Morning Brief: The Baupost Group’s Klarman Aggressively Funding Democrats

The hedge fund manager has supported Republicans in the past but says he is using his fortune to fight the policies of President Trump’s administration.

alpha-default-morning-brief.jpg

The Baupost Group’s Seth Klarman, a long-time Republican supporter, has declared war on President Trump and his political party. The disillusioned value investor says he is using money he received from the recent tax cuts to help elect Democrats.

“I received a tax cut I neither need nor want,” Klarman told the Boston Globe in a statement. “I’m choosing to invest it to fight the administration’s flawed policies and to elect Democrats to the Senate and House of Representatives.”

Klarman said Republicans in Congress have failed to hold President Trump accountable, asserting that GOP lawmakers have “abandoned their historic beliefs and values.” According to the paper, Klarman has given about $222,000 to 78 Democrats running for Congress since the 2016 elections. “For the good of the country, the Democrats must take back one or both houses of Congress,” he reportedly said.

___

Moore Capital Management founder Louis Bacon is giving money to Greg Coffey’s Kirkoswald Capital, which is planning to launch later in the year with more than $2 billion. The news of Bacon’s investment was first reported on Alpha. Coffey, a one-time hotshot trader at GLG, retired as co-chief investment officer of Moore more than five years ago. In recent years Bacon has also seeded Ben Melkman, a former portfolio manager at Brevan Howard who launched Light Sky Macro in 2016, and Hassim Dhoda, who is planning to launch Soloda Investment Advisors, with $1 billion, according to a Financial Times report.

___

Sponsored

Luxor Capital Group said in a new 13D filing that it owns nearly 13 million shares of ANGI Homeservices, or 20.5 percent of the digital marketplace for home services. In the filing, the hedge fund said the stock is undervalued and is an attractive investment opportunity. Otherwise, it did not articulate any future intentions for the stock.

___

Darsana Capital Partners said that as of April 4 it owned 6 million shares of Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, or 5.23 percent of the maker of airplane structures. We won’t know for about a month whether it held a position in the stock in the first quarter.

Related