John Paulson, the hedge fund manager who made billions betting against the U.S. mortgage market in 2007, has found something new to bet against. Paulson told investors on a recent conference call that he is betting against European sovereign debt, citing fears about the over-dependence of Spanish banks on support from the European Central Bank, according to Bloomberg News.
Maverick Capital Places Investment in Start Up Fund (ValueWalk)
Maverick Capital Management LP is a $9 billion investment firm run by Lee Ainslie has announced that they have made their first seeding investment in a hedge fund start up. Sycamore Lane Partners said they received capital from Maverick Capital and it has allowed the fund to open up a long/short value fund which began trading on April 2nd.
The actually investment is unknown but sources say that it is a “significant capital contributions with extended lock through 2015”. However, from a filing back in July we are able to determine that Maverick had set aside $22 million with a seeding vehicle.
CitiGroup’s Chief Rebuffed on Pay by Shareholder (NYTimes)
In a stinging rebuke, Citigroup shareholders rebuffed on Tuesday the bank’s $15 million pay package for its chief executive, Vikram S. Pandit, marking the first time that stock owners have united in opposition to outsized compensation at a financial giant.
The shareholder vote, which comes amid a rising national debate over income inequality, suggests that anger over pay for chief executives has spread from Occupy Wall Street to wealthy institutional investors like pension fund and mutual fund managers. About 55 percent of the shareholders voting were against the plan, which laid out compensation for the bank’s five top executives, including Mr. Pandit.
Bacon’s Spinoffs Falter as Mikheev Said to Liquidate Fund (BusinessWeek)
Louis Moore Bacon built Moore Capital Management LLC into one of the biggest and most successful hedge funds over more than two decades. His record investing in startups run by former traders is less stellar.
Salute Capital Management, run by Lev Mikheev, is the third hedge fund backed by Moore and run by one of his ex-traders to liquidate in the past four months. Mikheev returned to Moore two weeks ago after his two-year-old fund lost 11 percent last year, said a person with knowledge of the matter, asking not to be named because the information is private.
Crooked hedge fund manager known as ‘mini-Madoff’ dies in prison (DailyMail)
Arthur Nadel, a former Florida fund manager dubbed a “mini-Madoff” for defrauding investors out of $168 million, has died in prison at the age of 80, a spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Prisons said on Tuesday.
Although the cause of death has not been given, Nadel was already in poor health when he was sentenced to serve 14-years in October 2010 after pleading guilty in a federal court in Manhattan.
Incarcerated at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina for embezzling $168 million, Nadel had battled heart problems since his early 70’s and was admitted to the prison hospice unit last week.
Hedge fund chief faces FSA fine of £1.25m (FT)
UK regulators are seeking to ban and fine a Swiss-based hedge fund manager £1.25m, alleging that he placed improper trades that pushed up the share prices of several of his holdings and boosted his fund’s reported value and his performance fees.
Stefan Chaligné, who ran the €95m Iviron hedge fund, made large purchases of five European and two US equities in the final minutes of trading on December 31, 2007, boosting the fund’s reported value by €2.7m and his performance fees for that year by €360,000, according to evidence submitted to the tribunal where he is appealing the FSA’s proposed fine. In the case of two companies, the purchases accounted for more than 80 per cent of that day’s total volume in those shares
Revealed : The Most Influential Hedge Fund Manager In The World (BusinessInsider)
TIME Magazine has released their list of the 100 most influential people in the world, and we really weren’t too surprised to find Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater—one of the most successful hedge funds in the world—and newly minted King of Hedge Funds, on the list.
Ten Hedge Fund Asset-Raising Trends in the First Quarter (EFinancialNews)
While the hedge fund industry enjoyed its best performance start to the year since 2006, it was also raising fresh capital. Investors poured a net $28.9bn into hedge funds in the first quarter, according to eVestment|HFN, a data provider.
Here are 10 asset-raising trends that its latest report identifies:
1. Performance boosts industry assets
Against a backdrop of rising equity markets, hedge funds gained an average of 4.6% in the first three months of 2012, the industry’s best start to a year since 2006. Alongside net new money, performance added an additional $62.8bn, resulting in total industry assets rising 3.7%, or $89.1bn, to $2.548 trillion in the first quarter.
Swiss hedge fund manager plans systematic strategy for third quarter (HedgeFundsReview)
Rialto Capital, a Swiss hedge fund founded by ex-Man Investments’ Gerard Sanz, is planning a systematic fund launch for Q3. It already runs a global macro fund and has plans to double assets in 2012.
Swiss hedge fund manager Rialto Capital is planning its second launch, the Rialto Systematic Fund, for the third quarter of 2012.
The management company, founded by Gerard Sanz, who previously worked in hedge fund sales at Man Investments, launched the Rialto Global Macro fund in the third quarter of 2011 with €1 million ($1.3 million). It now has total assets under management (AUM) of €4 million ($5.23 million).
Warren Buffett News (Insider Monkey)
