It was a busy week for hedge fund news, with the finance team landing big scoops on an upcoming launch, a fund that’s giving outside investors their money back, and one that’s winding down entirely.
A new hedge fund run by a one-time minor league baseball player is set to spin off from billionaire Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors, Bradley Saacks reported. New launches have been few and far between during the global coronavirus pandemic, though, as meetings with potential investors turned into video calls and business travel was cancelled.
And Bradley, Dan DeFrancesco, and Meghan Morris reported that a $2.5 billion Tiger Cub emailed vendors on Tuesday evening notifying them it has started winding up business operations and liquidating the funds’ portfolios.
Keep reading to see the advice value investors are giving each other after getting steamrolled by rising markets; a deep dive into the sports empire of Apollo Global Management cofounder Josh Harris; and a look at why live commerce could soon explode in the US.
Value investors, who seemed poised to take control during the initial market crash from the pandemic, have since been steamrolled by rising markets. For value-seekers, it’s been emblematic of the last decade of futility.
Rebecca Ungarino and Bradley Saacks attended a two-day virtual conference hosted by the New York chapter of the CFA Institute (the event is named after Ben Graham, the father of value investing.) Speakers flagged their picks in the quickly changing markets, and implored listeners to stick with philosophy.
One remote speaker put it bluntly: “Value is not working; growth is working.”
Live-streamed commerce has taken off in China on platforms like Alibaba’s Taobao Live and Douyin, China’s version of TikTok. Influencers are driving sales of everything from cosmetics to tech products — think home shopping TV networks, but with check-outs embedded in the platforms and payment details stored.
“It’s entertainment plus shopping,” Connie Chan, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, told Shannen Balogh. And it could soon arrive in the US.
Inside the sports empire of Apollo cofounder Josh Harris
Brad Barket/Getty Images; Nick Wosika/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images; Ruobing Su/Business Insider
The billionaire Josh Harris, who cofounded a sports-investing business as well as one of the biggest alternative investing firms, has been taking a look at buying the New York Mets.
Meghan Morris and Casey Sullivan talked to insiders to learn more about how Harris has been applying an aggressive style honed at Apollo Global Management to the sports world.
Amol Sarva, CEO of flexible office provider Knotel Knotel
As Meghan Morris reports, Knotel’s finances were in a tough position well before the pandemic hit, and now, the flexible-office company is stretched even thinner. Until recently, New York-based Knotel was one of the fastest-growing brands in the booming coworking and flexible-space field, emerging as a chief competitor to WeWork.
We got a look at Knotel’s financials for the full-year 2019 and the first quarter of this year. The firm was stretched even before the pandemic, with a $223 million net loss in 2019. And it logged a $49 million loss in the first quarter of 2020.
Zeus Living’s cofounders, CTO Joe Wong, COO Srini Panguluri, and CEO Kulveer Taggar. Zeus Living
Zeus Living, an Airbnb-backed startup that focuses on corporate housing, laid off almost two-thirds of its staff in three months and saw its valuation plunge.
As Alex Nicoll reports, the startup is now planning to shift its business model after clients cancelled millions in contracts and occupancy dropped.
