UPDATE 1-Mondelez adds activist investor Nelson Peltz to board (Reuters)
Mondelez International Inc (NASDAQ:MDLZ), which makes Cadbury chocolate, Oreo cookies and Trident gum, said it added activist investor Nelson Peltz to its board. Peltz’s Trian Fund Management is Mondelez’s fourth-largest shareholder with 2.3 percent of its shares, according to Thomson Reuters data. The billionaire from Brooklyn had said last year that Mondelez could almost double its earnings per share by managing costs better. He had also said that the company should be acquired by PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE:PEP).
Third Point takes $1.3 billion stake in Dow Chemical, calls for spinoff (CNBC.com)
Third Point Management, the hedge fund run by activist investor Dan Loeb, announced on Tuesday it had taken a $1.3 billion stake in The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE:DOW), urging the company to consider severing its petrochemcial business. With the purchase, Third Point now becomes one of Dow’s top ten shareholders, with the company being the fund’s largest single position.
Mario Gabelli Is Bullish on The Pep Boys – Manny, Moe & Jack (PBY) and Diebold Incorporated (DBD) (Insider Monkey)
In a couple of recent moves, Mario Gabelli‘s GAMCO Investors and its affiliated funds, have raised the stakes in The Pep Boys – Manny, Moe & Jack (NYSE:PBY) and Diebold Incorporated (NYSE:DBD). The fund reported owning 6.32 million shares of Diebold, up from 5.66 million shares held earlier; and 7.62 million shares of The Pep Boys, versus 5.66 million owned before. The stakes represent 9.90% of the common stock and 13.65% respectively. Out of the aggregate amount, GAMCO holds 4.47 million shares of Diebold and 5.30 million shares of The Pep Boys.
Wharton GC Launches New Hedge Fund Oracle of Investing Fund LP (PR Newswire)
Wharton GC told its investors that it will launch a new hedge fund this year, and had sold another minority equity stake in the firm to an unidentified buyer to help ensure its long-term viability. Wharton GC described its new fund, Oracle of Investing Fund LP, as a variation of its long-short and global macro strategies that seeks to perform in any economic environment. In a Jan. 14 year-end report to investors, the hedge-fund firm said Oracle of Investing Fund LP would help ensure that Oracle Fund doesn’t grow to such an extent that could hurt its returns.
Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Gains 38% Keeps Housing Bets: Mortgages (Bloomberg)
The U.S. mortgage market has been very good to Anthony “the Mooch” Scaramucci. In the past few years, the Federal Reserve’s unprecedented stimulus contributed to some of the biggest returns for money managers investing in mortgages. Then housing prices soared, lifting the most beaten-up home-loan securities. And Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital, which invests $6.2 billion in hedge funds, was along for the ride. Mortgage investments fueled returns of about 38 percent over the past two years, about triple the industry average.
Bonus time on Wall Street (CNBC.com)
Work Weekends and Long Hours, Fund Manager Advises Young Bankers (New York Times)
Credit Suisse Group AG (ADR) (NYSE:CS) may be encouraging its young bankers to shun the office on weekends if they are not working on a big deal. And Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) might have a “junior banker task force” to examine how to make the lives of lower-ranking analysts and associates more efficient and humane. But Randall Dillard, managing director and chief investment officer at Liongate Capital Management, a fund of hedge funds, had a distinctly different message for a roomful of prospective financiers on Monday morning: expect to work hard – really, hard. And don’t look for short cuts. “I don’t say that because I enjoy telling people to work long hours,” he said. “There’s just not a lot of coasting.”
Hedge Funds Post Performance-Based Gains Of $100B in ’13 (FINalternatives)
Hedge funds realized their best performance-based gains since 2010 last year, raking in US$100 billion, according to the latest Eurekahedge data. Long/short equities strategies accounted for almost half of that gain. Total industry assets increased almost 13% in 2013, surpassing US$2.0 trillion. Hedge funds pulled in US$130 billion in net asset allocations in 2013 and long/short equities managers again led the way, attracting US$82.2 billion of those net inflows.
Steven Cohen Also Initiates Stake in Retrophin Inc (RTRX) (Insider Monkey)
Steven Cohen, in a new filing with the SEC disclosed initiating a stake in Retrophin Inc (NASDAQ:RTRX). According to the filing, Mr. Cohen holds a total of 1.29 million shares of the company. The stake is passive by nature and amasses 5.6% of the company’s common stock. The position is held in aggregate by SAC Capital Advisors and Sigma Capital Management, each owning around 976,500 shares and 315,000 shares respectively. Mr. Cohen went bullish on Retrophin Inc a couple of weeks after the company started trading on NASDAQ Global Market. The company conducted an underwritten public offering in which it sold $40.0 million worth of its common stock.
Martoma Expert Witness Testimony Sought Barred by U.S. (Bloomberg)
Testimony by one of Mathew Martoma’s expert witnesses at his insider trading trial should be barred, and another one’s curtailed, because defense lawyers failed to make adequate disclosures about what they’ll say, U.S. prosecutors told a federal judge. Prosecutors’ objections to the defense testimony of expert witnesses Paul Gompers, a Harvard Business School professor, and Thomas Wisniewski, a faculty member at the New York University School of Medicine, were made in a letter to U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe in Manhattan yesterday. Martoma, a former SAC Capital Advisors LP fund manager, is accused of using confidential drug trial information to benefit the hedge fund by $276 million in trades of Wyeth and Elan Corporation, plc (ADR) (NYSE:ELN).
