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.
Seeking Alpha – Zero Hedge is always happy to discover something rotten in the state of capital markets. We are even happier when others dig independently and come up with their own startling conclusions.
Last night, we were very happy. John Hempton, who writes the insightful blog Bronte Capital, has done some amazing dot connecting in what, if true, and not swept promptly under the carpet by the powers that be, could expose a hedge fund scandal that could rival the Madoff fiasco, for the simple reason that it implicates none other than Barak Obama’s right hand man: Joe Biden.
The fund in question is Paradigm Capital, a fund of funds, that is controlled by Hunter and James Biden, the VP’s son and brother, respectively.
Bloomberg – The first time I sensed the alarming change in my soul was when I caught myself, five minutes after the market open, reaching for a reefer.
Trust me, I didn’t amass legacy wealth (underestimated by Forbes magazine in the high eight figures) by smoking weed during trading hours. Exhaling that first hit I thought and might even have moaned aloud: “Whoa, dude! Why are you even running a hedge fund?” The markets were collapsing, and so was my passion.
Bloomberg subscribers have come to know me as a seriously successful hedge-fund manager who tries to serve society in more ways than one. Not only have I made as much money as possible, and proven the natural inferiority of the little rich-kid idiots from Harvard and Yale who went to work for Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. I have also freely shared my thoughts and opinions with you.
Bloomberg – Carl Icahn, the investor angling to sell a 13 percent stake in Imclone Systems Inc. for more than $800 million, is piling up bets in the biotechnology industry.
Icahn and hedge funds he manages have accumulated stakes in at least 10 biotechnology companies that make up a fifth of the investors’ total publicly reported holdings, excluding shares of Icahn Enterprises LP. He and the funds have about $1.3 billion invested in biotech, four times as much as two years ago, and increased those bets by $320 million in the last two months alone, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
The 72-year-old has made his personal fortune, estimated at $14.5 billion by Forbes magazine, by investing in companies and then pressuring management into selling their companies at higher share prices. The strategy worked for airlines, refiners and casinos. Icahn is now targeting biotech companies, whose products make them appealing to pharmaceutical giants, such as Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and AstraZeneca Plc, that will be losing patent protection over the next four years on medicines with $84 billion in annual sales.
