Sears May Be Down to Its Last 24 Hours. Iconic Retailer Likely Liquidates If No Bid Comes in Friday (CNBC)
Sears, the 125-year-old icon, has 24 hours to survive. The employer of more than 68,000 filed for bankruptcy in October. Its last shot at survival is a $4.6 billion proposal put forward by its chairman, Eddie Lampert, to buy the company out of bankruptcy through his hedge fund, ESL Investments. ESL is the only party offering to buy Sears as a whole, people familiar with the situation tell CNBC. Without that bid or another like it, liquidators will break the company up into pieces.
Pro-Brexit London Hedge-Fund Manager Odey Sees Full-Year Profit Cut in Half (MarketWatch)
Brexit-supporting hedge-fund manager Crispin Odey has seen profits more than halved at his boutique investment house. Operating profit has slumped to £8.7 million (roughly $11 million) for the year ending in April 2018 from £18.6 million, according to the latest accounts for Odey Asset Management, which were published Friday at Companies House. The firm’s parent company, Odey Asset Management Group, saw revenue fall from £47.5 million to £31.2 million for the year. A note in the document, seen by MarketWatch, said: “Although the year shows a fall in revenue, this was in line with expectations based on net outflows of assets under management.”
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Third Point Offshore Lowers Fees; Expects Chairman Hire In January (ALLISS) (Morningstar.co.uk)
LONDON (Alliance News) – Third Point Offshore Investors Ltd said Friday its shares will be switched into a newly-created share class of its master fund, managed by Third Point LLC, as the company also has made “significant progress” in its search for a new chairman. Third Point Offshore Investors is a closed-ended feeder into Third Point Offshore Fund Ltd, which is the “flagship” hedge fund of Third Point. Starting from January 1, Third Point Offshore Investors will switch its entire holding into a newly-created share class, with a 25% quarterly redemption gate. Third Point said it will redeem an “appropriate” amount each quarter to account for share buybacks and fees and expenses.
Industry Insiders are Predicting a Battle Between the Biggest Hedge-Fund Names for Top Quant Talent (Business Insider)
The quants developing algorithm-driven funds are the latest bogeyman old-school stock-pickers have pointed to for why the market has been swinging wildly, but that isn’t stopping managers from recruiting their own. Billionaire old-school traders Stanley Druckenmiller and Leon Cooperman have said the recent jolts of the market are the fault of computer-controlled trading, labeling the market unpredictability a “nightmare” and a “Wild West environment,” respectively. Cooperman even called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate quants in a CNBC interview earlier this month.
