Icahn: Oil Will Go Lower, Saudi Arabia Blindsiding The World (CNBC)
The price of oil will go lower as supply and demand remain unbalanced, activist investor Carl Icahn said Thursday. Icahn, who spoke with CNBC’s “Fast Money: Halftime Report,” said that Saudi Arabia’s decision not to cut oil production blindsided the global market, and that he expects the commodity’s price will keep sliding. “I think [oil’s price] will continue to go down unless there is some outside event,” Icahn said.
Dalio, Cohn, Summers: The US is Fine…For Now (CNBC)
Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, the largest hedge fund in the world, echoed the point. “We’re in a new era in which central banks have largely lost their power to ease,” Dalio said as part of the same panel discussion in noting historically low interest rates. “If you get a downturn in the economy, the effectiveness of monetary policy will be less.” He did say the U.S. economy was fine for now, but added later that it won’t last forever. “I worry about the downside because the downside will come,” Dalio said.
Starboard Tells Company to Sell Its Private Planes… and Itself (Wall Street Journal)
The activist hedge fund Starboard Value LP told Paul Sarvadi, the CEO and chairman of the human resource outsourcing firm Insperity Inc.NSP +5.75%, that he needs to consider selling the company. But in the meantime, the hedge fund is urging him to sell the firm’s corporate jets. In a missive to Mr. Sarvadi, Starboard founder Jeffrey Smith called the company “deeply undervalued” and said the fund holds a 13.2% stake in the company, which makes the fund its largest shareholder. It outlined a list of steps that Insperity could take to boost its share price.
Icahn to Seek 2 Seats on Gannett’s Board (New York Times)
Carl C. Icahn is not one to relax for long. Fresh off signing a truce with eBay, the activist investor disclosed on Thursday that he planned to seek two seats on the board of Gannett, as well as to make proposals to prevent the media company from installing defenses against potential takeover bids. The move by Mr. Icahn precedes a planned breakup of Gannett into two companies, separating out its newspaper unit, which includes USA Today, from its much bigger broadcast operations.
Brevan Howard Settles Dispute with co-founder Rokos (Reuters)
Hedge fund group Brevan Howard, has settled its dispute with co-founder Christopher Rokos and has agreed to help the star trader launch his own investment fund later this year. The end of the legal dispute, over an unusually long five-year non-compete clause in his contract, comes at a time when macro hedge funds are bleeding cash and many have been forced to shut after nearly four years of mediocre performance.
Manager ‘Truly Sorry’ For Blowing Up Hedge Fund (CNBC)
A hedge fund manager told clients he is “truly sorry” for losing virtually all their money. Owen Li, the founder of Canarsie Capital in New York, said Tuesday he had lost all but $200,000 of the firm’s capital—down from the roughly $100 million it ran as of late March. “I take responsibility for this terrible outcome,” Li wrote in a letter to investors, which was obtained by CNBC.com. “My only hope is that you understand that I acted in an attempt—however misguided—to generate higher returns for the fund and its investors. But even so, I acted overzealously, causing you devastating losses for which there is no excuse,” he added.
Best Hedge Fund in Sweden Posts Historic Volatility Returns (Bloomberg)
Lynx Asset Management AB, which operates Sweden’s top-performing hedge fund, says the recent surge in market volatility has driven its best performance since it was created 16 years ago. “It’s become more exciting,” Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Svante Bergstroem said in an interview in Stockholm. “The second half of 2014 was very positive for us and since April we have had nine consecutive months with a plus, which we have never had in the history of the fund.”
Regiment Credit Fund Is Said to Lose 8.8% in 2014 on Oil (Bloomberg)
Regiment Capital Advisors, the $4 billion firm started by former high-yield bond investors from Harvard University’s endowment, lost 8.8 percent in its credit fund last year as falling oil prices hurt its energy and transportation bets. The Boston-based firm, led by Mark Brostowski and William Heffron, has seen assets in the fund shrink by 30 percent to $1.4 billion, from $2 billion at the end of December 2013, according to two people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Diana Pisciotta, a spokeswoman for Regiment at Denterlein, declined to comment on returns.
Hedge Fund Exit Requests Hit Two-Year Low In January (Reuters)
Investor requests to take out money from hedge funds are down more this month than in January last year, data from SS&C portfolios showed on Thursday. Though redemptions tend to drop every January because many investors rebalance their portfolios in December, the SS&C GlobeOp Forward Redemption Indicator — a snapshot of withdrawal requests expressed as a percentage of assets under administration — dropped to 2.49 percent, compared with 2.67 percent last January and 5.87 percent last month.
