BlueMountain Hedge Fund Recruits Financials Manager (FNLondon.com)
BlueMountain Capital Management, a $21bn New York hedge fund that is expanding its equities strategies, has recruited a portfolio manager from a rival to run its investments in financial stocks. Mahmood Reza, a partner at Omega Advisors who started out as a financials analyst at JPMorgan, joined BlueMountain on July 9, the firm said in a statement. He reports to Lance Rosen, who arrived as BlueMountain’s new head of equities last year. BlueMountain describes itself as a “diversified alternative asset management firm” and offers a range of investment funds, but most of its expertise is concentrated in long-short credit and various kinds of financial arbitrage, and a suite of “structured credit” strategies including mortgages, real estate and asset-backed securities.
Steve Cohen’s Hedge Fund Gains About 7% in First Half (Bloomberg)
Point72 Asset Management, the hedge fund run by Steve Cohen, returned about 7 percent in the first half of the year, according to people familiar with the matter. The Stamford, Connecticut-based firm was about flat in June, the people said. A spokesman for Point72 declined to comment.
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Scaramucci’s Path to $20 Billion Runs Through a Hot China Market (Bloomberg)
Anthony Scaramucci says he wants to double the size of SkyBridge Capital in five years. An investment offering that most of the world has shunned is suddenly all the rage in China, and money managers from UBS Group AG to SkyBridge Capital are moving to grab a slice of the bounty. Funds of hedge funds, which allocate client money across multiple managers, are opening at a record pace in Asia’s largest economy even as their numbers dwindle globally after 10 straight years of outflows. While investors in the U.S. and Europe have grown disillusioned with the funds’ fees and spotty performance, China’s rich are looking past those concerns as they hunt for alternatives to increasingly risky domestic asset-management products.
Och-Ziff A Little To Eager To Settle African Bribery Charges (DealBreaker)
Generally speaking, when a major hedge fund that is also a publicly-traded corporation finds itself on the wrong side of regulators for allegedly bribing an entire continent, it is best to nip things in the bud. This is what Och-Ziff Capital Management did when faced with accusations that its top men in Europe and Africa were liberally lubricating African officials in exchange for investment mandates, mining rights and more mining rights. In fact, the hedge fund couldn’t cut a deal fast enough, finally reaching a $400 million accord with the SEC and Justice Department in September of 2016.
