Soros Drops Shares in Israel’s SodaStream (JewishVoiceNY)
Billionaire investor George Soros’ family office, Soros Fund Management, has jumped on the divest Israel band wagon. He has sold all his holdings in the Israel based company Sodastream International Ltd (NASDAQ:SODA), which consisted of 550,000 shares. SodaStream has its main factory located in the West Bank region. This sudden sale has returned them to the spotlight again, since the beautiful Scarlett Johansson controversy had them in the headlines a while back. A Soros spokesman declined to comment on the motivation behind the sale.
Former Associate Dean of MIT Sloan School and His Harvard MBA Son Agree to Plead Guilty in Hedge Fund Scam (HedgeCo)
Two Boston-area hedge fund managers were charged today with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud and obstruction of justice. Gabriel Bitran, 69, of Newton, a former professor and associate dean of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (“MIT”) Sloan School of Business, and his son Marco Bitran, 39, of Brookline, a Harvard Business School graduate and money manager, were charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud, wire fraud and obstruction of justice in connection with their hedge fund businesses, GMB Capital Management and GMB Capital Partners. Both Gabriel and Marco Bitran have agreed to plead guilty to the charge.
SEC Launches ‘Sweep’ Of Alternative Mutual Funds (Finalternatives)
The Securities and Exchange Commission is casting a skeptical eye on one of the fastest-growing trends in alternative investments: hedge-fund like mutual funds. The regulator has begun a “sweep” of the alternative mutual fund industry, The Wall Street Journal reports. For now, the SEC’s mission is information-gathering, rather than enforcement, with plans to examine about 30 firms offering such funds by April. If the agency finds anything, it may choose to examine additional managers.
Polar Star to launch two new balanced commodity hedge funds this month (Opalesque)
A South African commodity hedge fund shop located in Cape Town is launching two new funds following the success of its existing crops. The history of the firm started with the Polar Star Fund (ZAR), which was launched in October 2008 within BlueAlpha Investment Management. In January 2010, Murray Derksen and Casper Groenewald joined BlueAlpha as the new managers on this fund. They launched the Polar Star Fund Limited (USD) in July 2010 and were later joined by their former colleagues from Rand Merchant Bank, Johann Theron in February 2013 and Francois Maritz in May 2014.
Pershing Square’s Ackman touts performance ahead of IPO (NYPost)
Bill Ackman is touting his 10-year track record as a corporate cage rattler while defending two of his more controversial activist plays as he gears up for an IPO later this year. Since launching Pershing Square in 2001, Ackman said his funds have an annualized rate of return to investors of 21 percent — one of the top hedge fund performances — compared with 8 percent for the benchmark S&P 500. Ackman cited his performance in his second quarter letter to investors, in which he also made reference to the upcoming IPO of one of his funds, saying it would happen “later this year.”
PE firms focused on ‘exit activity’: Pro (CNBC)
TXU Bankruptcy Is a Boon to Some Hedge Funds (InstitutionalInvestorsAlpha)
The late April bankruptcy filing by the Dallas-based power giant formerly known as TXU Energy is proving to be a highly profitable trade for a handful of credit and multistrategy hedge fund firms this year. Although the bankruptcy filing had been anticipated for some time, the actual filing by entities related to the company, now called Energy Future Holdings Corp., still sparked a rally in the paper in various parts of its capital structure…
Paul Singer Gets OK to Chase Argentina Money Trail to Nevada (Bloomberg)
Billionaire Paul Singer, the hedge fund founder seeking to collect on more than $1.5 billion in judgments over Argentina’s defaulted bonds, may search the deserts of Nevada for some of that money, a judge ruled. Singer asked a Las Vegas court in April to order 123 companies in Nevada to turn over information about assets belonging to Argentine businessman Lazaro Baez, who is accused in that country of embezzling $65 million from government contracts. U.S. Magistrate Judge Cam Ferenbach in Reno granted that request Aug. 11, ruling that Singer’s hedge fund was attempting to execute a valid judgment against Argentina.
Investors raise hedge fund bets in August (Reuters)
Investor interest in hedge funds rose in August as they added more cash than they redeemed, even as performance dipped during July, data showed on Tuesday. The SS&C GlobeOp Capital Movement Index, which calculates monthly hedge fund subscriptions minus redemptions, rose 0.62 percent in August to 149.05 points. The index compiled by the fund administrator is based on data provided by its clients and represents about 10 percent of assets invested in the hedge fund sector globally, or about $300 billion.
Investors Pay for Hedge-Fund Illusions (BloombergView)
In an earlier article for Bloomberg View, I described a danger facing investors: the put-option illusion. This is when investors, who tend to extrapolate too much from recent trends, are fooled into thinking that a string of good returns means an investment has very little risk. Often the risk is just lurking way out in the tail of the distribution, ready to jump out and crush your wealth. In that article, I also talked about some research by Vikas Agarwal and Narayan Naik from the mid-2000s showing that many hedge funds had returns that looked a lot like selling out-of-the-money puts on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index…
Prospective NHL owner, Chris Hansen working on Seattle arena deal (SeattlePI)
Would-be Seattle Sonics owner Chris Hansen has signed a “non-binding” agreement with a prospective NHL owner from Vancouver, B.C., regarding the proposed arena in Seattle’s Sodo neighborhood, according to a report from KING/5 TV. Citing sources with knowledge of talks between Hansen and Vancouver’s Victor Coleman, KING’s Chris Daniels reported on Tuesday that “the two potential ownership groups have signed a ‘non-binding’ agreement which lays out the terms for Coleman’s contribution to the project and his potential revenue streams for a hockey franchise.”
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