hedge fund managers

Charlie Gasparino: SAC Capital Busting Its Ass To Prevent Redemptions

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According to Fox Business reporter Chaz Gasparino, the hedge fund has been working overtime to convince investors ahead of the February 15 deadline for submitting redemption notices to stick with Steve. With a moderately to majorly amazing sales pitch: Read more »

Someone Other Than Steve Cohen Is Facing An Insider Trading Investigation

By Jon Shazar

Nobody’s trying to put Paul Singer in jail—yet—but the Elliott Management chief has had to disclose an insider-trading probe to his investors. Read more »

UK Hedge Fund Manager’s Chickens To Maintain The Lifestyle They’ve Grown Accustomed To In 2013

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What motivates a hedge fund manager to continue busting his ass to churn out profits year after year, once he’s already amassed a fortune most people can’t even fathom, when he could easily pack it all in and live more than comfortably without ever working another day? For some, it’s the thrill. For others, it’s the trophy’s wife’s shoe habit. For Crispin Odey, it’s the chickens.

The Odey Asset Management founder (and sausage brand ambassador)’s got a mess of high-maintenance ones and earlier this year, had architects draft blueprints of a “Palladian-style” mansion he intended to build them (seen at left), replete with a grey zinc roof, “pediments, cornice, architrave, and frieze in English oak,” and columns “hewn from the finest grey Forest of Dean standstone.” After finishing 2011 down 20.3%, things were no doubt more than a little tense over in Herefordshire, where questions of whether or not construction would have to be halted, or if they’d have to make the switch to [whispers] generic-brand feed. Certainly a moment of panic swept over Odey each day when he returned home, wondering as he turned the knob if he’d be entering an empty house, the chickens gone and a note explaining they couldn’t do this anymore on the fridge. Ran off with the general contractor because what was the point of shacking up with a money manger if the money wasn’t there? Luckily for all parties involved, it won’t have to come to that; according to Bloomberg Markets’ annual ranking of the top performing hedge funds, performing under pressure is one of Odey’s specialities. Read more »

Bill Ackman Does Not Act, Bill Ackman Feels Deeply (And Does Not Appreciate The Insinuation Otherwise, THANK YOU VERY MUCH)

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As we have discussed at length, when it comes to the art of regulating one’s emotions while investing, there are two models to choose from: The Dead Inside paradigm, wherein you remain calm, cool, and collected, maintaining the same expression on your face whether you’ve lost $1 billion on one trade or made three times that much on another; and The Bill Ackman. The mega-successful Pershing Square founder imbues emotion in everything he does, particularly when it comes to his job. As a man who wears his heart on his sleeve, in the past Ackman has been known to: cry at shareholder meetings; get extremely heated to the point of his face becoming “flushed,” his eyes “misty” when meeting with SEC investigators; pen “long, emotional, late-night missives” to top SEC brass; and erupt on directors of companies with such passion that his “furious outburst” could be “heard in an outside hallway.”

As there are few on Wall Street who exhibit such raw emotion while conducting business, and there is a propensity by some to employ tactics that will put them in the power position when facing foes, perhaps it should not come as too much of a shock that recently, a reporter asked Ackman whether or not the waterworks or displays of indignation are pre-planned, in front of a mirror. For those who’ve long known Ackman has more integrity in one salty tear than most have in their entire body, his answer will not come as a shock, but to set the record straight, for anyone holding out hope of seeing him do a little regional theater at some point in the future: Read more »

Kleinhenz Capital Shuttering Leaves Void In The “Hedge Fund Managers Who Have No Qualms About Driving Their Adversary’s Kia Sorento Into A Pond” Field

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Last Friday, Bloomberg reported that Kleinheinz Capital Partners had written investors to inform them that the firm would be closing up shop, on account of founder John Kleinheinz no longer “enjoying running running the fund” as much as he used to. And while JK is certainly not the first hedge fund manager to throw in the towel or to blame “central bank and government intervention for reducing volatility and making macro investing more difficult,” and there are obviously enough people left in the industry to manage people’s money, this particular account of calling it quits should leave you slightly misty-eyed, for one reason: the hedge fund community has lost the guy that did this (and, noting the less than apologetic apology, would do it again?): Read more »

Don’t Count Out John Paulson Just Yet

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Yes, he’s on track to record another annus fucking horribilis, but he’s still got another 19 trading days to turn this thing around. Anything could happen. Read more »

  • 26 Nov 2012 at 1:57 PM
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Mathew Martoma Will Be Unable To Make The SAC Capital Holiday Party This Year

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Former SAC Capital Advisors LP portfolio manager Mathew Martoma, charged in what prosecutors called the biggest-ever insider trading case, appeared in federal court in New York…He was arrested at his Boca Raton, Florida, home Nov. 20 and freed on $5 million bond. He appeared today before U.S. Magistrate Judge James Cott in Manhattan. The defense and prosecution today agreed to a modified bail package under which the $5 million bond must be secured by $2 million in cash or property, as well as signatures from three instead of two financially responsible people. Martoma has surrendered his and his children’s travel documents. He’s limited to Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey and parts of New York. [Bloomberg]

  • 21 Nov 2012 at 12:34 PM

Area Nonpartisan Hedge Fund Manager Still Working Out How People Could Cast Their Vote For President Based On A Little Rain

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“For years I kept these memos away from anything related to politics. But more recently I began to discuss issues facing the United States, and this has required some mention of policy and thus of politics. I’ve tried very hard to be non-partisan, with a goal of not having readers know my leanings…Because I found America’s recent presidential election – and especially the results – so fascinating, I’m going to move explicitly to the field of politics, but with the same goal of non-partisan expression…If you believe the exit polls, people who were positively influenced by the handling of Sandy could have made up all or more of Obama’s 2.8% margin of victory. If it’s true that Sandy was the deciding factor for 15% of the electorate, and if it caused just a fifth of those people to switch to Obama, that means without Sandy, Romney would have won. I find it shocking that the choice of a president for four years could turn on something as fickle as the weather.” [Howard Marks]

  • 20 Nov 2012 at 3:31 PM

German Hedge Fund Manager Who Fled To South America And Lived Under An Assumed Name For 5 Years To “Find Meaning” In His Life Has Learned A Few Things

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The bits of wisdom Florian Homm picked up during his stay in Colombia, where he was getting some “me time” and not trying to distance himself from angry investors whose money he’d lost, can be found in the book he wrote about living underground (“Kopf Geld Jagd”), which he hopes will be a “hard-core wake-up call” readers who are “trying to get a second Mercedes and a bigger boat.” For those who can’t wait for the English version, from an interview with the Times we learn: Read more »

  • 16 Nov 2012 at 3:20 PM

Only Way To Get A Gold Star From Hedge Fund Manager Accused Of Insider Trading Was By Bringing Him Illegal Info, Says Underling

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Alternatively, if you made the mistake of approaching Todd Newman with information that was obtained through legitimate means, Jesse Tortora claims you’d be on the receiving end of a death stare the first time and a “What did I tell you about coming in here with a trade idea you ‘thoroughly researched’? Get the fuck out of my office and don’t ever waste my time with this garbage again,” on subsequent occasions. Read more »

  • 13 Nov 2012 at 5:25 PM

Want To Break Bread With Dan Loeb?

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You can! Provided you pay up, as he’s offering to grace you and four friends with his presence as part of an auction on CharityBuzz, the proceeds of which go to the Surfrider Foundation, whose mission is “the protection and enjoyment of oceans, waves and beaches through a powerful activist network.” Will he tell you about what it was like the moment he and his team discovered that Scott Thompson was an academic charlatan of the highest order? Bid and find out.