Hedge Fund Founder Alan Howard Swells Tory Coffers with £1m Donation (Sky News)
The hedge fund founder Alan Howard has delivered a boost to Conservative Party coffers with a £1m donation as political fundraising intensifies in the run-up to the next general election. Sky News has learnt that the City financier has pledged the seven-figure sum in what is understood to be his largest single donation to the party to date. Mr Howard is the co-founder of Brevan Howard Asset Management and one of Britain’s most successful hedge fund managers. Based in Switzerland, he was placed at number 100 in this year’s Sunday Times Rich List with a fortune of £1.75bn.
Soros CIO Dawn Fitzpatrick Says Agency Mortgage-Backed Securities Are Cheap (Bloomberg)
Dawn Fitzpatrick, chief investment officer of Soros Fund Management, says agency mortgage-backed securities present a uniquely interesting investing opportunity. “Two-thirds of your current holders — it’s central banks and banks — have turned into sellers,” she said Wednesday at the Bloomberg Invest conference in New York. “The valuations in that space have gotten disproportionately cheap relative to other asset classes.”
Preston-Born Hedge Fund Manager Michael Platt Features in 10th Place on the UK’s Wealthiest List (Lep.co.uk)
Preston-born Michael Platt features in 10th place as one of the richest people residing in the UK: The 53-year-old co-founder and chief executive of BlueCrest Management – Europe’s third-largest hedge-fund firm which he co-founded in 2000, has seen his personal wealth rise in the last year by a further £1.5bn to £11.5bn. He also ranked number one in the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List in the north west. The team at Slingo have sourced the net worth of the UK’s wealthiest residents and analysed their nationality, age, job and gender.
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Hedge Fund Billionaire Ken Griffin Thinks ‘the A.I. Community is Making a Terrible Mistake’ by Spreading Hype about the New Tech (Fortune)
Ken Griffin, the hedge fund billionaire, is simply one of the biggest names in finance. His Citadel Securities had a record-breaking $16 billion return last year, when many were wrongfooted by a brutal bear market. Now A.I. has the market soaring, but Griffin is again twisting where others are turning. “I do think the A.I. community is making a terrible mistake by being full of hype on the near-term implications of generative A.I.,” he said at an internship kickoff event in Fort Lauderdale on Tuesday. “I think they’re actually doing everybody a huge disservice with the level of hype they are creating.”
Man Group CEO Says Central Banks have Made Little Difference to Inflation (Reuters)
Hedge fund Man Group (EMG.L) Chief Executive Luke Ellis believes central banks have not tamed inflation and threats to the broader economy persist, he said on Wednesday. “The bigger picture is that central banks think they’ve done a lot but they haven’t really made much difference to inflation at all,” Ellis said at a press event. Rate rises have made a dent in manufacturing but not in services, he added.
Two Sigma Co-Founder David Siegel Calls AI Hype ‘Remarkable’ (Bloomberg)
Two Sigma Investments co-founder David Siegel said the excitement surrounding artificial intelligence may be overblown. “The hype is absolutely remarkable,” Siegel said at the Bloomberg Invest conference Wednesday. “I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”
EFL Approves Hedge Fund Boss’s Birmingham City Takeover (Hedge Week)
US hedge fund manager Tom Wagner, the co-founder of Knighthead Capital Management, which oversees about $9 billion and focuses on event-driven investing and distressed credit, has had his takeover of Birmingham City FC apportioned by the English Football League (EFL). Knighthood Capital Management-owned Shelby Companies Limited, last month agreed a deal to buy 24% of the club’s shares from Birmingham Sports Holdings (BSHL) and an additional 21.64% from Oriental Rainbow Investments Limited, and Achiever Global Group Limited, for a consideration of about £5.3 million ($6.7 million) in cash, along with a series of subsequent payments if Birmingham City FC is promoted to the English Premier League and remains there in its first two seasons, according to a regulatory filing.
Cinctive Capital Management Names First Deputy CIO (Pensions&Investments)
Michael Haddad, former deputy chief investment officer for the New York City Retirement Systems, has joined hedge fund manager Cinctive Capital Management in the new position of deputy CIO, according to a Tuesday news release. Until leaving the $248.2 billion system in July, Mr. Haddad was interim chief investment officer and was the deputy CIO throughout his six-year tenure. This is his first position since leaving the New York City Comptroller’s Bureau of Asset Management, which oversees the system’s investment portfolio, a spokesman said in an email.
Bankrupt Crypto Fund’s NFT Art Is up for Sale, and Collectors Are Clamoring for It (Barron’s)
Sotheby’s is selling 37 works of digital art once owned by the defunct Singapore cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital in a live auction next week in New York. “Grails,” as the collection is titled, includes several works of digital art created by pioneering generative artists, including Dmitri Cherniak, Tyler Hobbs, and Larva Labs—creators of Cryptopunks. As the title implies, these are sought-after works in the history of generative art, which refers to digital art created from computer algorithms and minted on blockchain as nonfungible tokens, or NFTs.
Wednesday 6/7 Insider Buying Report: GPC, DE (Nasdaq.com)
At Genuine Parts, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Friday, Director Robert C. Loudermilk Jr. purchased 2,000 shares of GPC, for a cost of $151.75 each, for a total investment of $303,500. Genuine Parts is trading up about 0.2% on the day Wednesday. And at Deere, there was insider buying on Tuesday, by Director Tami A. Erwin who purchased 675 shares at a cost of $371.05 each, for a trade totaling $250,459. Deere is trading up about 0.7% on the day Wednesday.
Over $18M Bet On This Financial Services Stock? Check Out These 3 Stocks Insiders Are Buying (Benzinga)
Loews: The Trade: Loews Corporation (L) Sr. VP, Corp Dev and Strategy Benjamin J Tisch acquired a total of 330,000 shares an average price of $56.91. To acquire these shares, it cost around $18.78 million. Howard Hughes: The Trade: The Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) Director William Ackman acquired a total of 52,510 shares at an average price of $74.37. To acquire these shares, it cost around $3.91 million.
