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Bloomberg – Paul Touradji had a good year in 2008, a 12-month span that most other traders would like to forget. His flagship hedge fund, Touradji Global Resources Fund LP, returned 8.6 percent trading oil, copper and aluminum.
The average hedge fund lost 19 percent, and some expert managers, such as Chicago-based Citadel Investment Group LLC, saw their funds drop more than 50 percent. Touradji’s biggest competitor, Ospraie Management LLC, closed its largest fund.
Bloomberg – The Bush administration will invest about $125 billion in nine of the biggest U.S. banks, including Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., in the government’s latest attempt to shore up confidence in the financial system.
The proposed cash injections in exchange for preferred shares are part of a $700 billion rescue approved by Congress and follow similar moves by European leaders to unfreeze credit markets by helping beleaguered banks. The other companies are Wells Fargo & Co., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp., Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley, State Street Corp. and Bank of New York Mellon Corp., said people briefed on the plan.
The Times of Trenton – Stocks prices fell sharply again yesterday, ending the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index below 1,000 for the first time since 2003 on speculation banks and real-estate companies are running short of money as the credit crisis worsens.
Bank of America tumbled 26 percent after cutting its dividend in half and saying it plans to sell $10 billion in common stock to brace for a recession. Morgan Stanley, KeyCorp and JPMorgan Chase slid more than 10 percent as investors shrugged off signs the Federal Reserve will reduce interest rates. General Growth Properties, a mall owner, plunged 42 percent on concern it won’t be able to repay debt.
"We’ve approached the edge of the cliff," Leon Cooperman, 65, who manages $6 billion at hedge fund Omega Advisors, said at the Value Investing Congress in New York. "Do we go over the cliff or begin to recede? History says we recede, but there’s no guarantee.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – JPMorgan Chase & Co. has purchased Washington Mutual’s branch network for $1.9 billion, making them the largest U.S. bank by deposits. The deal was encouraged by the U.S. government after consumers withdrew over $16 billion from the nation’s largest savings and loan in the latter half of September.
WaMu was having trouble finding a buyer after the Treasury’s proposed $700 billion bailout package created reluctance among would-be investors. Others companies said to have been considering an offer included Citigroup and Wells Fargo.
Many believed that WaMu was next in line to sink thanks to over $180 billion in outstanding mortgage-related loans and the paranoia of a pending liquidity crunch. On top of that, Standard & Poors once again cut WaMu’s ratings to CCC from BB-, though the company was quick to quell any fears associated with the downgrade.
"Washington Mutual Bank’s deposit rating from Standard & Poor’s continues to be investment grade and it is important to note that Standard & Poor’s rating actions do not affect the safety of customer deposits, which are insured up to the limits allowed by the FDIC," said WaMu in a recent statement.
Washington Mutual continued to deny rumors of any problems. The bank recently stated they had over $50 billion in liquidity despite being hit hard by the subprime mortgage fallout.
It was just a few months ago that WaMu rejected a bid from JPMorgan for about $4 a share, even after JPMorgan urged the bank to consider a deal before the economy got worse.
JPMorgan, who also acquired Bear Stearns earlier this year, will not inherit WaMu’s liabilities, including claims by shareholders and subordinated and senior debt holders. By purchasing WaMu, Chase can now increase their presence on the West Coast and in Florida.
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. For more information, visit www.hedgeconetworks.com
Here Is The City – Bloomberg reports that CEOs at Wall Street’s top five securities house earned a staggering $3bn between them from 2003 and 2007, during the time when the subprime and toxic securities timebomb was ticking away in the background. Goldman Sachs CEOs were paid the most in this period ($859m), followed by Bear Stearns ($609m).
And talking of Wall Street finest, former Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O’Neal (who bagged $172m in pay between 2003 – 2007), is said to be thinking of making a comeback. According to The Financial Times, O’Neal is considering joining Vision Capital Advisors, a small hedge fund and private equity firm.
Bloomberg also reports that JPMorgan Chase has acquired Washington Mutual’s branch network for $1.9bn, as the thrift was seized in what has been described as the largest bank failure in US history. JPMorgan will not acquire any of WaMu’s liabilities. CEO Jamie Dimon said: ‘This is a fabulous franchise. We think we got this at a price that protects us’.
New York Post – The JPMorgan Chase CEO is seeing the coffers of the bank he runs being filled with "billions of dollars a day" coming from hedge funds that have pulled their cash from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, according to several large hedge-fund managers and other Wall Street sources.
The flood of new business has actually caused a bottleneck at the banking giant, as the prime brokerage unit scrambles to quickly conduct due diligence and credit checks to set up new clients, a source close to the bank said.
Most of JPMorgan’s new clients are being serviced through the old Bear Stearns prime brokerage force, which was a key part of Dimon’s acquisition of the fallen brokerage firm.
A spokesman for JPMorgan confirmed that the bank has seen a significant jump in volume and "they are managing it well."
