Piggybacking on Billionaire Singer Boosts Debt: Argentina Credit (Bloomberg)
Speculators in Argentina’s defaulted debt are looking to ride billionaire Paul Singer’s coattails to a payday. The price of bonds left over from the nation’s $95 billion default in 2001 jumped 50 percent to about 85 cents on the dollar since June 16, when the U.S. Supreme Court left intact a ruling that requires Argentina to compensate holdout creditors led by Singer when it pays those who provided debt relief in 2005 and 2010. That compares to a 0.15 percent gain in emerging markets. The notes are now at their highest level since the default, Seaport Group LLC said.
Here’s How America’s Highest Paid Hedge Fund Manager Is Giving Away His Money (Inside Philanthropy)
For three years running, David Tepper has earned the title of highest paid hedge fund manager in America, which likely makes him the highest paid person in the world. Raking in $3.5 billion in 2013 alone, Tepper’s fortune has ballooned to over $10 billion in recent years. And at just 55, he’s not likely to slow down any time soon, though his increasing wealth has caused him to become increasingly serious about his philanthropy. This isn’t to say Tepper hasn’t been serious about philanthropy for a long time. The David Tepper Charitable Foundation was created way back in 1997, just four years after he started his own hedge fund, Appaloosa Management, much earlier in his career than many of his counterparts, and certainly before he started making billions.
Drawing a line between pricey markets and globalization: James Saft (Reuters)
If global policy makers are wrong about globalization, and they could be, we may be in for more low growth, low rates and the high asset prices they support. At issue is the bedrock belief that globalization lifts all boats, making us all richer by allowing the flowering of individual countries’ comparative advantage. The big question is whether this is a transitional problem, a distributional one or something closer to a permanent condition. One person who has thought interestingly about these issues is Stephen Jen, a hedge fund manager at SLJ Macro Partners. Jen argues, picking up on points made by economist Paul Samuelson a decade ago, that lagged effects of globalization may be behind some of the peculiarities in both markets and economics we now observe.
Bob Evans Says Sandell Spurned Efforts to Avoid Proxy Fight (Wall Street Journal)
Bob Evans Farms Inc (NASDAQ:BOBE) said hedge fund Sandell Asset Management Corp. has spurned its efforts to avoid a proxy fight and that it doesn’t plan to expand the size of its board to accommodate the hedge fund. The New Albany, Ohio, company said its board has decided to keep the size of the board at 12 and that it plans to nominate 10 of its own candidates. With the previously announced retirements of two members, that would allow for two seats to be filled by Sandell candidates.
Hedge Fund MKP Said to Hire Nomura Interest-Rate Traders (Businessweek)
MKP Capital Management LLC, the $8.5 billion hedge-fund manager that invests in global macro and credit strategies, hired two interest-rate traders from Nomura Holdings, Inc. (ADR) (NYSE:NMR) as hedge funds anticipate a divergence in global central bank policies. Vivek Sahay and Lee Berkowitz will join New York-based MKP in July as money managers focusing on global interest-rate markets, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the information is private. Katherine Plavan, a spokeswoman for MKP, declined to comment on the appointments.
Cramer demystifies market (CNBC.com)
Raj Rajaratnam accused of paying inmates for special treatment (MarketWatch)
Convicted felon and ex-hedge fund kingpin Raj Rajaratnam has been allegedly paying fellow prisoners to receive the royal treatment. He is currently serving an 11-year federal prison sentence for an insider trading conviction – the longest sentence ever handed down in an insider trading case — at the Federal Medical Center, Devens, in Ayer, Mass. He was convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy and ordered to pay a $10 million fine and forfeit $53.8 million.
Lonestar Capital Management Raises Passive Stake in Cenveo Inc. (CVO) (Insider Monkey)
Lonestar Capital Management, managed by Jerome L. Simon, has upped its stake in Cenveo Inc. (NYSE:CVO) by 891,200 shares to 6.19 million shares, a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission revealed. Previously, the fund held 5.30 million shares of the company. The new stake in equal to 9.3% of common stock, and is passive by nature. Cenveo Inc., headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, is engaged providing print and related resources and offering solutions in the areas of custom boxes, custom labels, shrink sleeve labels, envelopes, commercial print, content management and publisher solutions. The company has a market cap of $236.2 million.
Greece’s sole oil producer raises recoverable reserves estimate (Reuters)
Energean Oil & Gas, Greece’s only oil producer, raised on Thursday its estimate of recoverable oil deposits by more than 10 percent to 30 million barrels. Energean, in which U.S. hedge fund Third Point LLC holds a 44.5 percent stake, produces about 1,700 barrels of crude a day off the northern Greek island of Thassos. That output covers only a negligible part of the country’s energy needs. Debt-laden Athens has embarked on an ambitious programme to discover big hydrocarbon reserves in the country’s west.
Hedge-Fund Manager Saiers Steps Down to Pursue Art Career (Bloomberg)
Nelson Saiers is stepping down from his role as chief investment officer of Saiers Capital LLC to pursue a career as an artist, leaving the top role at the firm to founder Jason Adler. The 39-year-old money manager will continue as an adviser to the fund while Adler will assume responsibilities of CIO starting Sept. 30, according to a letter to investors that was obtained by Bloomberg News. Adler started the New York-based hedge fund in 2007 by transforming his former firm Geronimo LLC, an options market maker that he founded in 2001, into a fund that wagers on volatility.
As Activist Hedge Funds Boom, ‘Hushmail’ Takes Hold (FINalternatives)
Activist hedge funds have been around for about a decade and their modis operandi has not changed dramatically in that time: buy a significant stake in a company, agitate for change, realize profits, repeat. What has changed is the number of such investors: according to data provider Preqin, there are now over 400 activist hedge funds worldwide. Moreover, 2013 saw the launch of 28 new activist funds, the highest number of launches since 2007. And the ranks of activist hedge fund managers are unlikely to shrink anytime soon—their assets are $100 billion and growing, according to Hedge Fund Research, and of the $6.5 billion investors poured into event-driven funds in May of this year, eVestment said a full $4 billion went to activist strategies.
