Category Archives: Hedge funds

Wall Street banker bonuses forecast to rise 35% this year

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Surge caused by rebound in market activity very likely to influence payouts for European outposts of banks

Bonuses for Wall Street’s investment bankers are forecast to jump as much as 35% this year – although experts have warned that payouts could be knocked by stock market volatility and an economic slowdown in the US.

Fresh predictions suggest that staff across a range of financial firms – including hedge funds, asset managers and investment banks – will see payouts rise for the first time in two years. It follows a rebound in business confidence and market activity, with companies more willing to take risks amid easing inflation that has started to translate into lower borrowing costs.

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‘Potentially serious impropriety’: Labour questions Johnson’s Venezuela meeting

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Former PM’s meeting with President Maduro, in capacity as hedge fund consultant, is under further scrutiny

Labour is demanding answers over what the party said was “potentially serious impropriety” by Boris Johnson after it emerged that the former prime minister met the Venezuelan president in his role as a consultant for a hedge fund.

Nick Thomas-Symonds, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said in a letter to Oliver Dowden, the deputy prime minister and Cabinet Office minister, that there were concerns that Johnson may have breached the ministerial code.

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Odey Asset Management to shut after sexual misconduct allegations against founder

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Financial institutions have cut ties with hedge fund set up by Brexiter and Conservative party donor

Odey Asset Management is closing down, five months after allegations of sexual misconduct made by junior female members of staff against its founder Crispin Odey threw the hedge fund into turmoil.

The business said on its website: “Odey Asset Management [OAM], including Brook Asset Management and Odey Wealth, will be closing. Fund managers and funds have moved to new asset managers.”

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Hedge funds holding up vital debt relief for crisis-hit Sri Lanka, warn economists

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Exclusive: 182 experts say only debt cancellation offers chance of recovery but private investors are playing hardball

Some of the world’s most powerful hedge funds and other investors are holding up vital help for crisis-hit Sri Lanka by their hardline stance in debt-relief negotiations after the Asian country’s $51bn (£42bn) default last year, according to 182 economists and development experts from around the world.

In a statement released to the Guardian on Sunday, the group said extensive debt cancellation was needed to give the economy a chance of recovery and that Sri Lanka would be a test case of the willingness of the international community to tackle a looming global debt crisis.

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Unilever shares rise as billionaire investor Nelson Peltz joins board

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Hedge fund boss – whose daughter married Brooklyn Beckham – holds 1.5% stake in Unilever

Unilever’s share price has risen after the consumer goods company announced that the billionaire activist investor Nelson Peltz is to become a board member.

Peltz, the US founder and chief executive of Trian Fund Management, has been building his Unilever stake since January amid growing speculation that he will push the Dove soap and Marmite manufacturer to shake up its sprawling operations, with the company under increasing pressure to sell off brands or consider a break-up.

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New York billionaire seeks permission for ‘temple for a titan’

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Investor Bill Ackman trying to win approval for a controversial penthouse overlooking Central Park

The billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman will on Tuesday attempt to convince New York’s powerful Landmarks Preservation Commission to allow him to build a “flying saucer” penthouse on top of a historic apartment building in the Upper West Side overlooking Central Park.

Ackman, a Harvard-educated activist investor who famously made $2.6bn (£2.2bn) profit in a single day betting on the financial impact of coronavirus during the early days of the pandemic, has been engaged in a years-long public relations battle with his merely millionaire neighbours to garner support for his planned Norman Foster-designed two-storey penthouse that has been described as a “temple to a titan”.

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Top banks could be investigated over $20bn fire sale of hedge fund assets

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Collapse of Archegos has reportedly prompted SEC and FCA inquiries into Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Nomura and others

UK and US regulators are looking into whether global investment banks breached rules by holding group discussions shortly before launching a fire sale of nearly $20bn worth of assets belonging to the distressed hedge fund Archegos Capital Management, according to reports.

The Securities Exchange Commission is said to have requested further information from major US banks Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, as well as Japan’s Nomura and Swiss lender Credit Suisse about a meeting with Archegos founder Bill Hwang on Thursday.

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Regulators around the world monitor collapse of US hedge fund

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Liquidation of Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets

Financial regulators across the world are monitoring the collapse of the New York-based billionaire Bill Hwang’s personal hedge fund.

The sudden liquidation of Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets that has left some of the world’s biggest investment banks nursing billions of dollars of losses.

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The very private life of Sir Chris Hohn – the man paid £1m a day

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The hedge fund manager earns Britain’s biggest salary. He also avoids meat, likes yoga and supports Extinction Rebellion

Hedge fund manager Sir Chris Hohn once made a point of telling a high court judge that he was an “unbelievable moneymaker”. This week Hohn proved his point – definitively – when it was revealed that he paid himself just shy of £1m-a-day last year.

Hohn collected $479m (£343m) in annual dividend payments from his The Children’s Investment (TCI) fund in the biggest ever personal payday in the UK after doubling profits at his Mayfair hedge fund, run from an office a couple of doors down from Louis Vuitton’s flagship store.

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GameStop shares plunge as traders dump stock

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Reddit-inspired surge in stocks such as struggling video games store and AMC dive as hedge funds close positions

Shares in GameStop plunged by 65% in early trading on Wall Street as the trading mania sparked by small investors, that sent its stock surging and cost hedge funds billions of dollars, lost momentum.

The struggling Texas-based video game store chain has been the focal point of a battle by small traders, using forums such as Reddit, to punish Wall Street hedge funds that have bet on certain stocks falling in value. GameStop shares hit a high of $482 last Thursday but slumped to $80 shortly after the market opened. They recovered to $117 by mid-session, but closed down 60% at $90.

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GameStop shares surge again as Robinhood restores trading

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App helping to fuel share-buying frenzy allows ‘limited buys’ after a $1bn cash injection to safeguard trades

Shares in companies including videogame retailer GameStop soared again on Friday, as an army of small investors taking aim at Wall Street regained access to amateur share trading platform Robinhood.

The app, weaponised by activist small investors to trap hedge funds in a “short squeeze” that has cost them $20bn on paper by some estimates, had suspended buying of stocks such as GameStop, cinema chain AMC and BlackBerry on Thursday.

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White House ‘monitoring’ GameStop share surge as US hedge fund pulls out

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Melvin Capital Management had bet on failure of store before small investors sent shares soaring

The White House has said it is “monitoring” the extraordinary surge in the share price of ailing video games retailer GameStop and other companies amid a surge of bets by small investors discussing their investments online.

Wednesday’s announcement by the press secretary, Jen Psaki, came as the Treasury and the Securities and Exchange Commission said they were “aware of and actively monitoring the ongoing market volatility in the options and equities markets”.

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Huge wealth of Rishi Sunak’s family not declared in ministerial register

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Akshata Murty, Sunak’s wife, holds multimillion-pound portfolio making her richer than the Queen

The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is facing questions over the transparency of his financial affairs after a Guardian investigation established that his wife and her family hold a multimillion-pound portfolio of shareholdings and directorships that are not declared in the official register of ministers’ interests.

Akshata Murty, who married Sunak in 2009, is the daughter of one of India’s most successful entrepreneurs. Her father co-founded the technology giant Infosys, and her shares in the company are worth £430m, making her one of the wealthiest women in Britain, with a fortune larger than the Queen’s.

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