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.
News1130.com – The Securities and Exchange Commission is continuing its investigation of possible insider trading involving hedge fund Pequot Capital Management and its founder Arthur Samberg, according to a letter to investors obtained by The Wall Street Journal.
The SEC has been examining whether Pequot traded Microsoft Corp. shares on confidential information provided by a former employee of the computer company who was later hired by Pequot.
Reuters – Hedge fund industry icon Arthur Samberg’s startling decision to shut Pequot Capital shows how a firm’s reputation matters as much as its returns.
For decades Samberg, who founded Pequot more than two decades ago, delivered strong performance no matter how markets behaved, enticing investors to funnel in so much cash that the firm managed $15 billion in its heyday in 2001. When the U.S. government last year reopened a probe into allegations of insider trading in Microsoft Corp, skittish investors left quickly.
Businessandleadership.com – Just a year and a half after Microsoft paid US$240m for a 1.6pc stake in social-networking player Facebook, a Russian technology investor has paid US$200m for a 1.9pc stake in the company.
The Microsoft investment in September 2007 valued Facebook at US$15bn, while the latest investment from Russian investment group Digital Sky Technologies (DST) values the company at around US$10bn.
The Russian investment group founded in 2005 said it is even considering buying a further US$100m worth of shares in Facebook from existing investors.
Tehran Times – Atticus Capital LP sold 23 of the 25 U.S.-listed stocks it owned in the first quarter as the New York-based hedge-fund firm run by Timothy Barakett put more money into cash while equity markets fell.
Atticus sold 1.69 million shares of Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based Potash, the world’s largest producer of its namesake fertilizer, had been the firm’s top U.S. holding.
Barakett, whose firm oversees about $6 billion in assets, also sold all of his 5.31 million shares of Microsoft Corp. The world’s largest software maker, based in Redmond, Washington, had been the firm’s second-largest U.S. position.
A hedge fund fraud that involved a pair of funds claiming to hold more than $800 million in assets has been halted, according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
In a statement, the regulatory body said the two funds lost money and contain less than $1 million.
Bradley Ruderman is alleged to have raised more than $38 million from investors via the two hedge funds, Ruderman Capital Partners and Ruderman Capital Partners A.
He is accused of falsely claiming that the investment vehicles held positions in established securities such as Wal-Mart Stores, Apple and Microsoft, as well as stating prominent people were investors in his funds, when they were not.
Reuters – Internet firm Yahoo Inc is "not opposed" to doing a deal that would potentially sell its search business, Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said on Wednesday.
But he said the search business is deeply intertwined with Yahoo’s other online products and properties, and so any deal, whether a partnership or a sale, would be done for the right reasons and the right economics.
"It’s extremely difficult to draw a line down the middle of the organization and split it into two pieces," Jorgensen told the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet conference.
He did not mention specifically Microsoft Corp, which has repeatedly said it was interested in doing a search deal with Yahoo to compete against market leader Google Inc.
Bloomberg – Yahoo! Inc. Chief Executive Officer Carol Bartz, who took the job yesterday, won’t get much of a honeymoon with the Internet company’s investors.
Shareholders are looking for Yahoo to rekindle talks with Microsoft Corp. or possibly sell off assets — anything that earns them a quick return. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said as recently as last week that he’s still open to a partnership with Yahoo, something that may be first on investors’ agenda.
Bloomberg – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opened a new investigation into whether Pequot Capital Management Inc., the hedge fund run by Arthur Samberg, illegally profited in 2001 by tapping inside information on Microsoft Corp., two people familiar with the matter said.
Investigators learned of documents that show former Microsoft employee David Zilkha may have obtained confidential information about the software maker, said one of the people, declining to be identified because the investigation isn’t public. Zilkha left the company in 2001 to join Pequot.
