Hedge Fund News: Bill Ackman, Warren Buffett, BMC Software, Inc. (BMC)

…has been a renewed focus on credit amid a low interest-rate environment. “Asian spreads are tight, but they’re still relatively attractive, particularly in relation to US high yield and US investment grade [bonds] on a ratings basis,” says David Walter, head of Asian research at Pacific Alternative Asset Management Company (Paamco).

Statehouse beat: Pershing Square has its issues (Charleston Gazette)
As hedge funds go, billionaire Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital has made financial news headlines of late. The fund is making two billion-dollar bets: that troubled retailer J.C. Penney Company, Inc. (NYSE:JCP) will not only turn things around, but will thrive; and that Herbalife Ltd. (NYSE:HLF), the distributor of nutrition and skin care products, will collapse. Which has put the hedge fund under pressure, since neither assumption is playing out. Pershing Square has shorted $1 billion of Herbalife stock, under Ackman’s assertion that the business model, which relies on local salespersons and distributors, is a “sophisticated pyramid scheme,” and will either collapse or be subject to intervention by the Federal Trade Commission.

Modern-day Robin Hood applies business skills to philanthropy (CBS News)
Paul Tudor Jones wonders that if billionaires, like him, are such geniuses, then why do nearly two million people live in poverty in New York City alone? In 1988, he started a charity called the Robin Hood Foundation. Twenty five years later, Robin Hood has given away more than one and a quarter billion dollars. It’s become the city’s largest private backer of charter schools, job training and food programs. Tudor Jones has learned hard lessons — for a latter day Robin Hood, it turns out giving to the poor is harder than he thought. And as for taking from the rich? Well, he finds it’s best to distract them.

AIB sells €240m of loans to hedge fund (Irish Independent)
AIB is reported to have sold around £200m (€240m) of loans secured by a portfolio of airport hotels in the UK. Property specialists CoStar said the ‘Project River’ loans were sold to Davidson Kempner Capital Management, a New York-based hedge fund. The loans are reported to have sold for £140m, or 70pc of face value. The loans that are understood to have been sold were AIB’s share of syndicated loans secured on the hotels, not full loans. The loans are secured on airport hotels owned by Arora Hotels. Davidson Kempner saw off competition from big-name private equity houses Apollo Global Management, Cerberus Capital Management, Och-Ziff and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.