Reuters – Hedge Fund Firm Centaurus is considering selling its remaining 6.66 percent stake in French IT services group Atos Origin due to the financial crisis, French daily La Tribune reported on Monday.

Centaurus and Atos could not be immediately reached for comment.

According to La Tribune, Centaurus could sell its stake to PAI Partners, which is the group’s main shareholder with a 22.61 percent stake, and thereby relinquish its supervisory board seat.

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Tags: aftermath, asset-management, contagion, current-settlement, fee-arrangement, french-computer, investment-arm, last-gasp, market-regulator

Wall Street Journal – Deutsche Börse AG’s supervisory board reaffirmed the stock-exchange operator’s business model Friday, defying activist hedge funds that had been seeking a change in strategy after this year’s steep fall in the company’s share price.

"The ongoing implementation and continuation of the existing strategy of the integrated business model including its further development [are] the best conditions to further increase value for all shareholders and customers of the group," Deutsche Börse said in a statement after an extraordinary supervisory board meeting.

The company has three main businesses: its Eurex derivatives arm, a share-trading platform called Xetra, and Clearstream, which handles post-trade processing.

Deutsche Börse shares rose 0.8% to €63.44 ($90.19) Friday. Its stock has fallen more than 50% this year.

The board meeting was convened after the company’s biggest investors — activist hedge funds The Children’s Investment Fund LLP and Atticus Capital LP, which together control 19% of votes in Deutsche Börse — joined forces to explore options for creating shareholder value at the company. The hedge funds haven’t presented any formal proposals.

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Tags: alan-greenspan, capital-group, epithet, french-computer, investment-portfolio, investment-returns, lending-group, public-offering, reto-francioni, seamlessly

Forbes – Daimler AG. was told last week that a foreign hedge fund is buying a large number of shares in the car maker after its share price slumped on the back of a profit warning barely two weeks ago, Focus weekly magazine said.

Citing a supervisory board source, the magazine reported that banks have tipped off the company regarding the matter.

A company spokesman declined comment to Focus, saying only that Daimler is ‘satisfied’ with its shareholder structure and ‘is also open for new investors’.

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Tags: capital-group, contention, french-computer, medallion