Each business day HedgeCo.Net keeps you informed with the top hedge fund industry news, opinion and insight from around the globe. From the latest hedge fund launches, to the impact of regulation, competition, and investor activism - we track the topics and people that make a difference to you.
Associated Press – Delphi nearly emerged from Chapter 11 last year, but was forced to redraw its reorganization plan after a group of investors, led by the Appaloosa Management LP hedge fund, pulled out of an investment deal in April 2008.
After that, Delphi struggled to find the financing it needed to restructure. Those troubles were complicated by the collapse of investment banks in the fall and the drop-off in new vehicle sales.
Months later, those factors also helped drive both GM and Chrysler into Chapter 11.
In June, Delphi had agreed to let an affiliate of Beverly Hills, Calif.-based Platinum Equity take control of most of its businesses with the help of billions from GM. But Delphi’s lenders balked at the deal and submitted their own bid which ultimately won out over the deal with Platinum after an 18-hour auction process.
Private Equity Hub – A group of hedge funds that provided bankruptcy funding to Delphi Corp on Monday won a high-stakes auction to take control of the auto parts supplier, scuttling a rival deal brokered by the Obama administration.
Delphi’s board of directors and GM both offered their support for the proposed deal that would hand the company’s assets over to its debtor-in-possession lenders in exchange for their forgiveness of nearly $3.5 billion in loans.
The result, announced by Delphi late Monday, came after a two-day auction in New York.
Reuters – Wall Street was set to open flat on Thursday, with investors eyeing retail sales and weekly jobless data for fresh insight into the state of the recession-hit economy.
* Investors will watch a 30-year treasury note auction for direction on interest rates, one day after a weak 10-year auction sent yields on the benchmark note to a eight-month high. The latest results are due at 1 p.m. EDT.
* Stock investors have been concerned that rates may dampen an economic recovery by increasing borrowing costs for consumers and businesses and are drawing money away from the stock market.
Bloomberg – At 17, Eugenie Iseman says she’s too young to attend college, but is old enough to enlist Uma Thurman to help the poor in Liberia. It doesn’t hurt that she has the backing of her father and hedge-fund manager Frederick J. Iseman.
The younger Iseman hosted her first fundraiser last night at Butter, a Manhattan restaurant, raising $375,000 for the Liberian village of Karnplay, which she visited last year with two friends and her mother, Marguerite Nougue-San. Thurman, an Iseman family friend, and her fiance, Arpad Busson, chairman of the London-based hedge fund EIM UK Ltd., paid $25,000 for an auction item to equip an operating room at the African village.
Times Online – While many lose sleep over each twist and turn of today’s economy, New Jersey collector Ralph DeLuca has found a hedge against the recession in the musty memorabilia of Hollywood’s past.
A former private investment consultant, DeLuca hardly batted an eye when he bought a vintage poster from the 1932 cult movie "Freaks" at auction in March for more than $100,000. The poster had cost $10 in the early 1970s.A few minutes later he outbid competitors for a rare poster of the original "Dracula" from 1931, owned by actor Nicolas Cage, snapping it up for more than $300,000.
Philadelphia Bulletin – Chrysler LLC dissident lenders must reveal their identities by 10 a.m. today, a bankruptcy judge ruled, rejecting claims that their safety was at risk.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez in New York forced the group to file a list of its members publicly, denying their request to reveal their identities only to the bankruptcy court. Judge Gonzalez said the lenders have no evidence that keeping their identities private would help protect them. The group seeks to block an auction of most company assets to an entity managed by Fiat SpA, an outcome Chrysler said would force it to liquidate, costing thousands of jobs.
