Hedge Fund and Insider Trading News: D.E. Shaw, Appaloosa Management, Bill Ackman, Arcus Biosciences Inc (RCUS), SCYNEXIS Inc (SCYX), RealNetworks Inc (RNWK), and More

Hedge Funds to Watch for Facebook Fallout: D.E. Shaw, Appaloosa (Bloomberg)
Several prominent hedge funds could be among investors feeling the pain from Facebook Inc.’s recent plunge amid the Cambridge Analytica data crisis. AQR Capital Management, Appaloosa Management, Coatue Management and D.E. Shaw & Co. were the stock’s top hedge fund holders as of Dec. 31, with a combined 21.9 million shares, data compiled by Bloomberg show. While they’re not obliged to provide a public update on those holdings until May and could have adjusted positions during the first quarter, holdings that remained unchanged may have suffered.

Bill Ackman Finds Honest-To-God Finance People Still Willing To Associate With Bill Ackman (DealBreaker)
It’s awfully lonely being Bill Ackman. There’s just something about the guy that brings out the bully in, well, everybody. And he’s certainly given them plenty of ammunition while also watching his marriage of 25 years disintegrate. It’s enough to make a guy want to drown himself in queso and even generate a personal insight or two. Still, Bill Ackman is who he is, and can’t seem to change that to any great extent, which means that associating with him in any way brings all sorts of risks, from the financial to the reputational. But at least two people of character are willing to stand by this beaten-down soul, two people with actual résumés, even, albeit two people who are more-or-less retired.

Alex Oakenman / shutterstock.com

The Billionaire Whisperer Who United Bezos, Buffett and Dimon (Bloomberg)
Todd Combs spends most of his days reading in a quiet office in Omaha, where he’s an investment manager at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. But one day last year he found himself on a flight to Seattle with an unusual mission: Pitch Jeff Bezos on a bold idea for wringing costs out of the U.S. health-care system. Two of the biggest corporate chieftains in America-his boss, Warren Buffett, and Jamie Dimon, who runs the largest bank in the country-had already signed on. But they wanted the Amazon.com Inc. chief executive officer on board as well.

Balyasny Hedge Fund Firm Loses About 10 Macro Traders (Bloomberg)
Dmitry Balyasny’s hedge fund firm saw about 10 macro traders leave last week as two of its main multistrategy funds lost money this year and it moved to reduce costs. Some employees were cut from Balyasny Asset Management’s Anthem training program, including its head, Mitesh Parikh, said people with knowledge of the matter. Anthem was started in 2016 for younger managers, who were given small pools of capital to invest, and has made money since inception, the people said.