Finally! SunEdison has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which many have speculated about for weeks now. Its publicly traded yieldcos, TerraForm Power and TerraForm Global, are not part of the filing. The Maryland Heights, Missouri-based alternative energy company said it has secured $300 million in debtor-in-possession financing from first and second-lien lenders.
“The court process will allow us to right-size our balance sheet and reduce our debt, providing the opportunity to support the business going forward while focusing on our core strengths,” said Ahmad Chatila, SunEdison chief executive officer, in a press release. The stock, a one-time favorite among hedge funds and other investors, has lost virtually all of its value since last year. On Thursday, the stock closed down slightly to $0.3362. Remember, common shares are usually wiped out in bankruptcy.
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More good news for William Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management. UBS raised its price target on the shares of Canadian Pacific Railway from $196 to $217. UBS made the move after the railroad reported that it had boosted earnings through productivity improvements, generating, as the UBS note said, “strong cost side performance and impressive…margin improvement.” The stock was Pershing Square’s fourth-largest long at year-end and rose a little less than 1 percent to close at $150.16 on an otherwise down day for the stock market on Thursday. The New York hedge fund firm has rebounded sharply this month, posting a gain of 11.8 percent through April 19, cutting its loss for the year to 16.8 percent.
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Here is further proof that retired hedge fund legend Stanley Druckenmiller is a big supporter of Ohio governor John Kasich’s presidential bid. According to the Columbus Dispatch, the founder of Duquesne Capital and one-time right-hand man to George Soros has spent $700,000 on Kasich’s campaign. According to the report, Druckenmiller gave Super PAC New Day for America $150,000 the day before the Ohio primary and another $250,000 the day after the primary, which Kasich won. He had previously contributed $300,000. “Kasich has been my favorite all along,” Druckenmiller told Bloomberg in an e-mail in late February. The New York Times earlier reported that in 2015 Druckenmiller spent more than $450,000 to support Kasich, New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
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Lee Ainslie III’s Maverick Capital Ventures led the $15 million, Series B financing of 1 mg Technologies Private, an Indian online pharmacy marketplace formerly known as HealthKartPlus, according to crunchbase.com. This is Dallas, Texas-based Maverick’s fourth venture deal this year. In late March, it led the $25 million Series B funding of Science Exchange, a Palo Alto, California-based marketplace for scientific collaboration.
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New York’s Kerrisdale Capital Management has raised about $100 million for a coinvestment fund designed to bet against one soon-to-be-disclosed stock, according to CNBC. “We raised a meaningful amount of capital (in) a very short timeframe, so clearly we struck a chord within the alternatives community,” wrote Kerrisdale’s Sahm Adrangi in an email to investors Wednesday, according to the report.
