hockey

Opening Bell: 06.16.11

By Sam Ro

Uncertainty Over Greece Weighs on Financial Markets (NYT)
Financial markets remained jittery Thursday amid concerns about the stability of the government in Athens, uncertainty over the fate of a second Greek bailout and suggestions by Ireland that it would require investors to pay for part of the bailout of its indebted financial institutions.

Paulson Funds Struggle as Big Bets Backfire; Gold Works (WSJ)
Mr. Paulson’s $9 billion Advantage Plus fund lost more than 13% in the early part of this month, through June 10, leaving it down 19.65% for the year, according to two investors briefed on the performance. The Enhanced Partners fund, which had been a big winner this year, lost nearly 7% in the first 10 days of June, and now is up less than 4% in 2011, according to the investors.

Referrals on SAC Disclosed (WSJ)
The SEC has received 65 referrals of suspicious trading at hedge-fund firm SAC Capital Advisors LP over the last decade, or 46 more than previously disclosed, according to Sen. Charles Grassley…Sen. Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said “many” of the referrals involved trades older than the five-year legal time limit on bringing civil actions for insider trading. The older trades “would not appear to trigger any concerns regarding ongoing investigations,” he said in a letter to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro on Wednesday. SAC said it was “not surprised” that it has been the subject of 65 referrals since 2000. “Referrals by Finra are the result of surveillance of market-wide trading activity and they are neither findings nor allegations of insider trading,” a spokesman for SAC said in a statement. “Given the size of our firm, our active investment style, and the period covered, we are not surprised by the number of referrals. SAC has always cooperated fully with regulators and will continue to do so,” the spokesman said.

Falcone’s Venture Runs Into Static (WSJ)
The most recent evidence of complications surfaced this week in disclosures tied to a report expected to detail potential interference problems with the network…The report is expected to warn federal regulators that recent tests showed LightSquared’s network can knock out global positioning system, or GPS, receivers, according to people familiar with the report.

Och-Ziff May Profit From Market Turbulence (Bloomberg)
Daniel Och’s hedge-fund group bought options on almost $12 billion of U.S. stocks during the first quarter, a move that may generate profits if markets turn more volatile this year.

Wall Street Mind Meld: Obama Struggles? (Morning Money)
M.M. spoke with several senior Wall Street executives about recent efforts by the Obama campaign to reignite the financial industry support that generated a huge money edge over John McCain in 2008…One executive said he did not believe next week’s $38K per head event at Daniel had sold out, though another said that may have changed in the last few days.

Europe Faces ‘Lehman Moment’ As Greece Unravels (Bloomberg)
“The probability of a eurozone Lehman moment is increasing,” said Neil Mackinnon, an economist at VTB Capital in London and a former U.K. Treasury official. “The markets have moved from simply pricing in a high probability of a Greek debt default to looking at a scenario of it becoming disorderly and of contagion spreading to other economies like Portugal, like Ireland, and maybe Spain, Italy and Belgium.” Continue reading »

  • 02 Jun 2011 at 11:35 AM

If This LiqhtSquared Bet Goes According To Plan, Phil And Lisa Maria Falcone Will Be Able To Buy A Whole House Of Dancing Pigs- And Ones For Their Haters, Too

By Bess Levin

For the latest issue of Vanity Fair, reporter Bethany McLean got personal with one of our favorite hedge fund couples, Phil and Lisa Maria Falcone. If you’ve been keeping up with the travails of the Harbinger Capital founder and his wife, you know that despite living in a 25,725-square foot mansion on 5th Avenue (which was renovated to include a bar inside Lisa’s closet), a few billion or so in the bank, unparalleled eyes for fashion and Manhattan’s premier singing and dancing pig who can also play the piano, the last couple years have not been the easiest for the Falcones. Everywhere they turn they feel like people are beating up on them, taking shots. To their chagrin and bewilderment, New York “society,” for the most part, doesn’t accept Lisa and many of Phil’s investors, when they’re not being held by a gate, have run for the hills, causing Harbinger’s assets under management to drop from a peak of $26 billion to $7 billion and counting. Things have gotten so bad, in fact that, several months back, Falcone “almost took off the Ganesh charm- the elephant-headed Hindu deity that represents good fortune- that he wears around his neck.” As he told McLean, “I thought, You have got to be kidding. I get very superstitious.”

But he kept it on and why? Because 1) You have not seen the best of Phil Falcone yet:

“You take your lumps and get your bruises. you get knocked down. The key is getting back up,” Falcone says. “I’m already standing. I’m 48. It’s not even the second period of my career, and I’ve had a pretty good first period.”

And 2) Phil’s got a big bet in the works, one that he’s pretty sure will shut everyone up, about everything, if the elephant can pull through for him. You know the one. LIGHTSQUARED. Yeah. Just let it sizzle there, in the air. It’s going to be huge and then all you people are going to be begging to invest with the best.

“I think [the wireless bet] could be bigger than subprime for me,” he says.

