The Blackstone Group is strengthening its grip on the hedge fund industry. The New York–based alternative investment firm, which manages $56 billion in funds of hedge funds and $266 billion overall, announced on Tuesday that it acquired a minority stake in the New York–based event-driven hedge fund firm Senator Investment Group and is seeking to raise $3 billion for similar deals, Bloomberg reports.
Blackstone, one of the largest providers of seed capital to hedge funds, has already raised $1.4 billion to purchase hedge fund stakes, according to a speech that its hedge fund chief, J. Tomilson Hill, gave at a Credit Suisse conference in Florida last week. Senator, founded in 2008 by former York Capital Management portfolio managers Douglas Silverman and Alexander Klabin, manages $6.7 billion in assets and has returned an average of 20 percent since its inception, according to the report. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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Universa Investments, the Santa Monica–based investment firm best known for its tail risk investment strategies and its association with Black Swan author Nassim Taleb, announced it is relocating to Miami “to take advantage of the city’s business and tax-friendly policies.” Universa founder and chief investment officer Mark Spitznagel, an outspoken libertarian, Ron Paul supporter and author of The Dao of Capital, said in a press release that the state’s “business-friendly policies” are more attractive than California’s.
“I would expect to see more firms like Universa voting with their feet and relocating to a more hospitable business and tax environment, especially as many local governments are trying to tighten their grip on businesses,” Spitznagel said. He also cited Miami’s proximity to Latin America and Europe and access to international investors in making the decision to move. Miami launched the Finance Sector Initiative in 2013 to attract more financial services firms to the city.
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Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to force the popular finance website Seeking Alpha to reveal the identity of one of its bloggers, who broke the story that Greenlight was buying shares of Micron Technology, according to the New York Times. Einhorn claims in the lawsuit that this disclosure caused Micron’s share price to climb at the time he was buying more shares. Einhorn had not wanted to disclose the investment until a scheduled presentation at a charity investment conference on November 21. Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment lawyer at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, told the newspaper that Einhorn “will have a pretty tough job persuading a judge” to order the website to reveal the identity of the blogger, known as Valuable Insights.
