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St. George Daily Spectrum – According to the Center for Responsive Politics, hedge funds and private equity firms donated $2,992,456 to the Obama campaign in the 2008 cycle. Obama, vocal critic of the campaign finance practice known as "bundling," accepted more than $200,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager James Torrey, more than $100,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul Tudor Jones and more than $50,000 in bundled contributions from billionaire hedge-fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin, chief executive officer of Citadel Investment Group in Chicago.
In an extraordinarily candid open letter to Obama, hedge-fund manager Cliff Asness defended his industry from the president’s "backwards and libelous" charges. "Managers have a fiduciary obligation to look after their clients’ money as best they can, not to support the president, nor to oppose him, nor otherwise advance their political views," Asness wrote. He has oversight of some $20 billion at AQR Capital Management, LLC, which is not involved in the Chrysler case.
Daily Monitor – Wall Street may be bruised and battered, but it still donated more money than any other U.S. industry to President-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural festivities on Tuesday, a study has found.
The Center for Responsive Politics said executives of finance, insurance and real estate companies and their family members gave $7.1 million to Obama’s inaugural committee.
Top donors from the world of high finance included George Soros, Ronald Perelman and David Shaw, the center said.