Hedge Fund News: Michael Beerman, Warren Buffett, Man Group

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Wing Lake Capital Shutting Down (The Wall Street Journal)
Hedge fund veteran Michael Beerman is shutting down Wing Lake Capital LLC amid lackluster performance, according to people familiar with the matter. The firm becomes one of the latest in a spate of recent closings for hedge fund managers. Last year was one of the worst for the industry since the 2008 financial crisis. Wing Lake managed $183 million as of Oct. 1 and earned 2% for the year through September after fees, according to a note sent to its investors. The stock hedge fund bet on and against companies largely located in North America, according to the note.

Warren Buffet, is Warren Buffet success personified, Suzanne Woolley

Start-up helps people invest like Warren Buffett (Brisbane Times)
Ordinary people can now invest as Warren Buffett, James Slater or Sir John Templeton do by using a free algorithm that mimics the stock-picking, buying, and selling decisions of the world’s most successful investors. This is the claim made by husband-and-wife team Maria and Michel Jacquemai, founders of “financial Facebook” MeetInvest, who crunched the formulas used by multi-millionaire market players to allow anyone to use their principles to make money. “We want to empower investors by giving them the same toolkits that the professionals have,” says Maria. “The financial world wants to keep this kind of information a secret but we have decided to give it away for free.”

Caesars Letting Apollo, TPG Keep Stake Fuels Creditor Anger (Bloomberg)
If all goes according to Caesars Entertainment Corp.’s (NASDAQ:CZR) plan that started with putting its biggest unit into bankruptcy today, the casino company’s private-equity owners won’t have to give up a penny of their $1.8 billion stake. Creditors would see half their claims wiped out. Usually, equity holders rank last for repayment in a bankruptcy. Yet Apollo Global Management LLC (NYSE:APO) and TPG Capital, which bought Caesars in 2008, are pushing a proposal that would allow them to isolate the Las Vegas-based company’s troubled operating subsidiary and its $18.4 billion of debt, while hanging on to their control of its parent.

Hedge Fund Kept U.S. Inquiry Quiet (The New York Times)
In the volatile world of high finance, hedge funds come and hedge funds go. So there was little fanfare last week, apart from a few upset investors, when Vertical Capital, with $1.4 billion under management, suddenly announced it was unwinding its $400 million hedge fund operation. Behind the scenes, however, is a troubling Wall Street story, redeemed, in part, by a whistle-blower who was not willing to go along with what she viewed as dubious business practices. In a letter to investors sent during the evening of Dec. 2, Vertical said it was negotiating with the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle a civil securities fraud case against its founder, Brett Graham, and its related brokerage firm, VCAP Securities.


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