Omega Advisors founder Leon Cooperman remains relatively bullish, even after his firm scored gains of between 25 percent and 29 percent in 2012. In January, Omega was up around 5 percent net, Cooperman revealed to this column this week. He believes the market can still climb somewhere in the high single-digits this year. On Friday Cooperman repeated his oft-spoken assertion that stocks are the best house in the investment neighborhood, though it’s unclear just how good the neighborhood is. He also maintained that investing in U.S. Treasuries is “ridiculous.”
John Paulson’s funds may have made money in January, though most still lagged the broad indices. Paulson Advantage was up less than 1 percent, while the leveraged Paulson Advantage Plus rose 1.41 percent. Last year, these funds lost 14 percent and 21 percent, respectively. Paulson Credit Opportunities rose 2.86 percent in January. The best performer last month was Paulson Enhanced, up 6.47 percent. It was up 19.6 percent in 2012.
Oskie Capital Management of New York and Marcato Capital Management of San Francisco said Friday they teamed up to buy a 5.2 percent stake in auto parts maker Lear and plan to nominate directors to the board at the annual meeting this year. Marcato is headed by Richard McGuire III, who previously worked for activist William Ackman of Pershing Square Capital Management. The investor group said on February 6, it told the company about its plans to launch a proxy fight. On February 7, the company said it would accelerate its stock buyback plans. The hedge fund managers were unimpressed, subsequently informing the company they aim to press their director nomination plans with management and the board. Lear ended with a 6.32 percent gain Friday, to close at $53.98.
Kazakhstan’s central bank hopes to invest as much as $300 million in fund-of-hedge-fund managers and private equity fund-of-fund managers. Hedge fund candidates must have at least five years of experience and at least $5 billion in assets under management. Target hedge fund strategies include global macro, event-driven, credit, long-short equity, multi-strategy, fixed-income arbitrage and managed futures.
