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.
Hedge Tracker – Toscafund, the activist hedge fund run by Martin Hughes, has sold half of its stake in Aberdeen Asset Management to Japanese bank Mitsubishi. According to an article from the Telegraph, Toscafund’s assets have fallen in half since 2008 and the fund has reportedly begun selling down stakes to meet investor redemption requests.
Aberdeen had become the hedge fund’s largest investment since the initial purchase in March of 2008; in April of 2009 Toscafund revealed that it had trimmed its shares in the firm, and this latest decision to halve its stake in Aberdeen has prompted speculation about renewed pressure from the fund’s investors. Martin Hughes had cited Aberdeen’s potential as a reason for investors to keep their money with Toscafund earlier this year. Following the deal, Mitsubishi became the second-largest shareholder in Aberdeen.
The Washingtom Post – Reston-based satellite firm SkyTerra said Wednesday that it has agreed to be acquired by its biggest shareholder in a roughly $280 million transaction that will return the company to private ownership.
Under the deal, New York-based investment firm Harbinger Capital Partners will pay $5 per common share of SkyTerra — a 56 percent premium over the stock’s average price in the month before the announcement. SkyTerra shares gained more than 38 percent on Wednesday, closing at $4.71.
Bloomberg – John Paulson, the hedge fund billionaire who earned an estimated $2.5 billion last year betting against a recovery in the U.S. housing market, said he supports managers of AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. after becoming the South African mining company’s biggest investor.
AngloGold Chief Executive Officer Mark Cutifani “is an outstanding leader,” Paulson’s New York-based firm Paulson & Co. said in a statement late yesterday. “He is focusing on safety, low costs, production, growth and diversification.”
Times Online – SRM Global, the hedge fund that became the largest shareholder in Northern Rock, said yesterday that it would continue its fight for government compensation after losing its second legal challenge.
The fund, which owned 11.5% of Northern Rock, is leading a legal campaign claiming that the Treasury’s compensation scheme, which values former shareholders’ stakes at close to zero, is “unlawful and unfair”.
The legal action was launched in conjunction with RAB Special Situations, another hedge fund, and about 200,000 small shareholders in Northern Rock, many of them former employees of the lender.
CNBC – Attorneys for a hedge fund are asking for the appointment of an examiner in horse track owner Magna Entertainment’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.
A hearing was scheduled Tuesday on the request by Greenlight Capital Offshore Partners, which wants an investigation of ties between Magna and its parent company, known as MID.
MID has played a dual role as both a potential bidder for MEC assets and one of its primary lenders.
Greenlight, an unsecured creditor of Magna as well as a large shareholder in MID, is concerned about the fairness of any asset sale.
Triangle Business Journal – As BioDelivery Sciences International awaits approval of its first product, a New York hedge fund has gained control of enough BDSI shares to become its largest shareholder.
With what looks like one goal in mind – making a lot of money.
Elliott International Capital Advisors is the same firm that tried to shake up Raleigh-based BDSI with a management change two years ago. That was at a time when the company was developing Onsolis, a small disk placed on the inside of the cheek that quickly delivers the drug fentanyl to cancer patients suffering breakthrough pain.
New York Times Blogs – E*Trade Financial is in talks with Citadel Investment Group, the hedge fund that is its largest shareholder, about a deal to shore up the struggling brokerage firm’s balance sheet, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
The two companies have been in negotiations for weeks to find a solution to E*Trade’s financial problems, The Journal said, adding that terms of the deal were unknown.
On Tuesday, E*Trade announced that Citadel Chief Executive Kenneth C. Griffin would be joining the firm’s finance and risk-oversight committee.
Reuters – Bill Ackman, founder of the Pershing Square hedge fund, has joined the board of bankrupt shopping mall operator General Growth Properties Inc, where he is a large shareholder.
Ackman is the founder and managing member of the general partner of Pershing Square Capital Management L.P. Pershing and its affiliates own slightly less than 7.5 percent of General Growth’s outstanding common stock, the company said late on Friday.
Ackman has said he could gain 13 times his investment in the company once it is reorganized, calling General Growth "high quality."
Times and Democrat – Activist shareholder William Ackman sought for months to replace four incumbents on the Minneapolis-based retailer’s board of directors with five of his own picks, including himself.
The head of Pershing Square Capital Management, which has a 7.8 percent stake in Target, has argued that the cheap chic discount retailer, which has stumbled as shoppers focus on basics, needed new perspective. He said it especially needed to beef up its board in the areas of retail and real estate to better compete with its chief rival, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark.
Shareholders rejected those arguments at their meeting outside Milwaukee Thursday. They also sided with the company in approving a measure that sets the board’s size at the current 12 members, instead of the 13 that Ackman had wanted.
CNNMoney.com – A major shareholder of Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc. ( AMLN) is backing a slate of dissident directors nominated by Carl Icahn and another hedge-fund manager, Eastbourne Capital Management.
P. Schoenfeld and Associates, which owned 2.1 million Amylin shares as of the end of the first quarter, told Dow Jones Newswires Thursday it supports all five of Icahn’s and Eastbourne’s nominees because it sees that as the only opportunity for the company to make significant strides.
"We would like to see the largest minority possible elected to the Amylin board," said P. Schoenfeld founder Peter Schoenfeld.
StarTribune.com – Score a big one for Target Corp. provocateur William Ackman.
The activist shareholder got a boost from the business world’s most influential proxy advisory firm on Tuesday, when RiskMetrics Group said that investors should vote for Ackman and one of his dissident nominees on an expanded Target board of directors.
Meanwhile, another proxy-research firm, Glass Lewis, endorsed the Minneapolis-based retailers’ full slate of incumbents.
Reuters – U.S. hedge fund Steel Partners said it has urged shareholders of loss-making wig maker Aderans Holdings to reject an offer by Japanese private equity fund Unison Capital to buy Aderans shares.
Japan’s Aderans said last month it supported Unison Capital’s bid for at least a 35 percent stake in Aderans to replace top shareholder Steel Partners, which has been pushing for management changes.
Unison Capital’s proposed offer is "inadequate and coercive", Steel Partners said in a statement on Monday.
