Former BoE Policymaker Vlieghe Joins Hedge Fund Element Capital (Reuters)
LONDON, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Former Bank of England policymaker Gertjan Vlieghe has agreed to join major U.S. hedge fund Element Capital as its chief economist, a representative for the company said on Monday. Vlieghe served for six years on the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee before stepping down at the end of August when his second three-year term as an external member expired. Prior to joining the MPC he had been a partner at hedge fund Brevan Howard.
‘Big Short’ Investor Michael Burry Sounds the Alarm on Stocks, Blasts the Fed, and Calls for a Big Tech Boycott (Business Insider)
Michael Burry warned the US stock market is in a precarious position, accused the Federal Reserve of misleading investors, and swore off America’s largest technology companies in a flurry of tweets at the weekend. The contrarian investor is best known for his billion-dollar bet against the US housing bubble – which was chronicled in the book and the movie “The Big Short” – and for inadvertently laying the groundwork for the GameStop short squeeze and the broader meme-stock boom.
Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin Raises $2.5 Billion Fund (Bloomberg)
Steven Mnuchin has started his next act with a multibillion-dollar fund for private equity investments. Mnuchin, a movie producer and financier before being tapped as U.S. Treasury secretary for the Trump administration, has raised about $2.5 billion at his firm Liberty Strategic Capital, according to people familiar with the matter. Most of the money is from sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, said the people, who asked not to be named because the details are private.
Ginkgo Bioworks’ SPAC Success Is Good News for These Hedge Funds (Institutional Investor)
The biotech company had a strong first day of trading and is so far bucking the trend of underperformance for recently merged special purpose acquisition companies. Good news for the slumbering SPAC market. Shares of Ginkgo Bioworks got off to a strong start on the company’s first day of trading, rising more than 6 percent to close at $12.15 a share after the company completed its merger with the special purpose acquisition company Soaring Eagle Acquisition Corp.
Allianz Asset Management Head Jacqueline Hunt in Talks to Depart (The Wall Street Journal)
Allianz SE’s top asset-management executive is in talks to leave the company, according to people familiar with the matter, as it navigates a Justice Department probe into a group of investment funds that suffered steep losses last year. Jacqueline Hunt joined Allianz in 2016 to oversee its asset management and U.S. life insurance businesses, which include investment arms Allianz Global Investors and Pacific Investment Management Co. Her contract was renewed in 2019 and was due to expire in 2022. Instead, Ms. Hunt will likely leave earlier than planned, the people said.
