Hedge Fund News: Bill Ackman, Carl Icahn, Citadel Investment Group

Bill Ackman: ‘We Made One Very Big Mistake’ With Valeant And Lost Big Time (CNBC)
Billionaire hedge fund boss Bill Ackman told CNBC on Friday the past 12 months were the “worst period of performance” of his investment career, and the implosion of Valeant Pharmaceuticals was mostly to blame. “It’s almost entirely been driven by Valeant. I’ve never owned a stock down 90 percent,” the Pershing Square Capital Management chief told “Squawk Box,” referring to Valeant’s plunge from a 52-week high of $245 per share to around $18 per share in late June. Since then Valeant has recovered to around $31 per share, as the embattled drugmaker works to regain investor confidence after questions about its pricing strategy and ties to a specialty pharmacy led to wider political and regulatory scrutiny, and hammered the stock.

Carl Icahn Mulled Selling Herbalife Stake to Group That Included Bill Ackman (The Wall Street Journal)
Carl Icahn has recently discussed selling his stake in Herbalife Ltd. to a group including the company’s arch-nemesis William Ackman, another surprising twist in a battle between billionaires that has riveted Wall Street for years. Investment bank Jefferies Group LLC has been seeking over the past month to find buyers for Mr. Icahn’s 18% stake, which is worth roughly $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said. The status of the talks and which other investors may be involved wasn’t clear and Mr. Icahn may sell nothing in the end. The fact that he even entertained selling his shares, by far the biggest single stake in Herbalife—and that Mr. Ackman could be a buyer—adds more drama to a tug of war over a once-obscure nutritional-products company that Mr. Ackman says is a pyramid scheme, an allegation it denies.

Citadel Hires ex BlueCrest Portfolio Manager For London Office (Reuters)
Former BlueCrest Capital Management portfolio manager Ashish Goyal is set to join hedge fund manager Citadel, a Citadel spokesman said on Thursday. Goyal will start at Citadel’s London office in November and will be a portfolio manager on its global fixed income team. He will be part of an expansion of the firm’s macroeconomic investing unit, Citadel said. Goyal declined to comment. At BlueCrest until May, Goyal was a portfolio manager for so-called “macro” bets with a focus on emerging markets. BlueCrest, led by Michael Platt, said in December that it would return outside capital and become a private partnership.