Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York for New Managers: The middle of a pandemic is probably not a moment when a lot of people think about starting a hedge fund. But for Fate Capital, the pandemic was an opportunity. By launching last year, the fund has been able to prove itself in an unc...

Mobile commerce platform Rezolve to go public via $2bn SPAC deal From Reuters: Mobile commerce platform Rezolve said on Friday it will list in New York through a merger with a blank-check firm backed by billionaire Betsy Cohen, in a deal valuing the combined company at about $2 billion. Rezolve joins a string of tech companies that have tapped into publi...

The war for tech talent on Wall Street has reached a fever pitch From Business Insider: Banks and hedge funds are speeding up how they hire technical talent as competition heats up. JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs are among those quickening pace. The frenzy has been overwhelming for both candidates and recruiters. Wall Street has upped the ante...

Fundraise for Stonepeak's infrastructure fund reaches $11.4bn From IPE: Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners has so far raised $11.4bn (€10.1bn) for its fourth fund, according to sources that track capital raisings. The amount raised by the Stonepeak Infrastructure Fund IV exceeds the reported initial $10bn fundraising target for the fund. Stonepe...

Hambro Perks eyes first London SPAC listing under new rules From Bloomberg: U.K. venture capital firm Hambro Perks Ltd. aims to raise 140 million pounds ($187 million) listing a special purpose acquisition company in London, in what could be the market's first major blank-check offering since overhauling its rules. Hambro Perks Acquisition Co. plans t...

Tiger funds change some stripes From Institutional Investor: Falcon Edge, Light Street, Lone Pine, Viking, and Hound made significant buys and sells in the third quarter. Falcon Edge Capital Management exited its two largest U.S. long positions in the third quarter, according to its recently filed 13F document.This is very unusual.Hedge funds seldom liqu...

Trump-tied SPAC seeks Wall Street support From Al Jazeera: Day traders and Reddit enthusiasts helped fuel a spectacular rally in Digital World Acquisition Corp shares, which reached a closing high of $94.20 last month before leveling out to recently trade around $60. The blank-check company tied to Donald Trump's new media venture has already won th...

Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: Private equity deal volume is coming back according to new data from accounting and advisory firm BDO. A survey of 200 private equity fund managers suggests that 42% will be deploying capital to new deals in 2022. That's up from 19% this time last year. What's more, those deals appear to be actual new deals - just 16% of fund managers say...

Moody's warns of 'systemic risks' in private credit industry From FT: The burgeoning private credit industry of lending to buyout groups has grown to about $1tn, but opacity, eroding standards and the difficulty in trading these slices of debt pose "systemic risks", according to rating agency Moody's. Investor money has gushed ...

Massar Capital launches new global discretionary strategy Massar Capital Management has launched a new discretionary macro hedge fund strategy which aims to capitalize on directional trading opportunities across a broad set of global markets. The Massar Macro Directional is the New York-based firm's second strategy and began trading on 1 October wit...

Vanderbilt University endowment records 57.1% return for fiscal year From PIonline.com: Vanderbilt University's endowment returned a net 57.1% in the fiscal year ended June 30, according to a financial report on the Nashville, Tenn.-based university. The report did not provide benchmark information, return information for asset classes or long-term retur...

Is the SPAC boom fizzling out? From Crunch Base: SPACs may be fizzling out. Since February 2021, when the SPAC (special-purpose acquisition company) craze was booming, a market selloff has wiped out about $75 billion of the value of companies that went public using SPACs, according to a Dow Jones Market Data analysis of figures from SPAC research. The ana...

After early investors flee SPAC deals, day traders rush in From WSJ: Day traders are targeting some companies that recently closed SPAC mergers, reinvigorating some of the meme-stock excitement that helped make such deals popular early in the year. The latest special-purpose-acquisition-company excitement focuses on firms like cybersecurity firm IronNet In...

H.I.G. closes first European buyout fund at $2.4bn From PIonline.com: H.I.G. Capital closed its first European middle-market buyout fund, the H.I.G. Europe Middle Market LBO Fund, at €2 billion ($2.4 billion), a news release shows. The fund targets middle-market companies primarily in Western Europe with values up to €1 billion. Investors...

Climate tech is hot, but VCs can't forget about water From Crunch Base: "It is unequivocal that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, oceans, and land." These fiery words come from the latest landmark U.N. report detailing intensifying, universal climate change impacts. They cover air, water and land. There's a fair amount of VC an...

The fall of the SPAC market has digital media companies in disagreement about best path forward From CNBC: The digital media industry has reached a strategic crossroads. Earlier this year, special purpose acquisition vehicles (SPACs) appeared to be the long-awaited savior of digital media companies. BuzzFeed, Vice, Bustle Digital Group and others with venture capita...

