Hedge Fund and Insider Trading News: Paul Singer, Crispin Odey, Ray Dalio, Leon Cooperman, Blue Harbour Group, Ultra Clean Holdings Inc (UCTT), and More

Blue Harbour Says Madison Square Garden Worth $400 a Share (Bloomberg)
Activist investor Blue Harbour Group is bullish on New York’s Madison Square Garden Co. as the iconic brand prepares to spin off its sports teams. The owner of the New York Knicks and New York Rangers has other levers at its disposal to dramatically boost its share price, according to Blue Harbor Chief Executive Officer Clifton S. Robbins, whose firm owns a 4% stake in MSG.

Crispin Odey’s Wife to Chair the Jupiter Fund he Shorts (Telegraph.co.uk)
A top hedge fund manager known as one half of the City’s “Posh and Becks” has been appointed as chairman of a fund house her husband Crispin Odey has been betting against. Nichola Pease – whose family helped found Barclays Bank, where her brother-in-law John Varley was formerly chief executive – will take over at Jupiter Fund Management next March. The 58-year-old is married to Brexit-backing hedge fund chief Mr Odey, who was short-selling Jupiter’s shares as recently as Oct 31 when he had a bet against 0.66pc of the stock, according to filings with the Financial Conduct Authority watchdog.

Help Paul Singer Achieve Great And Terrible Things (Deal Breaker)
Back in August, Elliott Management finally did what it’s been preparing to do for years, and became a private equity firm in earnest, by launching what is in effect a private equity fund: $2 billion for Paul Singer to cut out the middleman, buy companies himself, and break them apart and fire people to his heart’s content, without any foolish executives or directors saying things like, “No” or “Are you sure?” or “We already have a turnaround plan and it’s better than yours.” It’s a first for the firm.

Countries with the Smallest Government Per Capita in the World

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Billionaire Leon Cooperman has His Own Special Definition of Value Investing. Here are 3 Massive Positions He has in Stocks that ‘Nobody would Identify as a Value Situation.’ (Business Insider)
Leon Cooperman, the recently retired chairman and CEO of Omega Advisors, is one of the most famous investors of all time. Although he no longer manages money for others, Cooperman will go down in history as one of the greats – and for good reason. He’s outperformed the broader market for over two full decades. That’s no small feat, considering the overwhelming majority of active managers underperform the S&P 500 after 10 and 15 years.

Largest Hedge Fund Says Market Has Lost Its Mind (Nasdaq.com)
Ray Dalio, one of the most famous hedge fund managers in the world, and the founder of the world’s largest hedge fund, Bridgewater, says that the world has lost its mind. The eccentric hedge fund founder recently published a blog post entitled “The World Has Gone Mad and the System Is Broken” in which he argues that zero rates, weak returns, and growing inequality are leading to something bad. What exactly that “bad” was remained unclear.

After Crash, Novogratz Tempers Expectations But Still Backs Crypto (Reuters)
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Cryptocurrency investor Mike Novogratz has tempered his expectations after prices crashed last year, but he says he remains a long-term supporter of the sector. “I think ambitions have been tempered a little bit by reality,” said Novogratz, who spoke at the Reuters Global Investment Outlook 2020 Summit in New York on Tuesday.

Atlant Fonder Gets Bigger (Hedge Nordic)
Stockholm (HedgeNordic) – Stockholm-based hedge fund house Atlant Fonder AB has acquired Pacific Fonder AB, which manages three equity funds with dynamic mandates and two hedge funds that are part of the Nordic Hedge Index. Mattias Gromark, who has been responsible for managing Pacific Fonder’s entire range of funds, continues to run the funds as part of Atlant Fonder. “The acquisition of Pacific Fonder strengthens our management organization, marketing organization and our fund offering, which now includes Pacific Precious, a unique fund for Sweden,” says Michael Ekelund (pictured), Atlant Fonder’s CEO. “The investment is in line with Atlant Fonder’s strategy of becoming Sweden’s leading player in alternative investments.” Atlant Fonder partly owned Pacific Fonder before the acquisition.

New Program Aims to Back Illiquid Strategies (HFAlert.com)
A consulting firm that advises institutional investors on allocations to emerging managers and niche strategies is starting an asset-management business. Decagon Advisors, led by former Deutsche Bank absolute-return fund marketer Vera Joffe Shapiro, is in the early stages of developing a platform that would deploy anchor capital to startups offering illiquid strategies through drawdown vehicles. To run the new business, tentatively called Mentor-Anchor Program, Decagon has reunited with co-founder Sheryl Mejia, who spent the previous three years in charge of New York Common Fund’s emerging-manager portfolio.

A Director at Ultra Clean Holdings (NASDAQ: UCTT) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, a Director at Ultra Clean Holdings (UCTT), Leonid Mezhvinsky, sold shares of UCTT for $497K. Based on Ultra Clean Holdings’ latest earnings report for the quarter ending June 30, the company posted quarterly revenue of $265 million and GAAP net loss of $202K. In comparison, last year the company earned revenue of $234 million and had a GAAP net loss of $6 million. The company has a one-year high of $23.09 and a one-year low of $6.94. Currently, Ultra Clean Holdings has an average volume of 470.11K.

CFTC Charges Denari Capital, LLC and its Owners with $8.3 Million Forex Fraud (HedgeCo.net)
(HedgeCo.Net) The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has announced the filing of a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, charging defendants Travis Capson of Utah, Arnab Sarkar of California, and their California-based company, Denari Capital, LLC, with fraudulently soliciting more than $8.3 million from at least 28 participants. The participants’ funds were commingled in a pooled investment scheme that included leveraged or margined off-exchange foreign currency (forex). The complaint also charges defendants with registration violations and charges Capson with making false statements to the National Futures Association (NFA), the industrywide, self-regulatory organization for the U.S. derivatives industry.

Sebi Bans 4 Persons from mkts in KLG Capital Services Insider Trading Case (OutlookIndia.com)
New Delhi, Nov 6 (PTI) Regulator Sebi has barred four persons from the capital markets for five years in a case related to insider trading in shares of KLG Capital Services. The order has been passed against former executive director of SKIL Praveen Mohnot, his daughter Priyanka Singhvi, ex-deputy chairman of SKIL N Ravichandran, and his wife Anita Ravichandran. Moreover, the regulator asked Singhvi and Anita Ravichandran to pay an amount of Rs 4.37 lakh and Rs 4.12 lakh respectively which includes unlawful gains made by them through transaction in KLG Capital shares and simple interest of 12 per cent per annum for nearly 11 years (2008-2019).

The Exec. Director, Int’l Dist. of Federated Investors (NYSE: FII) is Selling Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the Exec. Director, Int’l Dist. of Federated Investors (FII), Gordon Ceresino, sold shares of FII for $197.4K. Following Gordon Ceresino’s last FII Sell transaction on March 22, 2019, the stock climbed by 6.0%. In addition to Gordon Ceresino, 5 other FII executives reported Sell trades in the last month.

SEC Brings 862 Enforcement Actions in FY2019 (FinanceFeeds.com)
The Enforcement Division of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has earlier today published its Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2019. During FY2019, the Commission brought a a total of 862 enforcement actions, of which: 526 were “standalone” actions brought in federal court or as administrative proceedings; 210 were “follow-on” proceedings seeking bars based on the outcome of the SEC’s actions or actions by criminal authorities or other regulators; and 126 were proceedings to deregister public companies (typically microcap) that were delinquent in their Commission filings.