Hedge funds get USD11.2bn in March (HedgeWeek)
Hedge funds took USD11.2 billion (0.5 per cent of assets) in March, down from a three-year high of USD24.9 billion (1.2 per cent of assets) in February, according to BarclayHedge and TrimTabs. “Investors pumped USD38.6 billion into hedge funds in the first quarter, the best quarterly inflow since the first quarter of 2011, when the industry took in USD47.9 billion,” says Sol Waksman, president and founder of BarclayHedge.
Home Sales Topping $100 Million Smash U.S. Price Records (Bloomberg)
The U.S. trophy-home market is shattering price records this year as an increasing number of residential properties change hands for more than $100 million. Barry Rosenstein, founder of hedge fund Jana Partners LLC, has purchased an 18-acre (7.3-hectare) beachfront property in East Hampton, New York, for $147 million, according to the New York Post. That would break the U.S. single-family price record of $120 million set last month with the sale of a Greenwich, Connecticut, waterfront estate on 51 acres. In Los Angeles, a 50,000-square-foot (4,600-square meter) home sold in February for $102 million in cash after a bidding war.
Centaurus Global Investment Team Moves To Fortress (FINalternatives)
Centaurus Capital’s founder is taking his strategy—and his team—to Fortress Investment Group. Randy Freeman and Centaurus Capital’s global investment team is joining Fortress’ liquid markets business. Their group will be renamed the Fortress-Centaurus Global Strategy, focusing on long/short equity and event-driven opportunities.
Carl Icahn Shopping for an Army of Retail Investors (TheStreet.com)
Carl Icahn is championing a broad-based uprising of shareholder activism. He wants to get retail investors involved with his missions. While there are many benefits, the hurdles to this type of effort are great. Icahn’s recent shareholder activism efforts have focused on eBay, where he pushed for new directors on its board, and Apple, where he pushed the company to use its large cash holdings. In both efforts, he had some level of success.
Einhorn Finds Dinner Chat With Bernanke ‘Frightening’ (Bloomberg)
David Einhorn, manager of the $10 billion Greenlight Capital Inc., said he found a recent dinner conversation with former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke scary. “I got to ask him all these questions that had been on my mind for a long time,” Einhorn said in an interview today with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle on Bloomberg Television, referring to a March 26 dinner with Bernanke. “It was sort of frightening because the answers were not better than I thought they would be.”
