Iron Mountain’s Biggest Shareholder Backs Activist Investor (WSJ)
Davis Advisors, the largest shareholder of document-storage company Iron Mountain Inc., plans to support activist investor Elliott Management Corp.’s four board nominees. Davis Advisors, a Tuscon, Ariz.-based money manager, owns around one-fifth of Iron Mountain, which has a market capitalization of about $6 billion. Boston-based Iron Mountain stores and archives business documents and other data for corporate clients, much of it in warehouses. Earlier this month, Elliott made public a campaign to pressure Iron Mountain to convert itself into a real-estate investment trust.
Japan Equity ETFs post record $1.2 bln weekly inflow (Reuters)
Japan-focused equity exchange traded funds (ETFs) received a record net inflow of $1.2 billion in the week ended March 18, as investors scrambled to take advantage of a stunning decline in the country’s share market following a massive earthquake, tsunami and nuclear scare. The ETFs took in $700 million on March 16 alone, the biggest one-day inflow and twice the size of the previous record set in 2003, according to data from fund tracker TrimTabs. The positive flow continued this week with Japan ETFs attracting $148.4 million on March 21, according to Minyi Chen, Asia equity analyst at TrimTabs.
Swiss Hedge Capital Launches First Swiss-Regulated Hedge Fund (FinAlternatives)
Switzerland has its first regulated onshore hedge fund: Swiss Hedge Capital has launched a long/short equity fund based on its flagship Granada Europe Fund domiciled in its home country and regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority. Swiss Hedge said that the Granada fund, which was born along with the firm in 2004, fits the bill for a Finma-regulated vehicle because it employs “a simple vanilla equity long/short strategy with no leverage,” fund manager Gerhard Schreiber told Hedge Funds Review. Schreiber added that a UCITS-III compliant version of the fund will likely debut later this year.
Ex-Fund Manager Charged in SEC Death Threats Blames Retaliation for Plight (Bloomberg)
For Vincent P. McCrudden, the former hedge-fund manager charged with threatening to kill financial regulators including U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary L. Schapiro, his prosecution is the culmination of a decade-long government vendetta. McCrudden was arrested Jan. 13 on charges he used profanity-filled e-mails and Web posts to threaten 47 current and former officials of the SEC, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the National Futures Association and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. According to him, he is being persecuted for fighting back against unfair regulatory actions that destroyed his career.
Malkiel’s AlphaShares Spins Off China Funds as Baochuan Capital (Bloomberg)
AlphaShares LLC, the index creator and fund manager that invests in Chinese stocks co-founded by Princeton University economist Burton Malkiel, sold its investment unit to the company’s executives. Baochuan Capital Management LLC will oversee hedge funds that invest in the world’s most populous nation, while AlphaShares will continue creating and licensing indexes for exchange-traded funds, according to Kevin Carter, a co-founder AlphaShares who will be Baochuan’s CEO. Malkiel will be Baochuan’s chief investment officer and chairman of the AlphaShares Index Committee. The firms, which together manage $600 million and are both based in Walnut Creek, California, didn’t disclose terms. “The separation lets AlphaShares focus on developing better China indices, primarily for ETFs, while letting BaoCap focus on active investment strategies for institutional investors,” Carter, 41, who co-founded the firm with Malkiel in 2007, said.