Platinum Partners is shutting down its main hedge fund, according to the Wall Street Journal. The hedge fund firm at the center of the New York City union bribery scandal made the decision a week after Murray Huberfeld, who managed the credit fund, was arrested and charged with committing wire fraud. He was accused of paying a $60,000 bribe to Norman Seabrook — who has been president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association (COBA), New York City’s largest correction officers union and the largest municipal jail union in the United States, for more than 20 years — according to the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York and the FBI. Platinum founder Mark Nordlicht told investors on a conference call on Tuesday that the government’s charges are false, according to the report. The firm is also mulling the closure of Huberfeld’s former fund, the report said.
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Score this a loss for an activist investor. FBR & Co. announced that shareholders have re-elected all eight of the investment bank’s director nominees based on preliminary voting results provided by its proxy solicitor. This is a defeat for San Francisco-based Voce Capital Management, which lost its proxy fight. “We deeply appreciate the support of our shareholders, and are grateful for their positive response to our frequent and transparent dialogue with them,” said FBR chairman and chief executive officer, Richard J. Hendrix, in a press release.
In its own statement, Voce said it was “disappointed” its three nominees were not elected to the board. “We believe that at least 80 percent of FBR’s top 25 institutional shareholders supported our call for change by voting for at least one of our nominees,” it added. Voce lost despite receiving the support from the three major proxy advisory firms.
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Elliott Management Corp. liquidated its entire stake in software maker Qlik Technologies. In March of 2016, the New York activist firm disclosed an activist stake and asserted Qlik “operates in a highly strategic area of the technology industry with an attractive competitive position and a compelling product set,” which was not reflected in its stock market value. The stock surged more than 10 percent on the first day of trading following the disclosure. Alas, earlier this month Qlik agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo for about $3 billion in cash.
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Redwood City, California–based Dorsal Capital Management posted a roughly 1.5 percent gain in May in its main fund, Dorsal Capital Partners. As a result, it is now up nearly 2 percent for the year. The hedge fund firm was founded by Ryan Frick and Oliver Evans. Earlier, they were technology experts at Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors. In July 2014, Evans left the firm “to pursue family and personal interests” and not to join another firm, Dorsal emphasized in a letter to clients at the time.
