Harbinger Investors Clamor For Cash
This is just not Phil Falcone’s month. Following the Federal Communications Commission putting his LightSquared telecom venture six feet under, now investors in his Harbinger Capital Partners fund are suing him for billions.
Of course, after staking $3 billion of the firm’s $5.7 billion in LightSquared, one’s got to ask what made any investor think putting all of their eggs in one basket was a good idea. I mean: Madoff, guys! Duh!
There’s nothing to suggest Falcone’s a crook, but it doesn’t look like he’d be good at Texas Hold-Em either.
Bridgewater Sells Stake As Dalio Fades Slowly
It looks like Ray Dalio’s thinking about his exit plan. Bridgewater, in an effort to dilute Dalio’s shares, sold a non-voting equity stake to the Teacher Retirement System of Texas for a cool $250 million; chump change for a fund valued at about $109 billion.
Notably, the fund’s not the only one to get a piece of the action. The firm’s kept mum on an existing institutional client’s stake but said it’s close to a deal with a third. Either great minds think alike or the prospect of getting a piece of a company running $120 billion in client assets for relative peanuts is too good to pass up.
Bridgewater’s on the 10-year plan to make Dalio a little less relevant–though the rubber hit the road on this a little more than four years ago. He and his family trust will still hold on to 20% of the company when the deal’s done.
Hedgies Try Cautious Optimism
Hedge funds are ramping up equity and credit exposure in the hope the global economy will improve in 2012. Now that the European Central Bank’s committed to supplying cheap money for the region’s banks and the U.S. seems to be coming out of the doldrums there’s a sense that even China will come out alright, despite slowing growth.
Managers are willing to take on more risk but they’re still a bit skittish. Some, still smarting from 2011, are chasing derivatives in order to buy some downside protection.