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.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – According to investors, hedge fund manager John Paulson, who through Paulson& Co., has raised over $1 billion for clients, has plans to launch a fund dedicated to buying up shares of bullion-related investments.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the gold fund will aim to outperform gold prices, by investing in gold-related shares and derivatives. Paulson currently has more than 10% of his $30 billion or so under management in gold-related investments, according to his investors.
“Gold has gone up 10% since the start of the month,” Andrew Schneider, co-founder of HedgeCo Networks, said, “Investors may also see gold as a hedge against US dollar fluctuations.”
John Paulson is best known for his bet against financial companies before the credit crisis which some have speculated earned his firm as much as $15 billion in 2007.
New York (HedgeCo.net) – According to a regulatory filing, Hedge Fund manager John Paulson’s of the $12.5 billion Paulson & Co. bought 300 million shares of Citigroup worth $1.45 billion. This move puts Paulson & Co. alongside other hedge funds such as Appaloosa Management LP who acquired 79.7 million Citigroup shares in the third quarter of 2009.
Bloomberg.com quotes Warren Marcus a former Salomon Brother analyst who is cautious about bank plays and speculates that banks may be less profitable going forward since they are using less leverage and will have to abide by stricter regulations. “You could make a case that you have to trim back what the returns will be at a well-run, normal bank because there will be a lot more pressure on them to be run conservatively,” Marcus said.
John Paulson is best known for his bet against financial companies before the credit crisis which some have speculated earned his firm as much as $15 billion in 2007.
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Lexington Herald – CIT Group Inc.’s shares soared Tuesday on a report that hedge fund manager John Paulson is considering merging the troubled finance company with failed mortgage lender IndyMac Federal Bank. But they plunged after-hours as a separate report said CIT is preparing a debt swap offer that could wipe out taxpayers’ investment or could file for bankruptcy protection.
CIT Group, one of the nation’s largest lenders to small and midsize businesses, spent the summer trying to stave off a potential collapse amid mounting loan losses and rising funding costs. It has been devastated by the downturn in the credit markets and is attempting to restructure its operations to remain in business. CIT in the past relied heavily on cheap, short-term debt to fund its operations – a type of funding that essentially evaporated during the peak of the credit crisis last year.
TheStreet.com – Hedge funds that drove financial shares into the ground a year ago are piling back into the stocks, but average investors ought to be careful about mimicking their moves.
The first signal of a shift in hedgie sentiment came with the filing of a 13-F quarterly report for Paulson & Co. on Aug. 12. The hedge fund is run by John Paulson, who notoriously made gobs of money betting against housing and financial firms last year.
Seeking Alpha – Here’s an excellent in-depth read from Goldman Sachs that ties directly into our tracking of hedge fund movements. And we say this because the majority of their data was taken from SEC filings and public disclosures, exactly what we track here on Market Folly. In the report, they specifically focus on hedge fund re-risking and the fact that these funds now have net long exposure near levels unseen in a long time.
Some interesting tidbits we took away from the piece are as follows:
- Hedge funds now own 3.7% of the financial sector’s market capitalization.
- Hedge funds boosted ownership in financials by 55% on a quarter over quarter basis, to $70 billion.
- They favored Bank of America as the number of funds owning it doubled (quarter over quarter). JPMorgan Chase was the second favorite. This echoes what we have been seeing in our 13F analysis. Notable fund managers like Dan Loeb (Third Point) and John Paulson (Paulson & Co) loaded up on shares of BAC, among many other prominent managers. It really is almost astounding how many big names piled into this play over the last quarter.
Reuters – Hedge fund manager John Paulson, who bet against financial companies after foreseeing the credit crisis, has been buying Citigroup Inc <C.N> shares over the past few weeks, the New York Post reported, citing sources.
Paulson bought around a 2 percent stake in Citigroup, a source told the paper. An investor with a 5 percent or higher stake in a company would have to make a disclosure with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Sources told the paper Paulson believes Citigroup’s assets are undervalued. A spokesman for Paulson declined to comment to the paper on the hedge-fund manager’s investment activities.
We recently learned of two major hedge fund transactions that we thought were worth highlighting here on the blog. Firstly, John Paulson is at it yet again. The prominent hedge fund manager has been in the media a lot recently given all the portfolio moves he has made. His latest move includes purchasing distressed mortgage securities.
Paulson & Co
This isn’t necessarily new news from the Paulson camp, as he had mentioned before that he had been covering some of his mortgage-related short positions and was getting constructive on the sector. He thinks that there is now possibly some value in the type of assets he was previously short. The major distinction though is that he was short sub-prime securitizations previously, but now is getting long jumbo and prime securitizations, which are typically of better quality. So, it appears he is getting constructive on a sector that he made so much money on the short side the last few years.
