Hedge Fund and Insider Trading News: Ken Griffin, Carl Icahn, Alan Howard, Chase Coleman, Philip Falcone, Rent-A-Center Inc (RCII), Virgin Galactic Holdings Inc (SPCE), and More

Tiger Global’s Loss This Year Widens to 23% After February Swoon (Bloomberg)
Chase Coleman’s Tiger Global Management posted a 10% decline for its flagship hedge fund last month, a significantly steeper drop than the broader market, according to people familiar with the matter. That follows a 14.8% swoon in January, extending its loss for the year to 23%.

Billionaire Hedge Fund Founder Ken Griffin Softens His Anti-Crypto Stance: ‘I Haven’t Been Right on this Call’ (CNBC)
Ken Griffin, CEO of investment firm Citadel and a prominent crypto detractor, seems to have softened his stance on digital currencies. Griffin previously dismissed cryptocurrencies as “a jihadist call” against the dollar, but this week said that “crypto has been one of the greatest stories in finance over the course over the last 15 years.”

U.S. Activist Investors, Icahn Cry Foul Over Proposed Stock Disclosure Rule (Hedge Week)
March 3 (Reuters) – Activist investors including Carl Icahn say a U.S. proposal that would require them to disclose 5% stakes in companies days sooner than current rules could make it unprofitable for them to build the large positions they need for successful campaigns.

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EQT Launches $5.6bn Core Infrastructure Fund (Opalesque)
Nordic private markets giant EQT is planning to raise €5bn ($5.6bn) for a new longer-hold fund targeting core infrastructure companies that provide essential services mainly in Europe and North America. Stockholm-based private equity firm said in a press statement that the fund, EQT Active Core Infrastructure, will have a longer-hold strategy (15 to 25 years) with a focus on downside protection and on core infrastructure companies “at the lower end of the risk-return spectrum”. The fund will be led by Daniel Pérez, based in Stockholm, Fabian Gröne, based in Munich, and Alex Greenbaum in New York.

Brevan Howard Founder Leads USD7.5m Series A Round in Nested (Hedge Week)
Alan Howard founder of hedge fund Brevan Howard has led a USD7.5 million Series A funding round in Nested, a social trading platform that enables users to create and invest in “financial NFTs”, according to a report by CoinBase. The round also attracted several angels and other investors focused on decentralised finance (DeFi) including Polychain Capital’s Joseph Eagan, and Lily Liu, whose bitcoin startup Earn.com was acquired by Coinbase for over USD100 million in 2018. Nested allows users to create and trade entire hand-curated crypto portfolios via NestedNFTs – non fungible tokens linked to the underlying assets of the portfolio.