This Strategy Beat the World’s Top Hedge Funds—Don’t Try It (The Wall Street Journal)
Please don’t feed or throw objects at the fund managers. David Einhorn and Stanley Druckenmiller, both scheduled speakers at Tuesday’s Sohn Investment Conference, each have earned billions of dollars through investing. Heard on the Street’s columnists are paid peanuts by comparison, but that didn’t stop us from making monkeys out of the conference’s hedge-fund luminaries five years ago. Inspired by Prof. Burton Malkiel’s book “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” in which he quipped that “a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper’s financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by the experts,” our dart-picked stocks beat the Sohn Conference’s picks by a bruising 22 percentage points.
Glass Lewis Joins Oasis in Ppposing TRG CEO’s Pay Package (Hedge Week)
Oasis Management Company, the Hong Kong-based activist hedge fund seeking a leadership overhaul at Wagamama owner The Restaurant Group (TRG), has secured the backing of an influential shareholder advisory group in its protest against chief executive Andy Hornby’s pay deal. Oasis, which owns more than 12 per cent of TRG, has claimed that Hornby’s pay package is “disproportionate” and “unpalatable” in light of ‘poor performance’ at the company, which also owns the Frankie & Benny’s Italian-American themed restaurant chain.
The Millennium Compendium: Where Finance Meets Tech – and Math (CalcalisTech.com)
While the aerial view of Tel Aviv from the brand-new Millennium offices on the 45th floor of the Moshe Aviv Tower, the second tallest building in Israel, is indeed spectacular; the managers, Emmanuel Lanzmann and Itay Lotan, are extremely down to earth. “I believe Millennium is at the cutting edge of two industries: finance and technology,” Emmanuel Lanzmann, a French mathematician who completed his post doc studies at Israel’s Weizmann Institute, explains with a warm smile. “We give our technologists the opportunity to work on projects that matter. We really value curiosity and dynamism in our team. We’re building things with a vision, strategically, and at scale.”
Rawpixel / shutterstock.com
Team Evolution at Calculo (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – After starting as a one-person fund boutique in 2018 and becoming a two-person shop in May 2022, Calculo Capital has now announced the appointment of Mark Steeltoft as a Client Specialist. The commodity-focused trend-follower will remain a two-person boutique as quantitative analyst Victor Lund Klestrup Hansen is pursuing his career outside Calculo Capital.
New York Hedge Fund Acquires Stake in Birmingham City FC After ‘Complex’ Talks (Financial News)
Thomas Wagner’s multi-billion dollar hedge fund Knighthead Capital Management has acquired a significant stake in the English football club Birmingham City. New York-based Knighthead Capital Management, which has roughly $9.5bn in assets under management, will have full ownership of St Andrew’s, the home ground of Birmingham City FC through its Birmingham subsidiary Shelby Companies.
The Vulture Fund that Picked American Newspapers Apart has a New Target (CJR.org)
It’s late November, and nighttime temperatures have dropped below freezing in Christiansburg, Virginia, a town tucked in a valley between Blacksburg and the Blue Ridge Mountains. Sarah Rupp, an aide at Belview Elementary School, learned from a kindergartner’s grandparent that eviction notices were being posted at Massie’s Mobile Home Park, the only low-income housing in town. The modest manufactured homes, arranged in neat rows, are tidy but mostly aging. Some are sided with corrugated metal. Some – though they’re called mobile – appear nearly impossible to move.
Heavyweight Hedge Fund Arca Joins Activist Fight Against DAO Builder Aragon (CoinDesk)
Cryptocurrency investment fund Arca called on DAO builder Aragon to conduct buybacks of its ANT token in an open letter Tuesday, adding institutional weight to the activist investor row currently besieging the crypto governance startup. “We are planning to work with other tokenholders to propose that Aragon continue the buybacks to return ANT to book value,” wrote researcher Alex Woodard in the letter, referring to the discrepancy between the value of ANT and the size of Aragon’s warchest.
Hedge Funds Post Gains in April as Managers Navigate Banking Turmoil (Hedge Week)
Hedge funds posted gains in April as managers navigated the banking turmoil and volatility that accelerated throughout the month and extended into May with the closure and distressed acquisition of First Republic Bank, according to HFR. The HFRI 500 Fund Weighted Composite Index was up an estimated +0.4% for the month with performance gains led by Macro strategies. The HFRI Fund Weighted Composite Index (FWC) also gained an estimated +0.4% for the month, led by Macro and Equity strategies.
Tuesday 5/9 Insider Buying Report: CZR, YTEN (Nasdaq.com)
On Friday, Caesars Entertainment’s Director, Michael E. Pegram, made a $1.13M purchase of CZR, buying 25,000 shares at a cost of $45.02 a piece. Caesars Entertainment is trading trading flat on the day Tuesday. Before this latest buy, Pegram made one other purchase in the past twelve months, buying $1.12M shares for a cost of $44.74 a piece. And at Yield10 Bioscience, there was insider buying on Friday, by Jack W. Schuler who bought 335,570 shares for a cost of $2.98 each, for a trade totaling $999,999. This purchase marks the first one filed by Schuler in the past twelve months. Yield10 Bioscience is trading up about 0.2% on the day Tuesday. So far Schuler is in the green, up about 9.4% on their buy based on today’s trading high of $3.26.
Insiders Selling Zoom Video Communications, Bristol-Myers Squibb And This Footwear Manufacturer (Benzinga)
Zoom Video Communications: The Trade: Zoom Video Communications, Inc. ZM Chief Operating Officer Aparna Bawa sold a total of 10,500 shares at an average price of $61.42. The insider received around $644.87 thousand from selling those shares. Bristol-Myers Squibb: The Trade: Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMY) EVP & President, Research Rupert Vessey sold a total of 50,385 shares at an average price of $67.06. The insider received around $3.38 million from selling those shares.
