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.
Reuters – Hedge fund Citadel Investment Group claims it is owed $470.5 million on derivatives contracts it held with Lehman Brothers, according to a claim filed in a New York bankruptcy court last week.
Citadel, which manages around $12 billion in assets, claims it is owed the money in its Citadel Equity Fund. The filing said the claim was at least partly based on a guarantee, but did not give details.
Bloomberg – Hedge fund manager Mark Bloom pleaded guilty to U.S. charges that he stole at least $20 million from clients and lied to them, and that he helped sell illegal tax shelters while working earlier at BDO Seidman LLP.
Bloom, who lives in New York City, pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Manhattan to five charges including securities fraud. He admitted he stole millions from investors in North Hills Fund, an investment partnership with more than $30 million in assets that he managed. He agreed to forfeit as much as $20 million and to cooperate with prosecutors in their continuing investigation.
SearchDataCenter.com – A large, worldwide hedge fund company needed to reduce its server memory latency to keep investors from experiencing costly trading delays. It found the answer from the small Oregon-based software startup RNA Networks and is using their technology to replace aging Tibco software.
The hedge fund’s Unix group is in the process of standardizing on RNA Networks’ product, RNAmessenger, to replace Tibco software in all the company’s data centers, including those in New York City, London, Singapore and various colocation facilities. The company’s CTO, who wished to remain anonymous, hopes to complete the rollout over the next 12 months.
SearchDataCenter.com – A large, worldwide hedge fund company needed to reduce its server memory latency to keep investors from experiencing costly trading delays. It found the answer from the small Oregon-based software startup RNA Networks and, in the process, is now replacing aging Tibco software.
The hedge fund’sUnix group is in the process of standardizing on RNA Networks’ latest product, RNAcache, to replace Tibco software in all the company’s data centers, including those in New York City, London, Singapore and various colocation facilities. The company’s CTO, who wished to remain anonymous, hopes to complete the rollout over the next 12 months.
Daily Territorial – A third offer to take copper miner Asarco out of Chapter 11 was filed last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Corpus Christi, Texas, by New York City-based hedge-fund manager Harbinger Capital Partners.
The $500 million reorganization is competing for control of Asarco with plans offered by Sterlite Industries, based in Mumbai, India, and Asarco’s parent company, Grupo Mexico.
The plan from Harbinger Capital, one of Asarco’s largest bondholders, is less than half the other offers but the investment firm says its offer is better because the other two either lack sufficient support from creditors or won’t meet bankruptcy court standards.
GlobeSt.com – Locally based direct private lender Silo Financial Corp. has formed an alliance with a New York City-based private equity fund to concentrate on non-performing loans, says Silo founder Jonathan Daniel. The fund has earmarked $100 million "for opportunistic real estate lending, acquiring non-performing loans, lending against nonperforming loans and potentially even doing some strategic preferred equity," Daniel tells GlobeSt.com.
The time is ripe for such a venture, in the view of Daniel and the founders of KPO Ventures, two former partners at multi-billion-dollar hedge funds. "Obviously, the current environment is very conducive for private lending, due to the fact that there’s no capital out there," says Daniel.
American Chronicle – An investment professional from Greenwich with more than 20 years of experience is going out on his own by starting a Stamford-based advisory firm for small- to medium-size companies from here to
Texas.
Peter Schweinfurth, a former senior executive at Avenue Capital, a hedge fund based in New York City and London, recently launched Gulf + Eastern to offer restructuring, turnaround and mergers-and-acquisitions advice for small but growing family-owned firms focused on consumer products and the service sector.
Reading Eagle – Five leaders of a New York City church with a branch in Kenhorst have been accused of defrauding worshippers and other investors of more than $10 million in a hedge fund scam.
Federal authorities claim the men, senior members of Local Christian Assembly, purposely sought to exploit people at the church in Queens.
Reuters – India Church Pension Fund has invested in Future Group backed Indivision India, Advantage Partners and IDG Accel China.
The $8 billion Church Pension Fund based in New York City has roped in Eric Mason(ex-Carlyle Group), to open a new Hong Kong office, its first in Asia, reports Dow Jones.
Mason is a former JP Morgan banker and most recently headed Carlyle Group’s Asian leveraged finance team(set-up in 2007 but disbanded in November 2008 after the credit crunch hampered its ability to raise funds). He will look after all asset classes including private equity, real estate and hedge fund investments in the continent, the report said.
Cincinnati.com – A New York City hedge fund pushing Chemed Corp. to split up its plumbing and hospice care businesses has filed its own slate of five directors for the downtown-based company’s May 18 shareholder’s meeting.
In filing its five nominees Thursday, MMI Investments, which last month urged Chemed to split up its businesses to increase investor returns, said it wasn’t seeking control of the 11-member board but "to obtain better representation of stockholders and enhance stockholder value.”
Stamford Advocate – The owner of the office building at 600 Steamboat Road in Greenwich said he was eager to start recouping his company’s $200 million investment in the waterfront structure with high-paying tenants.
His sole tenant, RBS Greenwich Capital Markets, is scheduled to leave for a new $500 million complex in Stamford this summer, said George Constantin, principal, president and chief executive officer of Heritage Realty Services of New York City.
Heritage bought the three-story, 200,000-square-foot building on 4.2 acres last year from General Reinsurance Corp. of Stamford, its former occupant.
Reuters – Many gamblers have been forced to sell financial assets to cover bets on horses, but it is less common for a lover of thoroughbreds to sell a farm because of bad bets on investments.
But that may be what is happening to the co-founder of hedge fund firm Fairfield Greenwich Group, which lost more than half of its assets in Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion (34 billion pounds) fraud.
Hedge fund manager Jeffrey Tucker’s horse farms near the 146-year-old Saratoga Race Track about 180 miles (290 km) north of New York City could be going up for sale, according to a real estate broker.
