Seeking Alpha (January 22)
“For 2022, the hedge fund industry experienced the largest net asset outflow in six years as investors steered clear of active managers against a backdrop of exceptionally volatile and depreciating markets.” Capital outflows exceeded $55 billion, still considerably short of the $70 billion withdrawn in 2016.
Tags: $55 billion, 2022, Active managers, Capital, Depreciating, Hedge-fund, Investors, Markets, Net asset, Outflow, Volatile
Institutional Investor (October 10)
“Hedge fund performance dispersion widened last month…. Returns for the top hedge funds in September far exceeded those at the bottom. The top decile of hedge funds in HFR’s HFRI 500 index gained an average of 6.4 percent last month, while the bottom decile of funds fell 14.3 percent.”
Tags: Bottom, Dispersion, Fell, Gained, Hedge-fund, HFRI 500 index, Performance, Returns, September, Top decile
Financial Times (May 28)
ExxonMobil’s annual general meeting should be “a wake-up call for other executives with a bunker mentality.” Engine No 1, an obscure hedge fund, got shareholders to elect two directors by focusing on economics, not ethics, arguing that “Exxon has been so slow to recognize the need for a transition away from fossil fuel that its revenues will crumble, destroying investor capital.” Today’s activists “are not just trying to save the world; they are also trying to save their own portfolios in a world where regulators are enforcing green standards.”
Tags: Activists, AGM, Bunker mentality, Capital, Directors, Economics, Engine No 1, Ethics, ExxonMobil, Fossil fuel, Hedge-fund, Investor, Portfolios, Revenues, Shareholders, Transition, Wake-up
Forbes (April 9)
“Watching Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management hedge fund stumble triggers more traumatic memories than global finance veterans like to admit.” The parallels with “the 1998 blowup of Long-Term Capital Management and Hwang’s forced liquidation of more than $20 billion worth of stocks on March 26” are clear. “The underlying forces—heavily leveraged positions colliding with the hubristic belief that past crises can’t happen again—are essentially the same.”
Tags: 1998, Archegos, Blowup, Finance, Hedge-fund, Hubris, Hwang, Leveraged, Liquidation, LTCM, Stocks, Traumatic
Financial Times (December 2)
“Investors are becoming increasingly concerned about how climate risks will impact their portfolios.” TCI, one activist hedge fund, “has warned Airbus, Moody’s, Charter Communications and other companies to improve their pollution disclosure or it will vote against their directors and called for asset owners to fire fund managers that did not insist on climate transparency.”
Tags: Activist, Airbus, Asset owners, Charter, Climate risks, Directors, Disclosure, Fund managers, Hedge-fund, Impact, Investors, Moody's, Pollution, Portfolios, TCI, Vote
Pensions & Investments (March 22)
“For decades, South Korea’s most powerful tycoons ran their companies with little regard for minority shareholders. Then came Paul Singer. The hedge fund titan’s activist campaigns…have trained a spotlight on the corporate governance failures and complex ownership structures that saddle South Korean stocks with some of the world’s lowest valuations.” His defeat at Hyundai Motor “is unlikely to derail the nascent shift toward more accountability at the business groups that dominate Asia’s fourth-largest economy.”
Tags: Accountability, Activist, Corporate governance, Hedge-fund, Hyundai Motor, Minority shareholders, Paul Singer, South Korea, Valuations
Institutional Investor (April 19)
“Targeted by an activist hedge fund? Try calling in the influencers. A new study of institutional investor relationships found that how shareholders vote—and if they vote—is deeply impacted by who they know. Among major investors, networks move markets.”
Tags: Activist, Hedge-fund, Influencers, Investors, Markets, Networks, Relationships, Shareholders, Target, Vote
The Economist (June 17)
Replacing Jeff Immelt at GE’s helm, new CEO John Flannery will need “to deal with GE’s soggy financial performance. Trian, an activist hedge fund, owns a stake in GE and, behind the scenes, has probably been agitating for change. Unless the numbers improve soon, pressure may mount for GE to break itself up. That would be a bad idea: what it now needs is less re-engineering and more consistent execution. At least Mr Flannery, unlike Mr Immelt, takes the helm when expectations are low.”
Tags: Activist, CEO, Execution, Expectations, Flannery, GE, Hedge-fund, Immelt, Performance, Re-engineering, Trian
Institutional Investor (May 5)
“The adoption of technology, including blockchain, artificial intelligence, and big data, has made it possible for private-equity and hedge-fund managers to reduce their fees, placing competitive pressure on rivals still using a traditional fee model.”
Tags: Adoption, AI, Big Data, Blockchain, Competitive pressure, Fees, Hedge-fund, Private equity, Rivals, Technology