Hedge Funds Hunting Clues in Treasury Tax-Inversion Limit (Bloomberg)
Tax lawyer Robert Wellen’s telephone keeps ringing with calls from hedge-fund executives he’s never met. They’re desperate for clues about the Treasury Department’s planned crackdown on corporate inversions, overseas mergers that cut companies’ U.S. tax payments. The barrage of out-of-the-blue queries in the past several weeks is unprecedented in his 40-year career, Wellen said.
Hedge Fund Wins Subpoena Fight With Merck (Finalternatives)
Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE:MRK) will have to answer a hedge fund’s questions, a federal judge ruled this week. U.S. Magistrate Judge Douglas Arpert in Trenton, N.J., ordered Merck to respond to a subpoena issued by BVF Partners, part of its lawsuit against Celera Corp. Celera has a royalty interest in an osteoporosis drug sold by Merck, Odanacatib. BVF, which runs the Biotechnology Value Fund, has sued Celera for allegedly undervaluing the company as part of its sale to Quest Diagnostics Inc (NYSE:DGX) in 2011…
AM Best argues Hedge Fund Re model can work (Trading-Risk)
AM Best said that the hedge fund reinsurance (HFR) model should succeed if executed properly, albeit with the potential for greater volatility than a traditional reinsurance strategy. The ratings agency said that it does not view such structures as new business models and analyses them using its existing reinsurance methodology. However, it stresses its modelling of investment returns for volatility and drawdowns beyond what the hedge fund sponsors have historically experienced. AM Best added that it monitors investment performance on…
Baupost Sold Out Of Espírito Santo Before Collapse (Finalternatives)
The Baupost Group rid itself of substantially all of its investment in Portugal’s collapsed Banco Espírito Santo before the bank went under earlier this month. The hedge fund had built up a 2.27% stake in BES by the beginning of July. The bank, which had been hit hard last year by news of financial irregularities, went into bankruptcy and was rescued by the European Union in early August, ensuring that shareholders will be wiped out. Baupost has dumped most of its stake days earlier, transferring a 2.15% stake to subsidiary Baros S.a.r.l., which in turn sold all of it on July 31—a day after BES announced a €3.5 billion loss.
Market body revises rules for sovereign defaults after Argentina row (Reuters)
Banks, investors and other users of bond markets have agreed to change how they would deal with defaulting government debt, removing the right of veto from holdouts to avoid a repetition of the fracas over Argentina. …The ICMA move comes a month after Argentina was pushed into default when a small group of U.S. hedge funds rejected the country’s 2005 and 2010 debt restructurings. “Our analysis is that this takes out a lot of the uncertainty surrounding sovereign default,” said Louis Gargour, chief investment officer at London-based hedge fund LNG Capital.
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