hedge fund managers

  • 26 Jun 2012 at 3:03 PM

Securities And Exchange Commission Still Hung Up About The Time Phil Falcone Borrowed Money From A Gated Fund To Pay Personal Taxes

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Remember the time Harbinger Capital Partners founder Phil Falcone was a little short on cash, and decided to “borrow” $113 million from a fund in which redemptions had been suspended in order to pay personal taxes, which he later begrudgingly apologized for? Unfortunately for Big P, the SEC does. (The regulator also recalls he time he allegedly played favorites with Goldman and allegedly manipulated some markets.) Read more »

Hedge Fund Manager Who Faked His Own Death Has A Few Theories About Other Famous Murders, Real And Imaginary

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Remember Samuel Israel III? For those with short memories, SI3 is a former hedge fund manager who faked his own death in June 2008 with the help of his girlfriend, Debra Ryan, who later wrote an article explaining her actions by noting that she and Israel had “a blazing sex life” that was hard to walk away from (Ryan shared colorful anecdotes that included all the times Israel would “[jokingly] sneak up on her, once while wearing sunglasses on his penis”). For Israel’s part, he had pretended to kill himself, incorporating a line from M*A*S*H into his fake suicide note, in an attempt to avoid the prison stay that was coming his way, on account of having taken Bayou Group investors for more than $450 million. At the time, he became something of a minor celebrity, whose business card, prominently featuring an egret, was auctioned off on eBay but since ultimately being sentenced to twenty years behind bars we’d heard nary a peep from the guy. Luckily, Andrew Ross Sorkin recently flew down to Butner, North Carolina for a little chat and it’s a good thing he did because Israel had a lot he wanted to get off his chest.

After offering ARS an “orange Life Saver,” discussing his own version of a playoffs beard (“Mr. Israel…was wearing a tan prison uniform with his hair grown out, a mass of silver and brown curls sprouting from the sides of his bald head. ‘I’m never going to cut it until I get out,’ he exclaimed”), and talking Ponzi schemes, SI3 got down to the real matter at hand. Read more »

  • 25 Jun 2012 at 11:25 AM

Hedge Fund Manager Wants 35 Percent Of Ex-Wife’s Shoe Collection For Reasons Not Entirely Clear

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Daniel Shak is the founder of SHK Management, a hedge fund that reportedly “pulled the plug on its sole investment, spread trades on Comex gold futures,” last year. Daniel Shak is also the ex-husband of Beth Shak, who he divorced three years ago and is now suing for allegedly hiding assets in an attempt to cheat him out of settlement money. The assets in question? Twelve hundred pairs of designer shoes, which Shak claims his former wife “hid” from him in a “secret room.” Read more »

2010′s Best Performing Hedge Fund Manager’s Next Big Investment Idea Involves Becoming A Landlord

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Don Browstein is a former philosophy professor, the founder of Structured Portfolio Management (named the best performing hedge fund in 2010, after returning 49.5 percent and 134.6 percent in 2009), a guy who supposedly once told a trader “The only way you can leave this firm is in a body bag” while brandishing a baseball bat, and the person his new tenants will have to answer to if next month’s rent is one day late. Read more »

  • 12 Jun 2012 at 12:48 PM

Eddie Lampert Bids Greenwich Adieu

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Eddie Lampert is relocating ESL Investments to Miami, according to a regulatory filing today. The move follow his purchase earlier this year of a seven-bedroom mansion in Florida’s Biscayne Bay for almost $40 million. ESL President William Crowley will not make the move “for personal reasons,” according to a spokesman for ESL. [Bloomberg Brief]

  • 31 May 2012 at 4:49 PM

Larry Robbins Is Off The Market, Back In Neighbors’ Good Graces

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Hedge-fund mogul Larry Robbins, founder of Glenview Capital Management, is getting married to former dancer Sarahmay Wesemael in the south of France on June 9…Robbins is divorced from Amy Robbins, who helped him start his company, and with whom he has four sons. Willowy blonde Wesemael, 33, is from New Jersey but is believed to have family links in Nice, France. Robbins…reportedly built an indoor ice rink on his three acres in Cresskill, NJ, infuriating neighbors who dubbed it “Madison Square Garden up on the hill.” In 2007, he built the rink under a white bubble — a zoning violation. He replaced the bubble with a stone façade, more in keeping with the area. [NYP, related]

