Movers & Shakers: Buffett’s Insurance Cash Stalling (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg’s Betty Liu and Dominic Chu report that Warren Buffett, the former hedge fund manager who built Berkshire Hathaway Inc. into a $195 billion company by gaining leverage through insurance premiums, said this traditional source of new funds is drying up. They speak on Bloomberg Television’s “In The Loop.” (more…)

Mark Jurish on Hedge Fund Performance, Strategy (Bloomberg)

Mark Jurish, chief executive officer of Larch Lane Advisors, talks about hedge fund industry performance and strategy. Jurish speaks with Stephanie Ruhle and Erik Schatzker on Bloomberg Television’s “InsideTrack.”

Dyment on Hedge Fund Investment Trends (Bloomberg)

John Dyment, global head of hedge-fund distribution at UBS AG, talks about trends in the hedge-fund industry. Dyment speaks with Stephanie Ruhle on Bloomberg Television’s “InsideTrack.” (more…)

FX Concepts’ Taylor Shorter on Dollar Than Euro on Fed’s Low-Rate Pledge (Bloomberg)

John Taylor, founder of currency- hedge fund FX Concepts LLC, said he’s betting against the dollar after Federal Reserve policy makers extended their pledge to keep interest rates close to zero and indicated they’re prepared to make additional asset purchases. “I am shorter the U.S. dollar than I am the euro,” Taylor said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Inside Track” with Erik Schatzker. “We are going to have QE3 at some point and they stretched the time we are not going to have higher rates. That was a tremendous hit to the dollar. The dollar was doing fine until Bernanke came up with that idea.” (more…)

Rajat Gupta

The SEC have expanded their insider trading case against Rajat Gupta, “charging him with passing tips to convicted hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam much earlier than alleged before,” reports the Times of India. “In a superseding indictment filed Tuesday in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors broadened their description of the insider-trading scheme, saying it began in March 2007 not in 2008 as alleged in October.” (more…)

TPG Capital Agrees to Acquire GlobeOp Financial Services for $800 Million (Bloomberg)

TPG Capital LLP agreeed to buy GlobeOp Financial Services SA, a hedge fund administrator, for about 508 million pounds ($800 million). The private equity firm will pay 435 pence a share in cash, 49 percent more than the closing price on Jan. 5, the day before GlobeOp said it was in talks to be acquired, TPG said in a statement today. (more…)

Hedge-Fund Liquidity Turned Corner, Says Gayeski (Bloomberg)

Troy Gayeski, senior portfolio manager at SkyBridge Capital LLC, discusses liquidity conditions for hedge funds and high-yield bonds, and efforts by the U.S. government to boost the housing market. He speaks with Scarlet Fu and Stephanie Ruhle on Bloomberg Television’s “InsideTrack.” (more…)

Texas Fund ‘Eaten Alive’ by Hedge Fees May Curb Costs by Hiring In-House (Bloomberg)

Texas’s Permanent School Fund may hire in-house money managers to oversee its $25 billion in assets because returns are being “eaten alive” by hedge-fund fees, according to Chief Investment Officer Holland Timmins. Returns were less than 1 percent for the 44 months through November on assets managed by the five companies that bundle multiple hedge funds into single investment vehicles, Timmins said Jan. 25 at a State Education Board meeting. After fees, the return was negative, he said. (more…)

Icahn Said To Buy Lightsquared Debt In Bet On Falcone Venture’s Collapse (Bloomberg)

Billionaire Carl Icahn has purchased debt from Philip Falcone’s LightSquared Inc.’s bondholders as the satellite-broadband-service provider struggles to start service, two people familiar with the transaction said. Icahn, along with investors Andrew Beal and David Tepper purchased $300 million in LightSquared debt sold by Farallon Capital Management LLC. last month, said the people, who declined to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak. The move may give Icahn control of LightSquared’s radio spectrum for less than Falcone originally paid. (more…)

Rajat Gupta

Prosecutors in the Rajat Gupta case said in court yesterday that “former McKinsey & Co. chief Rajat Gupta gave convicted insider-trader Raj Rajaratnam advance word about Procter & Gamble’s plan to sell Folgers Coffee in 2008,” reports FINAlternatives.

“In June 2008, Procter & Gamble sold its Folgers Coffee business to J.M. Smucker,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Tarlowe. “The allegation is that Mr. Gupta disclosed the information about that before it was public to Mr. Rajaratnam.” (more…)

Hedge Funds Fall 4.9% As Long/Short, Macro Funds Suffer (FINalternatives)

Hedge funds sank almost 5% last year amidst market volatility and the European sovereign debt crisis. The Bloomberg Aggregate Hedge Fund Index ended 2011 down 4.9% after a 0.9% decline in December. By contrast, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ended the year essentially flat. Most of the industry’s losses were suffered in September, when the Bloomberg index fell 4.7%. (more…)

Raj Rajaratnam

Rajaratnam Ordered to Pay $92.8 Million Penalty (NYT)

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered the convicted hedge fund titan Raj Rajaratnam to pay a $92.8 million penalty, the largest ever assessed against a person in a Securities and Exchange Commission insider trading case. Combined with the fines and forfeitures ordered last month when he was sentenced to 11 years in prison for insider trading, Mr. Rajaratnam will be paying a total of $156.6 million. (more…)