Finance Billionaire Ken Griffin’s Citadel Securities Trading Firm Is On A Silicon Valley Hiring Binge (Forbes)
Stuart Feldman has played a prominent role in the evolution of the computer industry. He wrote Make, a key software program for Unix operating systems, and developed the first 77 compiler for the Fortran programming language. He went on to become vice president of engineering at Google. Feldman’s next stop, however, is Wall Street. He has been hired by Citadel Securities, the high-speed electronic trading firm owned by billionaire Ken Griffin, as a senior advisor.
Marathon Asset Management Raises $360m for New Aviation Fund (Opalesque.com)
New York-based credit investment manager Marathon Asset Management has announced the closure of its first fund -Marathon Aviation Fund – amounting to $360m, solely dedicated to aviation leasing. The new strategy, which was oversubscribed, will focus on leasing the most in-demand early- to mid-life aircraft, and providing investors with returns that have low correlation to other asset classes, said Marathon Asset Management, the investment advisor with approximately $16.5bn of capital under management, in a press release.
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Eddie Lampert’s Company to Buy the Rest of Sears Hometown, Outlet Stores (The Wall Street Journal)
Hedge fund owner Edward Lampert has reached a deal that would bring Sears Hometown stores under the same corporate umbrella as Sears and Kmart. Mr. Lampert, the former Sears Holdings Corp. chief executive whose Transform Holdco LLC controls Sears and Kmart, is buying the 42% of Sears Hometown shares he and his hedge fund don’t currently own for $2.25 a share in cash, the companies said Monday. Sears Hometown stores were spun off from Sears Holdings Corp. seven years ago.
Blackrock Chief’s New London Hedge Fund Keeps Hiring (eFinancialCareers.com)
Tresidor Investment Management, the new London hedge fund set up by Michael Phelps the former head of European fundamental credit at Blackrock, has been hiring in London. Phelps’ fund, which was due to open sometime in the second quarter, already employs 15 people including 10 investment professionals, according to its own website. And it still seems to be hiring.
Goldman Sachs Quietly Hired Capula Investment Management’s co-CTO (eFinancialCareers.com)
Goldman Sachs made a major hire in electronic equities trading technology in London. The U.S. investment bank recruited George Tsimperopoulos, the former co-chief technology officer at hedge fund Capula Investment Management. Tsimperopoulos joined last month according to his LinkedIn profile, which describes him as a specialist in ultra low-latency DMA algorithmic trading, market data exchange and client connectivity FIX engines.
Brazil’s Top Trade Is to Bet on Lower Rates, Rio Hedge Fund Says (Bloomberg)
Betting on Brazil’s central bank to further slash the benchmark interest rate is the best way to make money in the nation’s assets right now, according to hedge fund Truxt Investimentos. “With inflation under control and slow growth, our preferred trade right now is to receive rates in Brazil,” said Mariana Guarino, a portfolio manager at Truxt, which has 10.6 billion reais ($2.7 billion) in assets under management. “Once pension reform is approved, the tail risk of a quick fiscal deterioration will be removed, so Brazil’s central bank will have room to cut rates.”
UPDATE 1-Hedge Funds Raise Negative Sterling Bets as Trump Wades into Brexit Debate (Reuters)
LONDON, June 3 (Reuters) – Hedge funds have stepped up their negative bets on sterling as U.S. President Donald Trump backed hardline British politicians Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage ahead of Britain’s planned withdrawal from the European Union. The current British premier Theresa May has announced she is quitting, triggering a contest that will bring a new leader to power, with most of the frontrunners expected to push for a decisive break with the European Union.
Matthew Martoma’s Appeal Over Lucrative Insider Trading Scheme Denied by Supreme Court (Fox Business)
An appeal from Matthew Martoma, a former portfolio manager Opens a New Window. at Steven A. Cohen’s SAC Capital who was convicted of insider trading, Opens a New Window. was denied by the Supreme Court on Monday. The hedge fund manager was hoping to have his insider trading conviction overturned, but the High Court upheld a prior ruling that there was enough evidence to establish his guilt, despite claims that the jury was improperly instructed, as reported by Reuters.
The CAO of Chubb Limited (NYSE: CB) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Today, the CAO of Chubb Limited (CB), Paul Bennett Medini, sold shares of CB for $400.2K. In addition to Paul Bennett Medini, 3 other CB executives reported Sell trades in the last month.
Follow These Corporate Insider Buyers (Forbes)
Harold Hamm, 73, is a multi-billionaire (Forbes estimates Hamm and his family are worth $10.1 billion), a major Republican donor, and a pioneer in shale drilling in the Bakken formation, which is located in North Dakota, Montana and adjacent parts of Canada. Hamm has a big appetite for the stock of Continental Resources (CLR), the oil-and-gas company he runs. He snapped up 93,000 shares in May, and that was nothing compared to the 791,828 shares he bought in March and the 883,977 shares he purchased in February.
Notable Insider Buys This Past Week: Coty, Zillow and More (Benzinga)
Here’s a look at a few notable insider purchases reported in the past week, but also note that Richard Kinder, executive board chair of Kinder Morgan Inc KMI 0.35%, has continued his long streak of scooping up shares of the company. Zillow: Zillow Group Inc Z 1.88% had a director return for more notable indirect share purchases this past week. At $41.71 to $42.37 apiece, the 690,000 shares acquired most recently totaled around $29.01 million. Note that this director also bought over $58.6 million worth of the shares in the previous week.
Supreme Court Declines Chance to Review Insider Trading Prosecutions (The Hill)
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review the case of Mathew Martoma, who was convicted in one of the most profitable insider-trading schemes in recent history. Lawyers for Martoma, a former portfolio manager who is currently serving a nine-year sentence, have argued that the jury in his trial was not properly instructed and say there was insufficient evidence to back a conviction. But the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 2018 upheld Martoma’s sentence, and the unsigned order from the justices on Monday effectively shuts the door on the case.
Insider Activity: Hershey CFO Buys 1,000 Shares (Investors Observer)
Steven Voskuil, Senior Vice President and CFO at Hershey (HSY), bought 1,000 shares of the company’s common stock on May 31. Voskuil paid a total of $129,104 for the new shares.
CFO Insider Trading Anomaly For June: Biggest Buys Yielding Best Returns (Seeking Alpha)
Currently, the portfolio of largest CFO stock purchases are beating the S&P 500 in both April by +2.34% and in May by +3.16%. Average total returns for all CFO insider trades has outperformed the S&P 500 for May by +3.95%. The best-performing CFO insider purchases are detailed in the article below with returns from April as high as 67% since the original CFO transaction. Research shows that one-quarter of the abnormal returns on CFO purchases were yielded in the first five days, and half of the abnormal returns were yielded in the first month” (Jeng, Metrick, and Zenghauser, 2003).
