Hedge Fund News: Carl Icahn, Bill Ackman & Man Group’s Sell Ratings

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Man Group goes long on Asian analyst recommendations (FT)
Emerging markets may be out of favour, but Asian analysts trounce their peers in Europe and the US on the success of their recommendations, according to the world’s second-biggest hedge fund. Research by London-based Man Group, covering more than 35,000 different buy or sell ratings, found that buy recommendations of Asia-based analysts outperformed benchmarks by an average of 4.3 per cent in the 100 days after they were made. In comparison, UK, European and US analysts’ recommendations managed 1.5 per cent.

Here’s What This $32 Billion Hedge Fund Company Bought (DailyFinance)
Every quarter, many money managers have to disclose what they’ve bought and sold, via “13F” filings. Their latest moves can shine a bright light on smart stock picks. Today let’s look at investing giant Adage Capital Management, which is one of the biggest hedge fund companies around, with a reportable stock portfolio totaling more than $32.4 billion as of June 30, 2013. It was founded by Phillip Gross and Robert Atchinson, and it invests money for university endowments and charitable foundations, among others. As of 2011, the team had outperformed the S&P 500 by 3 percentage points annually, on average, since inception in 2001. So far this year, it has added a solid $4 billion in assets.

$2B Boise Deal Docs Give Hedge Fund Told-You-So Moment (Law360)
Packaging Corp. of America was initially interested only in half of Boise Inc., according to new documents released Thursday that shed light on their $2 billion merger and lend some weight to arguments made this week by a hedge fund opposing the deal. Documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission show that after making initial offers at $10.25 and $11 per share for the entire company, PCA said in June that it was no longer interested in Boise’s paper business, which is separate from,…

Apple BUYBACK Programme Underway? Carl Icahn Net Long or Net Short Apple? (IBTimes)
Back in April, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) announced its plan of what seems like the largest buyback programme that might be happening in the market, targeted by 2015 – $60 billion. Come the month of June, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), had reported that it already bought $16 billion worth of its own stock. This figure was more than 25 per cent of its eleven-quarter allocation in the span of one quarter. “Apple’s massive fiscal third quarter repurchase action looks like it may well be a buy-low move. The stock opened the quarter at $442 per share, hit a quarter low of $392 and ended at $409,” reported Carla Fried of YCharts.

Soros Adviser Turned Lawmaker Sees Crisis by 2020: Japan Credit (BusinessWeek)
FTakeshi Fujimaki, a former adviser to billionaire George Soros and now a member of Japan’s upper house of parliament, said a fiscal crisis in Asia’s second-biggest economy is inevitable and neither a higher sales tax nor the 2020 Olympics will be able to stop it. “I decided to become a politician because I think financial crisis will come sooner or later,” Fujimaki said in a Sept. 24 interview in Tokyo. “This total debt will continue to increase. I don’t think Japan can survive until 2020.”

Why Not Own Hedge Funds on the Cheap? (WSJ)
The thinking is typical for many in the private equity industry: It is better to be the owner of a company than its consumer. Neuberger Berman Group thinks the situation is no different with hedge funds. Speaking at the Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst Conference on Thursday in New York, Anthony Tutrone, who heads NB Alternatives Group, said hedge funds are a good part of the asset-management business. “If I can buy the general partner on the cheap, why not do that?” he said.

Bigger Investors Do Better When It Comes to Hedge Fund Investing (InstitutionalInvestorsAlpha)
Hedge funds shot to fame for regularly posting superior performance in the 1990s. But those days are over. Sure, a handful of managers still rack up outsize gains from time to time, some more frequently than others. But for the most part, the cottage industry we came to know and love for producing gargantuan gains in the 1990s has morphed into a big business that excuses itself for regularly underperforming the popular benchmarks with the promise that it will preserve investors’ hard-earned money when the markets tank every few years.

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