Hedge fund manager Douglas Kass is Warren Buffett’s designated “bear” for an analyst panel at this year’s Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in May. The president of Seabreeze Partners Management has a short position in Berkshire’s Class B shares.
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Another hedge fund industry legend is retiring. Paul Ruddock plans to bail out in June as chief executive of London-based Lansdowne Partners, the firm he co-founded with Steven Heinz in 1998. A major donor to Britain’s ruling conservative partner, the 54-year-old executive, known as Sir Paul, after he was knighted in the 2012 New Year’s Honour’s List for Services to the Arts and Philanthropy, plans to focus on his efforts in the arts and philanthropic services, the Financial Times reported. He is chairman of the board of trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum, chairman of the Gilbert Trust for the Arts, and a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Landsdowne manages $12.4 billion.
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Agrium fired the latest salvo in its battle with activist hedge fund Jana Partners, which wants to break the agriculture products company into two separate companies. Agrium announced Monday it began mailing its Proxy Circular for its annual meeting, telling shareholders, “This is a simple choice between Agrium’s highly successful strategy that has delivered two consecutive years of record financial results and generated a 467 percent shareholder return since 2005, versus Jana Partners’ ill-conceived scheme to break up the company and take other actions that will destroy shareholder value.” The company also questioned the “independence” of Jana’s director nominees and “their ability to act in the best interests of all shareholders.” Agrium shares lost $1.71 to close at
$102.68.
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The Credit Suisse Liquid Alternative Beta Index, which aims to represent the performance of the overall hedge fund industry, fell 0.16 percent in February. It is up 0.93 percent for the year. In terms of strategies, event driven was the top the performer in February; it was up 0.17 percent for the month and 1.77 percent for the year. The Merger Arbitrate and Managed Futures indices were tied for the top performing strategy year-to-date; each were up 2.30 percent.
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Ken Griffin’s Citadel Advisors disclosed a 5 percent stake in QLogic, a maker of computer-networking storage products.
