Exxon Shares Jump as Activist Investor Jeff Ubben Joins the Board (CNBC)
Exxon Mobil announced two board seat changes Monday, including activist investor and ESG proponent Jeff Ubben, in a sign that the company is confronting its uncertain future as the world moves toward cleaner energy and as investors shy away from oil stocks. Exxon said the other new board member is Mike Angelakis, chairman and chief executive officer of Atairos and former CFO of Comcast.
Goldman’s Lane Quits for Coleman’s Tiger Global in Surprise Exit (Bloomberg)
Eric Lane, the co-head of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s asset-management business, is quitting the firm to join Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global Management, just a day after news that a pair of senior consumer bankers are leaving for a fintech startup. Lane is departing less than six months after taking over the firm’s newly expanded asset-management business along with Julian Salisbury, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg. The 25-year veteran of Goldman Sachs and a member of its most important decision-making body, will join hedge fund Tiger Global as president and chief operating officer, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Greenlight Was Up in February — But Not Enough to Erase January (Institutional Investor)
The hedge fund headed by David Einhorn remains solidly in the red for the year. David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital rebounded in February from its rough start to the year.The value-driven hedge fund firm posted a 2.6 percent gain for the month, trimming its loss for the year to 8.8 percent, according to a person familiar with the results.
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‘Big Short’ Investor Michael Burry Slams Bitcoin as a ‘Speculative Bubble’ – and Says a Crash is Coming (Business Insider)
Bitcoin’s price has surged to unsustainable levels, and buyers have taken on dangerous amounts of debt, Michael Burry cautioned in a recent tweet. “$BTC is a speculative bubble that poses more risk than opportunity despite most of the proponents being correct in their arguments for why it is relevant at this point in history,” the investor wrote before deleting the tweet. “If you do not know how much leverage is involved in the run-up, you may not know enough to own it,” he added.
Analysis: SPACs Turn to ‘Stonks’ as Amateur Traders Take on More Risk (Reuters)
(Reuters) – For Jonny Coreson, $4 billion is worth $5 billion. The 32-year-old test prep business owner from Denver invested $100,000 in shares of veteran hedge fund manager Bill Ackman’s special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Pershing Square Tontine Holdings Ltd, after they soared 25% in December with no imminent deal in sight. This valued the blank-check acquisition firm at $5 billion, when on paper it was worth only the $4 billion it had raised in an initial public offering in July.
Billionaire Hedge Fund Boss Pays Himself UK Record of £343m (The Guardian)
The billionaire hedge fund manager Sir Chris Hohn paid himself $479m last year after his Children’s Investment (TCI) fund, recorded a 66% jump in pre-tax profits to $695m. It is believed to be the highest annual amount ever paid to one person in Britain and equates to £940,000 a day. It is 9,000 times the average UK salary and 1,700 times the amount paid to the prime minister, Boris Johnson. Hohn’s huge $479m (£343m) payday is significantly higher than the previous record of £323m paid to Denise Coates, the majority shareholder of the betting company Bet365, in 2018.
Future-Proofing Core Real Estate (Preqin)
The abundance of risks to the world economy has underpinned the importance of future-proofing real estate portfolios. Even for relatively stable core assets, investment philosophies must look to the future rather than simply relying on what has worked in the past. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has re-emphasized this need for an outlook that anticipates long-term socioeconomic trends.
Diginex’s Bletchley Park Fund Generated a 35 per cent Return in Year to 31 Jan (Hedge Week)
Diginex Limited’s flagship liquid alpha centric fund of crypto hedge funds, Bletchley Park Multi Strategy Fund (BPMSF), generated an estimated net 35 per cent return for the last twelve months, as of 31 January. BPMSF primarily invests in alpha strategies that generate returns with limited directional exposure to underlying crypto prices (eg, movements in the price of bitcoin). BPMSF has achieved this through investing in a range of carefully selected crypto hedge fund managers with the objective of being profitable in a range of market conditions, including periods of declining crypto currency prices.
Insider Trading: March 1, 2021 (BIV.com)
Insider Jerry Kroll, Director. Company: Electrameccanica Vehicles Corp. (Nasdaq:SOLO). Shares owned: 3,658,525. Trade date: February 11, 12. Trade total: US$1,399,350. Trade: Sale of 172,866 shares at prices from US$7.98 to US$8.21 per share. Insider Craig A. Roberts, director. Company: Global Battery Metals Ltd. (TSX-V:GBML). Shares owned: 438,505. Trade date: February 11, 12. Trade total: $989,505. Trade: Sale of 850,600 shares at prices from $1.13 to $1.18 per share.
The Past Week’s Notable Insider Buys: Agree Realty, Avis Budget, Zoetis And More (Benzinga)
Here are some of the most noteworthy insider purchases that were reported in the past week. American Assets Trust, Inc (AAT) saw its chief executive officer, Ernest Rady, indirectly acquire about 118,000 shares of this San Diego-based real estate investment trust recently. At prices ranging from $29.44 to $30.26 per share, the total for these purchases came to over $5.31 million. A 10% owner that has been acquiring shares of Austin, Texas-based Molecular Templates Inc (MTEM) since last October picked up about 309,000 more of them in the past week. The most recent transactions cost that owner more than $3.51 million, at per-share prices ranging from $11.28 to $11.48.
Monday 3/1 Insider Buying Report: CERN, M (Nasdaq.com)
At Cerner, a filing with the SEC revealed that on Wednesday, CFO Mark J. Erceg purchased 10,655 shares of CERN, at a cost of $70.43 each, for a total investment of $750,422. Bargain hunters can buy CERN at a price even lower than Erceg did, with shares changing hands as low as $69.48 at last check today which is 1.3% below Erceg’s purchase price. Cerner is trading up about 1.3% on the day Monday. This purchase marks the first one filed by Erceg in the past year. And at Macy’s, there was insider buying on Friday, by Director Paul C. Varga who purchased 33,115 shares for a cost of $15.42 each, for a trade totaling $510,630. Macy’s is trading up about 5.8% on the day Monday.
1-800-flowers.com Inc (FLWS) CEO and President Christopher G Mccann Sold $1 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CEO and President of 1-800-flowers.com Inc, Christopher G Mccann, sold 35,700 shares of FLWS on 02/26/2021 at an average price of $29.23 a share. The total sale was $1 million. 1-800-Flowers.com Inc is a U.S. based provider of gourmet food and gift baskets, consumer floral, and BloomNet wire service.
SEC Suspends Trading in Multiple Issuers Based on Social Media and Trading Activity (HedgeCo.net)
(HedgeCo.Net) As part of its continuing effort to respond to potential attempts to exploit investors during the recent market volatility, the Securities and Exchange Commission has suspended trading in the securities of 15 companies because of questionable trading and social media activity. The action follows the recent suspensions of the securities of numerous other issuers, many of which may also have been targets of apparent social media attempts to artificially inflate their stock price. The SEC continues to review market and trading data to identify other securities where the public interest and the protection of investors require trading suspensions.
