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ReportonBusiness.com – A group of dissident shareholders enraged over HudBay Minerals Inc.’s corporate missteps is pressing on with plans to oust the company’s board even after the resignation of the mining firm’s embattled chief executive officer.
HudBay said yesterday that Allen Palmiere, the architect of HudBay’s recent failed merger attempt with Lundin Mining Corp., resigned as an officer and director of the Toronto company. HudBay director Colin Benner, the former head of Lundin, Skye Resources Inc. and EuroZinc Mining Corp., was appointed interim CEO.
San Diego Union Tribune – The county pension board’s chief investment officer has resigned a week after a second hedge fund collapse in which employee retirement investments could lose as much as $78 million.
David Deutsch, who held the job for five years, oversaw a $2.5 billion loss in pension assets since June 30.
He had pushed the San Diego County Employees Retirement Association – which manages retirement benefits for 35,000 county retirees and current employees – to invest heavily in hedge funds.
The association’s board accepted his resignation in closed session yesterday. His last day will be March 19.
Brian White, the association’s chief executive, said Deutsch didn’t give a reason for his departure and wasn’t given a severance package.
Asked if Deutsch was under any pressure because of investment losses or hedge fund problems, White said, “I think we’re all under a lot of pressure because of the market.”
International Herald Tribune – Fund manager Polar Capital Holdings said on Friday that assets under management in the nine months to December fell by 22 percent to $2.45 billion (1.65 billion pounds), due to market deterioration.
The fund manager, which runs hedge funds and long-only funds, said it expects $500 million of redemptions in the three months to March.
The resignation of Julian Barnett, manager of its Paragon hedge fund, is expected to bring about a further $400 million outflows when the fund is wound up.
Daily Freeman – Bard College said on Thursday that it lost about $3 million in investments tied to disgraced Wall Street financier Bernard Madoff.
Bard spokesman Mark Primoff said the losses came in the Northern Dutchess school’s $270 million endowment fund.
Primoff said the college invested in the Ariel Fund run by J. Ezra Merkin, who was a governor of Bard’s Levy Economics Institute until his recent resignation. Primoff said Merkin never told the board he was investing the money with Madoff.
