How do hedge fund managers spell relief? On an overall strong day for the stock market, shares of hedge fund favorite Williams Companies surged more than 34 percent on Thursday, to close at $18.29. There was no news on the oil pipeline giant, which in September agreed to merge with Energy Transfer Equity in a deal valued at $37.7 billion. However, it is the largest holding of New York activist hedge fund firm Corvex Management, the company’s second largest shareholder. Other top shareholders as of the end of the third quarter include New York-based Soroban Capital Partners; Greenwich, Connecticut-based Lone Pine Capital; and New York-based D.E. Shaw & Co. In 2014, Soroban and Corvex reached an agreement with Williams in which Eric Mandelblatt, who co-founded Soroban with Gaurav Kapadia, was appointed to the board of directors.
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New York-based D.E. Shaw disclosed it owns more than 1.7 million shares of AMAG Pharmaceuticals, or 5 percent of the drug company. Its major product is a therapeutic iron compound for the treatment of iron deficiency anemia in adult patients with chronic kidney disease.
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Hedge fund flows declined by 2.77 percent in January, according to the SS&C GlobeOp Capital Movement Index. The firm stresses that January is usually the biggest month for outflows since investors are typically rebalancing their portfolios. Flows rose 0.75 percent in December.