  • 29 May 2012 at 2:30 PM

Plan D: A Hostile Takeover Of The Newark Bears

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“Major League Baseball has approved three potential buyers to review the financial records of the San Diego Padres, team owner John Moores told MLB.com. Moores said one group is headed by movie executive Thomas Tull, another is led by former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley and the third by billionaire hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors. Cohen was an unsuccessful bidder for the Los Angeles Dodgers, who were sold in March.” [Bloomberg, Earlier: Steve Cohen Bids For Dodgers, Earlier: Steve Cohen Bids For Mets]

Yahoo! RésuméGate, Day 7: Third Point Is Not Enjoying This At All

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In fact, hand to god, Dan Loeb and Co. find this “embarrassing episode” that they set the wheels in motion for painful to watch. Read more »

  • 04 May 2012 at 3:00 PM

Memo To Yahoo: Dan Loeb Will Personally Shake Out ALL The Skeletons In Your Closet If He Has To

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As you may have heard, Third Point Management is currently waging a proxy battle against Yahoo, of which it owns 5.81 percent. Last September, the hedge fund and its founder, Dan Loeb, wrote a letter to the company’s board of directors entitled “The Failures of Yahoo’s Board of Directors Necessitate a Significant Infusion of Fresh Board Talent,” in November it demanded two board seats in order to wrest the ship from a bunch of bumbling incompetents, and in February, it said actually, make that four seats. Unfortunately, Yahoo resisted. Which is why yesterday, Loeb and Third Point were forced to enter into the record some damning evidence showing current YHOO CEO Scott Thompson to be a dangerous, dangerous liar, the likes of which the search engine would be wise to sever ties.

Specifically, Third Point revealed that contrary to statements made on SEC filings, Thompson? Did not graduate from Stonehill College with degrees in both computer science and accounting but only the latter. The reason Third Point knew this to be true was because it Googled Stonehill College and found that the school did not even start offering computer science degrees until 1983, well after the time Thompson graduated. So, a liar and a liar who can’t even be bothered to cover his tracks to boot. Oh, but the résumé chicanery did not stop there. Yahoo director Patti Hart, Third Point, went on to reveal, also had her own little C.V. “error” to speak of. Whereas Ms. Hart claimed to have graduated from Illinois State University with degrees in marketing and economics, in fact, merely earned a bachelors in business administration and specialized in marketing and econ.

Yahoo, which yesterday confirmed the résumé duplicity, clearly needed no further substantiation that these two were academic frauds. Third Point and Loeb knew this much to be true. AND YET. As of 2PM today, a whopping twenty-four hours after their lies caught up to them, they remain employed by the company. So now this is happening because apparently some people need to be put on a deadline: Read more »

  • 03 May 2012 at 4:18 PM

May 3: Soros Wakes Up To Find Horse’s Head In His Bed?

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2005-2010: George Soros has a relationship of debatable seriousness depending on who you ask with a woman named Adriana Ferreyr. (According to Ferreyr, it was a “serious and meaningful relationship,” while according to Soros, things were “on-again, off-again and non-exclusive.”) Ferrreyr is promised her “dream apartment” on East 85th Street.

Summer 2010: Several days after the contract on the apartment is signed, Soros “heartlessly dumps” Ferreyr, which means no dream apartment for her.

Approximately a week later: The duo “briefly reconcile for a romantic night together.”

A few hours later: Soros “whispers in Ferreyr’s ear” that another woman, Tamikoa Bolton, is living in her apartment. Ferreyr expresses strong displeasure at this revelation. Soros supposedly slaps Ferreyr across the face and attempts “to strike her with a glass lamp, narrowly missing.”

August 2011: Ferreyr demands $50 million for broken promises re: dream apartments, makes allegations re: lamps.

Later in August 2011: Soros strongly denies accusations, refuses to pay Ferreyr a dime.

February 2012: Soros offers to settle for $250,000, Ferreyr refuses, a court date is set for early May.

April 30, 2012: OH NO, HE DI’INT: Read more »

  • 03 May 2012 at 11:46 AM

David Einhorn Will Just Put It Out There That A Salad Every Once In A While Won’t Kill You

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Directed at no one in particular but if a certain jelly donut-addicted Fed Chair has found even his extra-forgiving sweatpants getting too snug, he might want to take note. Read more »