You know what else it will rival? Hairbrushes. Continue reading »

  • 23 Mar 2011 at 9:43 AM

Bond Trader Breaks Up Slow Day On The Floor By Practicing With Florida Panthers At MSG

By Bess Levin

Yesterday having been a pretty slow day, most of you probably dealt with the boredom in the usual ways (dicking around on the internet, throwing a Nerf ball around with colleagues, untangling your phone cord, counting the number of steps from the bathroom to your desk, fantasizing about a life that doesn’t so closely resemble hell, etc). Adam Reasoner cut around 10:30 out to have shots taken on him at Madison Square Garden, after receiving a text from his brother, Marty Reasoner, that the team needed a practice goalie. Continue reading »

  • 13 Sep 2010 at 3:19 PM

Phil Falcone Faced With Serious Dilemma: Hockey Or Hooters?

By Bess Levin

Gang, something serious happened. One of our favorite hedge fund managers is in trouble and needs help. Phil Falcone has been put in a horrible position, that I hope no one else ever finds him/herself. It’s a pretty well-known fact that the Harbinger founder is a huge hockey fan. The Minnesotan grew up skating, played as an undergrad at Harvard and pro in Europe for a year before being sidelined with a leg injury. He’s owned a forty percent stake in the Minnesota Wild for some time and recently acquired the Dubuque Fighting Saints. Falcone’s love of ice never posed an issue on the work at his hedge fund– until now. And it’s bad. Here’s the rub: Continue reading »

  • 18 Dec 2009 at 3:36 PM

Pining For The Ice

By John Shazar

falcone.jpgStill rocking the hockey hairAll things considered, Phil Falcone would prefer playing a professional sport that no one watches anymore to being a billionaire. So he’s done the next stupidest thing: He bought a hockey team.
Some of a hockey team, anyway. He’s got a 40% chunk in the Minnesota Wild, the team that replaced his hometown team after they moved to that great hockey city, Dallas.
A due-diligence specialist once told me that what he called jock-sniffer syndrome was one of his key red flags. But Falcone, who seems to have a thing for dying industries, bought his stake in the Wild for an altogether more pathetic reason.

Continue reading »

  • 20 May 2008 at 3:24 PM
  • Greenwich

Area Man Threatens To Out-Toilet Stevie Cohen

By Bess Levin

Trouble in hedge fund land. Greenwich residents are terrified that would-be new neighbor, Russian millionaire Valery Kogan, will make them look bad (read: poor) by building a proposed 54,000 square foot mansion with two wings, “extensive” subterranean space, and room for up to 300 guests, which will clearly dwarf their own homes, relative shacks compared to the behemoth.

Though they claim their protests are merely matters of (a) taste (“`It looks like they want to duplicate the Winter Palace here in Greenwich,” said Leslie McElwreath. “It’ll be an eyesore.”), (b) safety (“This is a road where our kids learn to ride bikes, rollerblade, and people take walks,” said Morris Sachs, a trader at Brevan Howard.) and (c) not being summarily drowned while taking part in a pissing contest (“This is going to be a palace on a postage stamp,” Charles Lee said. “It’s too much.”), those intimately familiar with the gastrointestinal habits of SAC Capital Founder Steve Cohen know better.

Though never stated outright, the real problem with Kogan’s house is that it is slated to contain 26 toilets. And though it has many, many WC’s, Steve Cohen’s home does not have 26. Were Kogan to start building without making some edits first, he would not only be embarrassing Cohen in his own domain, he would be breaking a law, which the residents quoted by Bloomberg are trying to uphold. Section 182, clause 17 of the Greenwich town code clearly states that “no home shall exceed the number of waste-removal stations as are found at Casa Cohen.”

Interestingly enough, Cohen, who is not cited in the article, is said to have zero problem with any other aspect of Kogan’s dream home. “He could build a domicile three times the size of Stevie’s, with 40 master bedrooms to Steve’s 2, 16 refrigerators to Steve’s 12, and 2 ice rink’s to Steve’s 1,” a friend of a friend of a friend told DealBreaker. “It’s the toilets he cares about. Just the toilets.”

Empathizing with the big guy, CNBC on-air editor Charlie Gasparino commented* that he “fully understands where Cohen’s coming from.” Pausing momentarily to enjoy a paper-thin slice of salami he’d cut moments earlier on the deli meat slicer he’d won in a bet with his local butcher, Gasparino added, “Bathrooms are extremely important to me. I live in a studio, but it’s got 4 cans. And I think that because so much of my identity is tied to my obsession with being ‘regular,’ I’d probably feel threatened if the guy next door had 5. I know it sounds crazy, but it’d be like I was less of a man or something.”

Anyway. This is a private matter that doesn’t really involve us, per se, and hopefully it’ll be resolved shortly. But obviously you’re all dying to know, “just how many toilets does Cohen’s house have?” We’re going to tell you, but not just yet. First, you’re going to guess. The first person to correctly get it will receive our heartfelt congratulations via email. But that’s not all. You’ll also receive two free tickets to a hockey game taking place at Cohen’s backyard rink. On June 6 the BG will taken on a team comprised of his young children’s friends and his least favorite SAC employees. The home team (SC) plays perched atop a Zamboni made from repurposed monster truck parts that gets to shoot out pucks at random, with a glassed-in Pope-mobile-like top in place of a mask. The away team (kids + staff) are issued Soviet-era gear, never win, and are forced to put on a Disney on Ice show of Cohen’s choosing following the game. Last year was Aladdin. This year is anyone’s guess.

Continue reading »