The Morning Brief: Hedge Funds Beat S&P in January; Activists Lag

The average hedge fund was essentially flat in January, falling by just 0.03 percent, according to eVestment. This means hedge funds, on average, outperformed the Standard & Poor’s 500 by 297 basis points in the first month of the year. The average activist fund declined by 3.44 percent, while managed futures funds rose 3.04 percent.

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Kenneth Griffin’s Citadel has revised its 13F stock disclosures for the first three quarters of 2014. For example, the firm revised its March 2014 report to show that it owned more than 1.8 million shares, worth more than $24 million, of Triquint Semiconductor, a provider of radio frequency components for wireless communications, as opposed to the original disclosure of $1.4 million plus put and call options.

The Chicago firm revised its June 2014 13F to show that it had trimmed its Triquint stake to 1.7 million shares and had a $105 million stake in Covidien, which makes medical devices; the original filing showed less than $1.3 million worth of Triquint plus puts and calls as well as $22 million worth of Covidien shares plus puts and calls. Citadel boosted its stake in Covidien for the September quarter to nearly $258 million, from its initial third-quarter filing of $1.7 million plus puts and calls. Lastly, the revised September report shows Citadel owning $30 million worth of International Rectifier, a power-management technology specialist, and a new position for thefirm; nearly $64 million of specialty chemicals maker Rockwood Holdings (in the original report, Citadel disclosed $584,000 worth of the stock plus puts and calls); and a $95 million stake in Tim Hortons, which recently merged with Burger King. The initial report disclosed $85,000 of Tim Horton stock plus puts and calls.

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Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value cut its stake in Staples to 4.9 percent several days after the office-products retailer announced it was merging with another Starboard holding, rival Office Depot.

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Man GLG named Himanshu Gulati as head of U.S. distressed credit. He comes to the London-based company after spending nine years at Perry Capital, the New York hedge fund firm founded by Richard Perry. Gulati, who will work out of the New York office, will manage a new distressed investment strategy which Man GLG plans to launch later this year.

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