities fraud for a scheme to trade on Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) using illicit tips provided by their analysts. U.S. probation officials recommended that Newman be sentenced to a prison term of 63 months to 78 months.
Teachers’ Union Watch List Includes AQR, Elliott, SAC, Tudor (FINalternatives)
The teachers’ union yesterday released a list of 33 investment managers with directors, managers, advisers or executives linked to three organizations the AFT says seeks to end defined-benefit pension plans for teachers and other public employees. In addition to Third Point, the watch list includes such heavy hitters as…
…Appaloosa Management, AQR Capital Management, Elliott Management, Icahn Enterprises, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, SAC Capital Advisors, Tiger Global Management and Tudor Investment Corp. The three organizations cited as opposed to defined-benefit plans are the Manhattan Institute, the Show-Me Institute and StudentsFirst.
Solaise doubles assets as clients eye smaller hedge funds (Reuters)
Solaise Capital, set up in late 2010 by former employees of Winton, Man Group’s flagship AHL fund and Aspect Capital, told Reuters that inflows from a pension fund client in December and further inflows this year have lifted its assets to around $165 million. That compares with the $86 million it ran at the end of November. Meanwhile Man Group has seen assets at its AHL computer-driven investment fund fall to $14.4 billion at the end of last year from $21 billion a year before, while Winton Capital, one of the world’s biggest funds, has also seen outflows.
Ken Heebner’s Capital Growth Management’s Small Cap Picks Include Herbalife Ltd. (HLF) (Insider Monkey)
Stenham Launches Credit, Healthcares Funds Of Funds (FINalternatives)
Stenham Asset Management has launched a pair of funds of hedge funds, focused on credit and healthcare. The two vehicles debuted on Jan. 1 and have produced positive returns on the year, Stenham said. The Credit Opportunities Fund is up 3.44% and the Healthcare Fund 7.48%. Tim Beck is the manager of the Credit Opportunities Fund, which will invest in between six and 10 underlying managers. It targets annualized returns of between 8% and 12%.
Hedge Fund ETFs Head-To-Head: QAI vs. MCRO (ETF Database)
While passive, index-based funds continue to reign supreme in terms of assets under management, investors have also started to tap into alternative asset classes available within the ETF universe in search of uncorrelated returns. Despite financial media headlines, hedge funds don’t necessarily strive to generate eye-popping absolute returns; instead, most hedge funds are designed to hedge, dampening volatility and providing diversification benefits to traditional stock-bond portfolios. Among the hedge fund ETFs available, the IQ Hedge Multi-Strategy Tracker (ETF) (NYSEARCA:QAI) and the IQ Hedge Macro Tracker ETF (NYSEARCA:MCRO) separate themselves by being the biggest funds in the space, boasting $375 million and $62 million in total assets, respectively, under management.
Rob Arnott: Most hedge funds disappoint (Fortune)
Hedge funds have been a bust. That’s how Robert Arnott, one of the nation’s most successful investment managers, sees it. That’s also the conclusion of a piece of research posted on his firm’s website this week. The research, which is titled “The Lure of Hedge Funds,” directly refutes one of the key claims hedge funds managers make when they try to attract investors. “There are some outstanding hedge funds, but they are considerably outnumbered by the multitudes of lousy ones,” says Arnott, who heads Research Affiliates.
