The Morning Brief: Cooperman’s Omega Breaks into the Black

Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors is solidly in the black. The firm reported that assets under management rose nearly 4 percent last month to $5.4 billion. According to a knowledgeable source, its main hedge funds are now up an average of 4 percent for the year-to-date, depending upon the specific class. Its fixed-income strategy is up 12 percent while its equity-only strategy is up 6 percent. Last week, Cooperman told CNBC he does not expect the market “to do that much on the upside,” adding he has about 8 to 10 percent of his assets in high-yield credits.

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Daniel Loeb’s Third Point Offshore rose 0.80 percent in August, boosting its gains for the year to 6.1 percent. Most of its August return was driven by the New York hedge fund firm’s credit book, which was up 0.9 for the month. Its long-short equity book lost 0.2 percent solely due to losses on the short side. Heading into September, Third Point’s long-short equity book was 47.1 percent net long. This is significantly down from 54.4 percent the previous month but up from 42.9 percent at the end of June. The credit book is currently 29.4 percent net long compared with 34.7 percent at the end of June.

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This year is turning into a nightmare for Crispin Odey’s Odey European fund. According to the latest report from HSBC, the London-based hedge fund was down 8.6 percent last month through August 26. With three trading days left in the month, the fund was down more than 35 percent for the year. Remember, it was also down nearly 13 percent last year. This means it needs to nearly double to return to its highwater mark from this point.

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Maverick Capital boosted its stake in Castlight Health by more than seven times, to more than 8.9 million shares. The Dallas Tiger Cub now owns 18.7 percent of the total outstanding shares of the health-care information company.

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Shares of VeriFone Systems plunged more than 16 percent after delivering very bad guidance for the fourth quarter. At the end of June, New York-based Elliott Management was the ninth-large shareholder of the provider of technology for electronic payment transactions.