Lansdowne Partners is about to become the latest hedge fund giant to test its succession plan. Steven Heinz, who co-founded the $18 billion London-based firm, is moving away from his day-to-day responsibilities. Stuart Roden and Peter Davies, who co-manage the $13 billion flagship Developed Markets fund, will head up the company under a new U.K. limited liability partnership structure, according to the Financial Times. Last year, co-founder Paul Ruddock retired from the firm, which at the time named Alex Snow as chief executive. Roden and Davies joined Lansdowne from Mercury Asset Management in 2001 after it was acquired by Merrill Lynch. The Developed Markets fund has compounded at 14 percent per year since it was launched. Last year, it was up 33.26 percent. Snow will report to Roden and Davies.
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Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value is turning up the heat again on Quantum Corp., maker of disc drives and computer storage products. The New York activist investor, which owns 16.6 percent of the shares, had reached a standstill agreement with the company on May 13, 2013, under which, among other things, the company agreed to appoint Smith and two other Starboard candidates to the Board at the 2013 annual meeting. The agreement had expired on April 25, 2014. “At this time, Starboard believes additional change to the Board may be required,” the hedge fund states in a regulatory filing. So, on May 9 Starboard informed the company it plans to nominate the same three individuals to the board for this year’s annual meeting, as well as three additional director candidates, stressing they “are highly qualified candidates with relevant credentials and skill-sets who can be extremely helpful in evaluating and executing on initiatives to unlock value.”
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Philippe Laffont’s Coatue Management was one among several firms to invest a total of $100 million in San Francisco-based business planning and execution software provider Anaplan in a Series D round, according to crunchbase.com. It notes that Anaplan delivers a cloud-based planning app for sales, operations, and finance. Last year, Coatue raised $375 million for Coatue Hybrid Fund I, which aims to invest in fledgling, pre-IPO companies and is run by Laffont’s brother Thomas.
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Shares of Keurig Green Mountain surged 7.55 percent Tuesday to close at $119.07, after hitting a high of $123.62 during the day. The catalyst: Coca-Cola said it will boost its stake in the company from 10 percent to 16 percent. The coffee company is still believed to be a major short of David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital – and one that could be keeping him up at night. The stock is up more than 50 percent this year alone.
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Tiger Global Management disclosed in a regulatory filing it owns a 10.1 percent passive stake in Tuniu Corporation, an online leisure travel company in China that went public last week. The New York hedge fund, which has a $6 billion venture capital business, was not listed as a major shareholder in the offering documents.body copy.
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Boaz Weinstein’s Saba Capital Management, disclosed stakes exceeding 5 percent in two different closed-end mutual funds. The New York hedge fund said it owns 5.15 percent of Western Asset High Yield Defined Opportunity Fund and 5.29 percent of Nuveen Mortgage Opportunity Term Fund. The two funds are trading at 8 percent and 9.4 percent discounts to net asset value, respectively. Both positions are passive, so at this point Weinstein does not intend to take measures to close the funds’ respective discounts to NAV.