Hedge Fund and Insider Trading News: Eddie Lampert, Steve Cohen, Scientific Games Corp (SGMS), TRACON Pharmaceuticals Inc (TCON), AllianceBernstein Holding LP (AB), and More

Billionaire Steven Cohen Flips the Script: Picking Up Facebook (FB) Stock, Tuning Out Roku (ROKU) (SmarterAnalyst.com)
Back in November, billionaire Steve Cohen predicted a bear market was approaching. The time frame he gave during an interview with the Financial Times (FT) was for it to come in 18 months. Did his prediction come early? Cohen’s remarks were spoken to the FT as his new hedge fund Point72 raised $5 billion since the firm opened its doors to outside investors. Cohen is said to have had a return of 30% per year since opening his firm SAC Capital Advisors in 1992. However, a 2012 insider trading scandal rocked the house and Cohen closed shop in 2016.

Ex-BlueCrest Manager to Start $800M Hedge Fund Focusing on Asia (Bloomberg)
Bloomberg’s Lisa Abramowicz discusses a big fund launch by Mohit Khurana, a former portfolio manager at BlueCrest Capital Management. She speaks on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Americas.” (Source: Bloomberg)

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Sears Gets Last-Minute Bid From Chairman (TheStreet)
Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLDQ) — once famed for its iconic catalog and department stores — narrowly averted liquidating when Eddie Lampert, the retailer’s chairman, made a last-minute, $4.4 billion bid to buy and save the company. Lampert made the bid through his hedge fund, ESL Investments. No other official bid had appeared by Friday. ESL said the bid includes $1.3 billion in financing from three institutions. Reports said Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc. and Royal Bank of Canada would assist with the financing.Transform Holdco LLC, an affiliate of ESL Investments, said it would purchase 425 Sears stores, offering employment to up to 50,000 of the chain’s 68,000 current employees.

Och-Ziff Capital Management Group (OZM) Shares Scheduled to Reverse Split on Friday, January 4th (ModernReaders.com)
Shares of Och-Ziff Capital Management Group LLC (NYSE:OZM) are set to reverse split before the market opens on Friday, January 4th. The 1-10 reverse split was announced on Thursday, December 6th. The number of shares owned by shareholders will be adjusted after the closing bell on Thursday, January 3rd.