He also said the bank is maintaining firm due diligence and credit-review procedures.
Reuters- Melissa Ko, a former star trader at Bear Stearns, has formed a new hedge fund called Covepoint Capital with nearly $1 billion in assets, according to a letter the firm sent to investors on Monday.
Ko ran Bear’s Emerging Markets Macro Fund, which generated returns of more than 25 percent from 2005 to 2007 through currency, sovereign debt, equity and other investing strategies. New York-based Covepoint has assets of about $925 million, mainly from previous investors in the Bear fund.
Covepoint is the latest hedge fund to become independent from the former Bear Stearns Asset Management (BSAM) division, a collection of funds which held about $27 billion in assets when JPMorgan Chase & Co bought the crippled investment bank on May 30.
Bloomberg- A year after Andrew Rabinowitz yanked his hedge fund’s cash from Bear Stearns Cos. because of concern the Wall Street firm wouldn’t make good on its trades, he’s ready to return.
For Rabinowitz’s New York-based Marathon Asset Management LLC, the lure is a prime brokerage that’s now part of JPMorgan Chase & Co., whose $1.6 trillion balance sheet is more than four times the size of Bear Stearns’s. JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon is counting on customers like Rabinowitz, some of whom helped bring Bear Stearns to its knees in March, to make his $1.36 billion takeover worthwhile.
After a run on Bear Stearns prompted a bailout by the Federal Reserve and the sale to New York-based JPMorgan, Dimon said one of Bear Stearns’s biggest attractions was its prime brokerage, which provides loans and processes trades for hedge funds. Bear Stearns lost as much as 40 percent of its so-called prime brokerage volume in the month after the March 16 acquisition.
New York Post- Taxpayers are all but certain to take a hit on the securities the Federal Reserve accepted as part of JPMorgan Chase’s takeover of Bear Stearns, according to a report by a hedge fund that is an investor in JPMorgan.
The reports comes as the Fed said last week said it valued the bundle of assets it accepted as collateral for the $28.8 billion loan at $28.9 billion as of June 26.
That’s a drop of 3.7 percent from earlier this year.
JPMorgan is on the hook for just the first $1.15 billion of value below the loan amount – with the taxpayers having to make good for any additional deterioration in value of the collateral.
"We expect that the loss will exceed the $1 billion exposure for JPM," the hedge fund said in the report, a copy of which has been seen by The Post on the basis of not identifying the name of the fund.
New York Post- Hedge fund Highbridge Capital Management is trying to raise $1 billion from wealthy investors for a fund focused on buying bank assets hammered by the credit crisis.
According to one investor who was considering committing funds, the planned Highbridge Leveraged Loan Partners will require prospective investors to commit to a three-year period during which they are precluded from pulling out their money. Marketing of the fund began about a week ago, this person said.
Highbridge, which JPMorgan Chase took a controlling interest in about four years ago, hopes to take advantage of the plummeting prices of bank paper that has been originated over the past year and a half.
New York (HedgeCo.Net) – Troubles keep arising for Bear Stearns, even after its demise and the resulting takeover by JPMorgan Chase. It seems investors are still targeting Bear after the implosion of their two failed hedge funds last year that kicked off the subprime mortgage crisis.
Federal prosecutors, along with the SEC, may bring criminal charges against Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, who ran the High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Master Fund and the High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Master Fund.
The two funds at one point managed upwards of $20 billion, with a majority of their assets invested in subprime-mortgage backed securities. As homeowners started defaulted on their mortgages at record rates, these securities plummeted in value, and creditors started to demand more collateral.
Even an influx of $1.6 billion by Bear Stearns could not save the funds, and assets were subsequently frozen. Both funds eventually filed for bankruptcy with only a small portion remaining of investor’s money.
A failed request at a Cayman Islands liquidation sealed the deal for Bear, who no longer could shield the fund’s assets from investors.
The question arises of whether or not Bear Stearns overstated their securities values to shareholders. At times, the two managers were quoted as reporting the performance of the funds as “positive,” when in reality, it was down as much as 38%.
According to the Wall Street Journal, securities fraud charges may be filed against the two men by next week.
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. For more information, visit www.hedgeconetworks.com
Reuters – Greylock Capital, a hedge fund with about $600 million under management, said on Tuesday it hired several former Bear Stearns senior executives, the latest firm to bring in executives from the investment bank sold to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
New York-based Greylock said it hired A.J. Mediratta, former Bear senior managing director and head of the international debt capital markets group, to be senior managing director.
Mediratta, who was with Bear for a decade, is also joining the Greylock board and will be on the investment committee for Greylock’s flagship Global Opportunity Fund, it said.
Greylock also hired former Bear executives including Andrey Popel from Bear’s leveraged finance team and Anthony Bitz. In Asia, Greylock hired Wei Yeh Sun to be part of its Singapore office.
