B.C. fund of hedge funds strives for 10 per cent returns (TheGlobeAndMail)
Ari Shiff, founder of alternative investment firm Inflection Management Inc., likens good hedge funds to gut bacteria that digest problems such as the subprime-mortgage crisis. You may not like their volatility, but they buy assets in a way that can support economic health. Not all bacteria are good for you, though, and for the Vancouver-based head of one of the few for-Canadians-by-Canadians funds that invest in global hedge funds, the challenge of identifying the right investment strategies, managers and regions is matched in difficulty by knowing exactly when to deploy capital.
Former Soros Employee Starts Hong Kong-Based Hedge Fund Company (SFGate)
Zhang Xinliang, a former employee of billionaire investor George Soros’s family office, started his own Hong Kong-based hedge-fund company, Magnolia Capital Management Ltd. Magnolia was licensed by the city’s Securities and Futures Commission on April 18, according to information posted on the regulator’s website. Zhang, also known as Nick Zhang, was licensed by the regulator as a representative of Soros Fund Management LLC’s Hong Kong office between January 2011 and December 2012. Soros Fund Management oversaw $24 billion earlier this year. Zhang worked for Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE:GS) before Soros Fund Management, according to his licensing record.
New EU rules may attract hedge funds -regulator (Reuters)
One of Europe’s top regulators has some good news for the hedge fund industry; pay curbs are not on the agenda. While they will avoid the caps on bonuses facing bankers, Europe’s hedge fund managers can still expect restrictions on the manner and timing of their pay under new regulations coming into force on Monday. The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD) is the European Union’s attempt to help protect investors and Gareth Murphy, a former hedge fund manager and equity derivatives trader with JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM), is one of the key figures behind it.
Is the Government About to Move the Goal Posts on Steve Cohen? (BusinessWeek)
Government investigators have been scrambling through the heat wave to make decisions about whether to bring securities fraud charges against a certain billionaire hedge fund owner based in Greenwich, Conn. The assumption had been that prosecutors had five years to charge said hedge fund owner, SAC Capital founder Steven Cohen, for trades that took place in July 2008 in Elan (ELN) and Wyeth (WYE), which form the basis of an insider trading case that was filed last November against former SAC portfolio manager Mathew Martoma, or for August 2008 trades in Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) that the government alleges were based on inside information. Cohen has not been charged, and he had been feeling that by the end of this summer, the worst of the legal threats against him would be over, according to a person familiar with his thinking.
Roddy Boyd exposes a hedge-fund fraud (CJR)
Roddy Boyd has the business read of the week with his dynamite investigation into Anthony Davian, the social-media loving hedge-fund manager of Akron. Supposed hedge-fund manager, that is—Boyd’s piece exposes him as a fraud. Anthony Davian claimed to manage $200 million through Davian Capital and also claimed his newsletter, the Davian Letter, took in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. Both claims were false. Davian apparently managed no more than a couple million bucks and the newsletter made a max of $30,000, Boyd reports. …It’s a helluva story, deeply reported. We’ve got a self-promoting phony, gullible investors, a CFO prohibited from seeing the fund’s bank statements, Jimmy Carter’s son, employees wearing wires, the federales swooping in, and an apparent suicide attempt by Davian.
‘Prime Minister for Benson & Hedge fund’ (TheSun)
DAVID Cameron was yesterday branded “the Prime Minister for Benson and Hedge funds” over his election guru’s links to tobacco firms. Labour leader Ed Miliband demanded a Whitehall probe into whether spin doctor Lynton Crosby lobbied the PM to ditch a plain cigarette packs plan. Among the clients of Mr Crosby’s own lobbying firm are cigarette giant Philip Morris International Inc. (NYSE:PM). In the Commons yesterday, Mr Miliband asked Mr Cameron: “Can’t you see that there is a devastating conflict of interest between having your key adviser raking it in from big tobacco and then advising you not to go ahead with plain packaging?”
Dell’s future hangs on looming shareholder vote (USAToday)
The fate of PC manufacturer Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) as a public company bidding to go private is near some kind of resolution. Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) hareholders are scheduled to vote Thursday on a sale of the company to an investment group including founder and CEO Michael Dell. But last-minute offers and other efforts by critics of the deal could derail the shareholder meeting. Michael Dell and Silver Lake Partners investing partners are offering to take the company private for $13.65 per share, or $24.4 billion. But so far, billionaire investor Carl Icahn, a vocal critic of the offer, has refused to drop his counteroffer. The outcome is far from certain, experts say. On Monday, brokerage and shareholder T. Rowe Price voiced its opposition to Michael Dell’s offer. At the urging of Icahn, some shareholders are grousing that the offer undervalues Dell Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL), hinting that they might balk at the vote in hopes of getting CEO Dell and his group to sweeten the bid.
