Hedge Fund and Insider Trading News: Mike Novogratz, Bill Ackman, Starboard Value L.P., Mudrick Capital, Maglan Capital, Tiger Management, PennyMac Financial Services Inc (PFSI), Joint Corp (JYNT), and More

Mudrick Capital No Longer Owns Debt or Equity in AMC, Sources Say (CNBC)
Investment firm Mudrick Capital has exited both its debt and equity positions in AMC Entertainment, sources tell CNBC’s David Faber, as the movie theater chain’s stock continues to trade wildly amid a boom in speculative retail trading. AMC announced earlier this week that it had sold 8.5 million equity shares to Mudrick for $230.5 million. The hedge fund was also involved in a key $100 million debt restructuring deal with AMC in December.

Box Inc Rejects Starboard’s Allegations Made Against Company’s Board (Reuters)
Box Inc (BOX.N) on Friday rejected activist investor Starboard Value LP‘s allegations against the cloud service provider’s board, adding to a prolonged tussle between the two. Starboard, which owns over 8% of Box, had earlier said the company failed to capitalize on the work-from-home trend during the pandemic, falling behind its cloud computing peers.

Vivendi in Talks to Sell 10% of Universal Music to Bill Ackman SPAC (Bloomberg)
Vivendi SE is in talks to sell 10% of Universal Music Group to a blank-check firm backed by billionaire Bill Ackman while it prepares to spin off most of the world’s biggest music company. The potential transaction would value the home of Taylor Swift, Drake and Billie Eilish at 35 billion euros ($42.4 billion) including debt, Vivendi said in a statement on Friday, above the 30 billion-euro valuation ascribed to the business in 2019 when China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd. acquired a stake.

Billionaire and Former Hedge Fund Manager Mike Novogratz Explains Why Institutional Adoption of Crypto is Set to ‘Explode’ (Business Insider)
Crypto billionaire Mike Novogratz expects institutional players to start piling into digital assets soon. Novogratz, who founded Galaxy Digital years after leaving Fortress Investment Group in 2015, is one of crypto’s most prominent advocates in the investment world. As a merchant bank, Galaxy’s business model depends on institutional adoption, particularly by financial advisers.

Singapore’s US$3 bil Hedge Fund Quantedge Eases Lockups (The Edge)
Singapore-based hedge fund Quantedge Capital plans to ease some restrictions on client redemptions, giving investors a chance to draw profits after recording gains of 18.6% in the first five months. In a model similar to one offered by Millennium Management last year, clients signing up to a new planned share class will be able to withdraw 5% per quarter, relaxing previous restrictions that kept most investors locked up for three or five years, according to CEO Suhaimi Zainul-Abidin.

Hedgeweek Americas Awards 2021: Call for Hedge Fund Manager Data Submission to Bloomberg (Hedge Week)
Hedgeweek, in partnership with Bloomberg, is starting the analysis of US and Americas-based hedge fund performance ahead of the annual Hedgeweek Americas Hedge Fund Awards. Hedge funds who wish to be considered for the awards must have a fund profile on Bloomberg’s Hedge Fund Database by 25 June, 2021.

Greenlight Re Innovations invests in Paxafe (ReInsurancene.ws)
Greenlight Re Innovations, a division of specialist hedge fund-backed property and casualty reinsurer Greenlight Capital Re, has invested in Paxafe, a supply-chain visibility and analytics platform focused on high value and perishable cargo. Greenlight-ReHistorically, shippers and insurers have lacked certain basic insights into shipments’ location, condition, and custody, whereas this platform introduces innovative solutions to these challenges.

Overly Ambitious Return Target? (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Danish entrepreneur, author and investor Lars Tvede, who has launched his theme-based macro-focused hedge fund Atlas Global Macro, hopes to generate an average annual return in the range of 15 percent to 30 percent over time. Danish finance professors believe Tvede’s objective is too ambitious. “We don’t want to legally commit on a return target, but I would be happy if we deliver between 15 to 30 percent per year on average over time,” Tvede, a Dane living out of Switzerland, told HedgeNordic in an interview earlier this year.

Billionaire Hedge-Fund Manager Julian Robertson Endorses High-Flying US Tech Stocks – and Says Their Valuations aren’t Lofty (Business Insider)
“Tiger King” Julian Robertson is validating US tech-stock valuations, setting aside concerns that the sector is ripe for a correction. The billionaire founder of Tiger Management, who has spawned dozens of “Tiger cubs,” told the Financial Times in a rare interview he’s betting on stocks like Alphabet, Facebook, and Microsoft despite market expectations that weakness is undeniable for these companies.

Forget AMC and GameStop, the Hottest Trade for Hedge Funds Now is Oil (CNBC)
While a lot of the market’s attention is focused on volatile stocks like AMC and GameStop, many hedge funds are zeroing in on another trade: oil. The commodity has been on a tear with surging demand as the global economy reopens. Brent is at a two-year high and WTI crude is at levels not seen since October of 2018. Maglan Capital, a New York based hedge fund, has the commodity as its top position. In December of 2020 when oil was in the high $30s, just as the FDA was issuing emergency authorization for the use of vaccines, co-founder David Tawil correctly predicted prices would double.

Friday 6/4 Insider Buying Report: PFSI, GCO (Nasdaq.com)
On Tuesday, PennyMac Financial Services’s Director, Farhad Nanji, made a $2.94M buy of PFSI, purchasing 46,990 shares at a cost of $62.67 each. Investors have the opportunity to pick up PFSI even cheaper than Nanji did, with shares trading as low as $59.80 in trading on Friday — that’s 4.6% under Nanji’s purchase price. PennyMac Financial Services is trading up about 0.6% on the day Friday. Before this latest buy, Nanji bought PFSI at 15 other times during the past year, for a total cost of $176.65M at an average of $61.16 per share. And at Genesco, there was insider buying on Wednesday, by Director Gregory A. Sandfort who purchased 4,280 shares at a cost of $58.45 each, for a total investment of $250,166. Genesco is trading up about 0.5% on the day Friday.

A Director at Joint (NASDAQ: JYNT) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, a Director at Joint (JYNT), Amos James H. JR, sold shares of JYNT for $3.89M. Following Amos James H. JR’s last JYNT Sell transaction on June 07, 2019, the stock climbed by 55.6%. This is JR’s first Sell trade following 7 Buy transactions.

Zai Lab (ZLAB) Chairwoman & CEO Ying Du Sold $19.6 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
Chairwoman & CEO of Zai Lab, Ying Du, sold 111,111 shares of ZLAB on 06/02/2021 at an average price of $176.3 a share. The total sale was $19.6 million.