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.
Mecury News – September brought a sharp uptick in M&A activity, according to the 451 Group, a firm that analyzes the tech industry. The month began with the $2 billion “carve out” deal for Skype, in which eBay sold 65 percent of the company to a consortium led by the Menlo Park-based private equity group Silver Lake Partners, with participation by venture firms Andreessen Horowitz and Index Ventures.
Analyst Brenon Daly predicted that the September “acceleration” suggests that the climate is right for more deal-making in the months ahead.David W. Healey, co-chairman of M&A for law firm Fenwick & West, said the recent deals have largely advanced strategic interests of the companies involved, “which is healthy,” as opposed to deals based more on “financial engineering” involving private equity and hedge funds that characterized much of the M&A earlier this decade.
Reuters – Investors, encouraged by a growing number of acquisitions and public floats in the past few months, are keeping a close eye on a coterie of promising startups in Silicon Valley.
An informal poll of venture capitalists and others pointed to six privately held companies as the ripest for acquisition or readiness to go public, out of 34 cited in industries ranging from alternative energy to social networking.
For now, the Silicon Valley Six say they intend to keep growing rather than agreeing to be acquired or go public during the recession.
Reuters – Investors, encouraged by a growing number of acquisitions and public floats in the past few months, are keeping a close eye on a coterie of promising startups in Silicon Valley.
An informal poll of venture capitalists and others pointed to six privately held companies as the ripest for acquisition or readiness to go public, out of 34 cited in industries ranging from alternative energy to social networking.
For now, the Silicon Valley Six say they intend to keep growing rather than agreeing to be acquired or go public during the recession.
Contra Costa Times – If you accept the adage that "all of life is high school," then one of the charms of Silicon Valley is its ability to turn nerds like Marc Andreessen or Mark Zuckerberg into star quarterbacks on the tech gridiron.
So it may not seem fair that former San Francisco 49ers star Steve Young — an actual quarterback, and a Hall-of-Famer to boot — didn’t just wind up as some broken-down jock somewhere telling stories about glory days. Not only has Young made a successful transition to football commentator on ESPN, but he’s quietly been a Silicon Valley player, too. He’s a co-founder of Northgate Capital, a "fund of funds" that invests in tech, and a former director of Foundry Networks.
Bloomberg – Marc Andreessen, who helped kick off the Internet boom 15 years ago by co-founding Netscape Communications Corp., is starting a $300 million venture capital fund to foster Silicon Valley startups.
Andreessen, 37, and partner Ben Horowitz, 43, will seek investment opportunities and spend between $50,000 and $50 million on each, Andreessen said in an interview. The fund will concentrate on things he knows, such as the Internet and information technology, rather “clean tech, biotech, electric cars and rocket ships,” he said.
Forbes – A Silicon Valley hedge fund manager accused of bilking investors out of at least $5 million has agreed to be extradited from Hong Kong to the United States, a government lawyer said Friday.
Fund manager Albert Hu, an American citizen, gave his consent to surrender to the U.S. in a Hong Kong court proceeding, said local government counsel Yasmin Mahomed, who represented U.S. authorities.
The Associated Press – A Silicon Valley hedge fund manager wanted in the U.S. on charges he duped investors out of at least $5 million challenged his extradition from Hong Kong on Wednesday.
Fund manager Albert Hu, an American citizen, told a Hong Kong court through his lawyer that he wanted to exercise his right to see evidence in his case, in which U.S. officials are seeking his extradition to California.
"He feels that he must seek evidence (from) the prosecution," said defense counsel Jonathan Acton-Bond.
Hu had indicated he was willing to surrender to the U.S. during his first court appearance last week, according to Hong Kong’s Department of Justice.
International Herald Tribune – A Silicon Valley hedge fund manager has been arrested in Hong Kong on charges that he bilked investors out of at least $5 million.
According to a criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday in San Jose federal court, Albert Hu faces six counts of wire fraud charges for an investment fraud scheme involving hedge funds he administered from 2002 to 2008, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
Reuters – President George W. Bush said on Monday an announcement on a auto industry rescue was not imminent, leaving the industry’s fate clouded in uncertainty for a little longer.
"We’re not quite ready to announce that yet," Bush told reporters on Air Force One during a flight from Baghdad on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan.
He had been asked when he might make an anticipated announcement about tapping a $700 billion financial industry bailout fund to aid General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC.
Asked whether he was leaning toward using financial bailout funds, Bush said: "I signaled that that’s a possibility."
AP – President George W. Bush has granted pardons to 14 individuals and commuted the prison sentences of two others convicted of misdeeds ranging from drug offenses to tax evasion, from wildlife violations to bank embezzlement, The Associated Press learned Monday.
The new round of White House pardons are Bush’s first since March and come less than two months before he will end his presidency. The crimes committed by those on the list also include offenses involving hazardous waste, food stamps, and the theft of government property.
Dallas Morning News – It’s every SMU grad’s dream: to be young, handsome, and closely involved with deciding how to spend $700 billion.
Attention, Class of 2000: Your fellow alum, Jeb Mason, is living it.
Mr. Mason, 32, has spent his entire career inside the Bush administration. His first assignment: running the mailroom for President George W. Bush’s transition office. His latest: overseeing the Treasury Department’s contacts with Washington’s influential community of lobbyists, trade groups and think tanks.
Mr. Mason is the gatekeeper to Henry Paulson, considered the most powerful treasury secretary in more than a decade.
Asbury Park Press – The end of the George W. Bush era brings some Grateful Dead lyrics to mind: "What a long, strange trip it’s been."
The first Bush term opened following the bursting of the tech bubble, which had been inflated by cocktail-napkin business plans for dot-coms. Stocks plummeted. The economy contracted dramatically in the third quarter of 2000, followed by a full-blown recession in March 2001 and the horror of Sept. 11. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan cut interest rates down to practically nothing and, with help from the Bush administration’s tax cuts and unbridled spending by Congress, created easy-money housing and credit bubbles during the Age of Froth.
