Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Is The Biggest Hedge Fund

Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater Is The Biggest Hedge Fund (Reuters)
According to a report from AR magazine, Bridgewater increased its assets by $15.3 billion last year, thanks largely to a 44.8 percent gain in its Pure Alpha Fund II. The Westport, Connecticut-based firm now oversees $58.9 billion. JP Morgan Asset Management stayed in second place with $45.5 billion, $7.1 billion more than a year earlier. And John Paulson’s Paulson & Co stayed in the number three spot with $36 billion, marking a $4 billion gain, the magazine reported. The biggest loser among the blue chip group was D.E. Shaw, which saw its assets shrink by about 40 percent, AR said.

Falcone allows ‘direct investments’ in LightSquad (Reuters)
Billionaire trader Philip Falcone is restructuring his hedge fund’s multibillion-dollar investment in LightSquared to make it easier to make “direct investments” in the upstart wireless telecommunications company.Falcone announced the restructuring on Friday in an email to his Harbinger Capital Partner investors. The email, which Reuters obtained, said the plan “will facilitate direct investments by existing and prospective investors in the master fund’s holdings in LightSquared and the management of such holdings.”

Paulson Closes Gap On Soros In Top 10 Hedge Funds (II Magazine)
Thanks to strong performance in 2010, Paulson has generated $32.2 billion gains since he founded his firm, Paulson & Co. in 1994, according to estimates from LCH Investments NV. This puts him less than $3 billion away from George Soros’s Quantum Endowment fund, whose various iterations have generated $35 billion in net gains since its 1973 inception.

NY City police pension fund OKs hedge fund stake (Reuters)
The board of New York City’s police pension fund has approved the first investment in a hedge fund by any of the city’s pension funds, the city comptroller said on Wednesday. Comptroller John Liu said the hedge fund investment will diversify the police pension fund’s assets. “We expect to initiate a hedge fund-of-funds program, which is to be followed by a series of direct investments in hedge funds,” he said in a statement.

Highbridge’s Islam Said to Quit in Second Departure From Fund This Month (Bloomberg)
Highbridge Capital Management LLC’s Munib Islam left the $27 billion hedge fund, the second portfolio manager to depart this month, according to two people familiar with the matter. Islam, who oversaw $100 million in European equities out of London, left the firm today, said one of the people who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Alec McAree, the global head of equities, will take over his duties, said the person.