FirstGroup’s US Bus Sale Backfires on Hedge Fund Coast Capital (The Times)
FirstGroup has seen off a substantial revolt by shareholders and pushed through the £3.3 billion sale of two of its American bus businesses. In a case of “careful what you wish for”, the sale is effectively a spectacular backfire for First’s largest shareholder, the US hedge fund Coast Capital.
March Brought A Reversal For Hedge Funds, Especially Long/ Short Equity (Forbes)
Hedge funds had a strong start to the year, but it seems investors aren’t very confident in long/ short equity funds. Data from HFM Insights reveals that the HFM Composite Index was up 5.9% for the first quarter, bringing its 12-month gain to more than 30%. It marks one of the strongest 12-month periods for the composite on record. Overall, the hedge fund industry had strong inflows, but long/ short equity funds had outflows in March.
The Archegos Fiasco has Reportedly Made Life Harder for Hedge Funds Investing in SPACs (Business Insider)
A slowdown in SPAC IPOs since March could in part stem from the $20 billion unraveling of Archegos Capital, according to a report from the Financial Times’ Ortenca Aliaj and Joshua Franklin. Bill Hwang’s Archegos utilized extreme leverage from a number of banks to build ahighly concentrated stock portfolio that ultimately moved against the firm as it was unable to meet margin calls. That leverage unwind caused $10 billion in combined bank losses, with Credit Suisse and Nomura losing the most.
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
Talos Closes USD40m Funding Round Led by Andreessen Horowitz (Institutional Asset Manager)
Talos, an institutional technology provider for digital asset trading, has completed a USD40 million Series A investment round led by Andreessen Horowitz and including investments from PayPal Ventures, Fidelity Investments, Galaxy Digital, Elefund, Illuminate Financial, and STEADFAST Capital Ventures. Early-stage Talos investors also participated, including Castle Island Ventures, Notation Capital, Autonomous Partners, and Initialized Capital.
Billionaire George Soros Picks Up These 3 “Strong Buy” Stocks (Nasdaq.com)
Some investors achieve legendary status, rising far above their peers on a combination of luck and success. Perhaps no one exemplifies this more than George Soros, the Holocaust survivor who, after the war, earned a doctorate from the London School of Economics and went into the banking industry to make his mark. He was wildly successful. The hedge fund he founded, Soros Fund Management, earned an average annualized return of 33% from 1970 to 2020, making it the most successful hedge fund in history. Soros’s biggest single success came on September 16, 1992, when he ‘broke the Bank of England.’ He had taken a short position on the pound sterling, leveraged to $10 billion, and when the pound fell in response to changing politics, he personally made $1 billion in a single day.
