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.
Bloomberg – A hedge fund, whose name isn’t disclosed, has placed a large bet that natural gas prices will triple by the Northern Hemisphere winter just as the price of the commodity slides to a seven-year low, the Financial Times reported, which cited New York Mercantile Exchange traders.
Last week, the fund spent millions for the right to buy U.S. natural gas at $10 per million British thermal units in January and February, up from yesterday’s spot level of just above $3 per mBtu, according to the report.
Bloomberg – Massachusetts will cut investments in hedge funds after its public pension plan lost a record 24 percent on all assets in the fiscal year ended June 30.
The state pension plan’s board of trustees voted today to lower the amount of money invested in hedge funds to 8 percent, or about $3 billion of the $37.7 billion it oversaw at the end of June, from 12 percent, which is about $4.5 billion. The vote reversed a five-year effort by the pension system to boost returns by expanding such alternative investments.
”We all have to understand we’re making a bet on what assets will do well,” said state Treasurer Timothy Cahill, chairman of Massachusetts’s pension reserve investment management board. “Ultimately, we don’t make decisions based on the short-term, but we get measured on the short-term.”
Gulf News – Short-selling, one of the few tactics that made money for hedge funds in 2008, has become a risky bet as prospects for equities have improved, while getting hold of stock to sell is harder as lenders shun weak funds.
Some hedge funds have already changed tactics and are simply buying cheap stocks, wary of getting burnt if a stock they are shorting announces unexpectedly good earnings and the share price spikes – a real possibility in an improving economy.
High-profile hedge fund manager Philippe Jabre said he had no short positions because it was "too dangerous", although in future shorting could prove a better trade.
Forbes – A year ago, Conrad Levy was a player in one of the most spectacular blow-ups in hedge fund history. Peloton Partners, the fund at which Levy was chief compliance and operating officer, collapsed after an outsized bet on subprime securities went horribly wrong, resulting in the fund losing $17 billion in a matter of days. Now Levy is profiting from that experience.
Since mid January, Levy has been working as a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, helping hedge funds restructure themselves when they have hit a landmine.
Seeking Alpha – Continuing our series of hedge fund profiles and biographies, we turn our attention now to Lee Ainslie of Maverick Capital. We thought this transition was appropriate given how we just yesterday initiated our profile series with coverage of hedge fund legend Julian Robertson of Tiger Management. (We also covered Robertson’s big inflation bet as well). We turn to Lee Ainslie of Maverick Capital now because Ainslie formerly worked under Julian at Tiger. As such, he is a ‘Tiger Cub’ and employs much of the investment methodologies he learned while at Tiger as their technology analyst.
Ainslie graduated from the University of Virginia and then received his MBA from the University of North Carolina. He founded Maverick Capital at age 29 in 1993 with $38 million in seed capital from Texas entrepreneur Sam Wyly. Maverick has offices both in Dallas and New York and now managers well over $5 billion. They are a long/short equity hedge fund in the ‘old school’ sense of the word.
Moneycontrol.com – Joseph Stiglitz, a professor at the Columbia University and the 2001 Nobel Prize winner, said the US government’s bailout packages designed for financial institutions may not work. “It is a peculiarly-structured programme,” Stiglitz said, “The government puts in 92% of the money, the private sector walks away with 50% of the profits and the government absorbs almost all the losses. What kind of partnership is that?”
The Nobel Prize winner said the financial system in the US engaged in too much risk-taking. “If you are a bank too big to fail, you have a one-sided bet. If you win, you walk off with the profit. If you lose, you are too big to fail, so the government picks up the losses.
Bloomberg – Philip Falcone, who runs the $7 billion Harbinger Capital Partners LLC, is starting a hedge fund that draws on his background in distressed securities, even as investors are locked into his biggest fund.
The Credit Distressed Blue Line Fund will buy troubled loans and bonds, and bet against higher-rated debt, the New York-based firm said in a March 16 letter to investors. The firm’s flagship $5 billion Harbinger Capital Partners Fund I limited withdrawals to 65 percent of its assets last year because of private-equity investments, which are harder to sell than publicly traded stocks.
Bloomberg – Cornell University is cutting its hedge-fund holdings by as much as 25 percent to save on fees after its endowment tumbled last year, Chief Investment Officer James Walsh said.
“We are de-emphasizing the hedge funds and more emphasizing the long-only managers,” said Walsh, who joined the Ithaca, New York, school in 2006. Cornell couldn’t justify hedge-fund fees, which typically equal 2 percent of assets and 20 percent of investment profits. Long-only managers buy stocks they expect to rise in price, while hedge funds also sell short, or bet on a decline.
Bloomberg – William Ackman’s hedge fund that invests solely in Target Corp. fell 33.3 percent in February, bringing the loss since inception to 93 percent, according to an e-mail sent to investors.
The decline in Pershing Square IV fund was more than three times that of Target shares in February. Ackman made his bet using options rather than the underlying stock, which can magnify gains or losses on an investment. Target tumbled about 9 percent last month.
Ackman last month told investors seeking redemptions that they would get their money back in March.
