HEDGE FUND NEWS

Reuters - U.S. federal prosecutors asked securities regulators to delay a civil case against two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers while they hold grand jury hearings in building a criminal case against the pair.
Fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin were arrested and indicted in June, the first executives to face federal criminal charges […]

New York (HedgeCo.Net) - Harbinger Capital has taken an 8 percent stake in Cablevision Systems Corp., according to a regulatory filing done yesterday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The activist hedge fund now owns nearly 19 million shares of the cable operator.  The filing communicated Harbinger’s views that the stock is undervalued and also touched […]

CNN Money - Third Point Management, a New York hedge fund run by one of the country’s most outspoken and controversial investors, has come under investigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The $5.6 billion fund, whose founder Daniel Loeb is well known for his pointed regulatory filings targeting chief executives he deems underperforming, informed investors […]

Reuters - The Federal Reserve acted on rumors last month and called Credit Suisse Group to see if it had pulled a credit line from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, The Wall Street Journal said citing people familiar with the matter.
Credit Suisse told Federal Reserve officials that there was no truth to the rumor and […]

Bloomberg - Daniel Loeb, whose Third Point LLC is being investigated by regulators, said his "give-and-take” with other hedge-fund managers doesn’t violate securities laws.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is probing New York-based Third Point, which manages $5.6 billion, for its communications with other hedge funds, Loeb said in a July 25 letter to clients. […]

West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - Elliott Associates, a New York hedge fund firm, has bought a 9.9% stake in Epicor Software Corp. and is inquiring about possible strategic alternatives for the company, Markets Media Online reports.
In a filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Elliott now owns nearly 6 million shares of Epicor, just […]

Washington Post - When the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an emergency order last month protecting the stocks of the country’s largest financial institutions against a form of short selling, three businessmen saw an opportunity.
Harvey Pitt, SEC chairman from 2001 to 2003 and chief executive of District-based global consulting firm Kalorama Partners, teamed […]

Reuters - Billionaire investor George Soros hiked his stake in Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers to 9.5 million shares as of June 30 from 10,000 shares, according to a U.S. regulatory filing on Thursday.
Soros disclosed the quarter-over-quarter increase in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Soros raised his stake in Lehman ahead of a […]

West Palm Beach - Billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund’s largest holding.
As of June 30, the stake in Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based oil producer is known, made up 22 percent of […]

The Age - Third Point, the New York-based hedge fund run by Daniel Loeb, bought a stake in BHP Billiton worth $US162 million at the end of June, adding the world’s largest mining company to its portfolio.
Third Point, known for pushing companies to make changes that increase their stock prices, bought 1.9 million shares […]

West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) -  Hedge funds saw their worst monthly performance in the history of the Morningstar 1000 Hedge Fund Index. The index returned a negative 3.07% in July 2008, an eventful month for the markets.
In the first half of July, high oil prices and continued trouble in the U.S. banking sector caused equities […]

New York (HedgeCo.Net) - Less than one week after UBS and Citigroup were called upon to buy back over $30 billion in bad auction-rate securities, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is forcing JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Wachovia to follow suit.
In a letter to the three banks, Chief of the Attorney General’s Investor Protection […]