Seeking Alpha – While John Paulson’s position in AngloGold Ashanti (AU) is no secret, his hedge fund has just filed a 13G with the SEC with regard to the position. Paulson & Co has disclosed a 12.1% ownership stake in AngloGold Ashanti due to activity on May 20th, 2009, with the bulk of the position in his Advantage Plus fund. They now show holdings of 42,849,801 shares of AU. We covered their initial purchase on March 23rd when Paulson & Co took a large position in AngloGold at $32 a share.
This is just one of the many gold miners that Paulson’s hedge fund now has a stake in. He additionally likes the Gold Miners ETF (GDX), Gold Fields (GFI), and Kinross Gold (KGC). When we just last week looked at Paulson’s entire portfolio, we noted his massive stake in the precious metal Gold, bought through ticker GLD.
FINalternatives – The richest hedge fund manager in the world, clocking in as the 29th richest person in the world, is George Soros, whose $11 billion fortune actually increased during the difficult 2008. Joining him among the top 100 are fellow hedge fund managers Carl Icahn (43rd place with $9 billion), James Simons of Renaissance Technologies (55th place with $8 billion), John Paulson (76th place with $6 billion) and Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors (87th place with $5.5 billion).
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Hedge fund assets, which were once estimated to reach almost $3 trillion, finished the year at around $1.8 trillion, according to research conducted by London-based HedgeFund Intelligence.
The report contends the fall in assets happened almost entirely in the second half of 2008, as markets took a beating and many hedge funds were forced to close shop. In addition, hedge fund firms that manage $1 billion or more fell from 395 in mid-2008 to 311 at year’s end. Also contributing to the fall was the fact that new fund launches didn’t come close to filling the void left by failed funds. While just 55 new funds were launched last year in the United States with assets of $50 million or more, 200 hedge funds were shut down or liquidated.
Hedge funds as a whole posted their worst year to date in 2008, with the average fund losing about 19 percent, according to data compiled by Chicago-based Hedge Fund Research. The firm also reported hedge funds are already experiencing a better year, with the average fund gaining 0.39 percent in January and falling a mere 0.51 in February, though still outperforming the stock market.
HedgeFund Intelligence predicts that assets may drop another 20 percent or more in the coming months, before leveling off sometime during this year.
According to their data, Bridgewater Associates is the largest hedge fund based on assets under management, with $38.6 billion. Coming in second, JP Morgan manages $32.9 billion, while John Paulson’s Paulson & Co. slid into third place with $29 billion in assets under management.
Julie Scuderi Senior Editor for HedgeCo.Net Email: julie@hedgeco.net HedgeCo.Net is a premier hedge fund database and community for qualified and accredited investors only. Membership on www.hedgeco.net is FREE and EASY. We also offer FREE LISTINGS for Hedge Funds! Be sure to check out our sister sites. www.hedgefundlounge.com, www.hedgefundtools.com, and www.hedgefundemployment.com
Bloomberg – Distressed assets offer the best investment opportunities this year as the global recession deepens, billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson said.
“The decline in the market has created a very good buying opportunity,” Paulson, 53, whose New York-based Paulson & Co. oversees about $30 billion, said in a speech at a hedge-fund seminar hosted by Societe Generale and Lyxor Asset Management in Tokyo today. “Distressed opportunity in the U.S. is shaping up to be the best opportunity in a lifetime.”
Paulson said he’s focused on assets such as mortgages and debt from bankrupt companies, while in the equities markets he cited the utilities, consumer staples and pharmaceutical industries. Financial stocks remain risky, Paulson said.
In the 15 years since starting its first funds, Paulson & Co.’s one down year was 1998. All his funds were profitable in 2008, with the flagship fund returning about 38 percent, compared with a loss of 19 percent for hedge funds worldwide on average. The 2008 returns came after his funds made more than $3 billion for the firm in 2007 by anticipating the collapse of the U.S. housing market and subprime mortgages.
Investors are chasing distressed assets after more than $1.1 trillion in losses at financial firms globally and frozen credit markets helped drag the U.S., Europe and Japan into their first simultaneous recessions since World War II.
Bloomberg – Paulson & Co., the hedge fund run by billionaire John Paulson, urged Dow Chemical Co. to slash its dividend, sell new stock and issue bonds to pay for the stalled $15.4 billion takeover of Rohm & Haas Co.
Dow should tap its committed $13 billion bridge loan and $4 billion of equity financing to complete the deal, which was supposed to close Jan. 27, Paulson said today in a statement. Dow could then repay the bridge financing with $4 billion of new equity and $5 billion of new bonds. Paulson, which manages $29 billion, is Rohm & Haas’s second-largest shareholder.