B. G., Opalesque Geneva: According to Dr. Pat Welton, founder and CIO of Welton Investment Partners, a U.S.-based quantitative and ESG hedge fund manager, the Covid Delta variant emergence is likely an intermediate-term positive for equities and bonds. On a related matter, even though market reactions are often attributed to ne...

From Business Insider: Tiger Global has become one of Europe's biggest startup investors, participating in $6 billion worth of deals. It has invested in 22 European startups in 2021, up from four in 2020, Dealroom data shows. Tiger's speed, cash, and hands-off approach has disrupted the way Europe's venture capitalists do business. More:...

SOL Global reaches settlement in legal battle with hedge fund MMCAP From The Globe and Mail: Canadian dealmaker Andy DeFrancesco and Toronto-based hedge fund MMCap Asset Management have reached a settlement in a six-month legal battle involving hundreds of millions of dollars worth of shares of Verano Holdings, an American cannabis company. The agreement...

SPAC IPOs show time is money with speedier deal chases From Bloomberg: SPAC bosses are finding they have to speed up their deal hunt if they want to attract investors these days. About half the blank-check companies that filed for U.S. listings since the start of June are giving themselves an initial period of 18 months or less to find an acquisition targe...

Apollo investors look past Black-Epstein tie to back impact fund From Bloomberg: The backlash against Apollo Global Management Inc. over Leon Black's ties with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is waning, with investors lining up to entrust the firm to manage investments dedicated to social responsibility. The New York-based firm expects to lock in more th...

SEC abruptly kills Ackman's controversial SPAC plans From Institutional Investor: The Securities and Exchange Commission has killed Bill Ackman's special purpose acquisition company's complicated plan to invest in Universal Music Group. On Monday, his SPAC, Pershing Square Tontine Holdings, said in a letter to investors that it was pulling...

SPAC merger with space firm Momentus threatened by SEC fine From Bloomberg: A blank-check company's acquisition of space-cargo firm Momentus Inc. has been dealt a serious blow by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which accused both entities of misleading shareholders just weeks before investors were slated to vote on the deal. The regulat...

Decoding the SPAC opportunity From CNBCTV18: Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) have been around since the 1990s. Yet, 2020 saw more SPAC IPOs than all previous years combined and was the first year where SPAC IPOs exceeded traditional IPOs. The first quarter of 2021 saw a continued expansion in the number of SPACs formed. In a statement on Apri...

The Tiger crowd just made new investments in these unicorns From Institutional Investor: Tiger Cubs and other Tiger Management descendants have made a number of fresh investments in unicorns in just the past week or so. Tiger Global, D1, Coatue, and Viking are among the Tiger-related funds that are putting money into billion-dollar-plus private companies. ...

B. G., Opalesque Geneva: Matt Breidert, senior portfolio manager and managing director of Listed Sustainable Infrastructure & Energy Transition at TortoiseEcofin, talks to Opalesque about the influence of the new U.S. ...

Reverence Capital seeks $1.7bn for new buyout fund From PE Insights: Reverence Capital Partners is seeking $1.7 billion for its third private-equity fund, re-entering the market less than two years after a predecessor buyout vehicle exceeded its target by 60%, according to people familiar with the matter. If the New York firm hits its goal, its latest fu...

How Tiger Global earned its stripes as the world's biggest unicorn hunter From Crunch Base: Tiger Global Management, already one of the most voracious startup investors in recent years, is roaring into 2021 more aggressively than ever. The 20-year-old New York-based investing firm - part hedge fund, part private equity investor - has not only quietly ...

The SPAC party gets going in Europe, this time with better terms From Bloomberg: By now we all know just how U.S. investors went crazy for SPACs at the turn of the year, pumping $90 billion into the special purpose acquisition companies from December through February alone. Blank-check companies raise money from investors in an initial public offering and ...

Bright Machines nears SPAC deal to go public From WSJ: Bright Machines is nearing a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company to go public in a deal that would value the manufacturing-automation business at about $1.6 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The creator of a platform that uses artificial intelligence and robotics to aut...

From Bloomberg: With Democrats pushing for higher taxes on the richest Americans to fund President Joe Biden's infrastructure and climate initiatives, hedge fund managers are taking refuge in Puerto Rico. ExodusPoint Capital Management and Millennium Management have established subsidiaries on the island, according to local records. That could help portfolio managers at the firms re...

Biotech firm Roivant Sciences to go public via $7.3bn SPAC deal From Forbes: Seven years ago, Vivek Ramaswamy created Roivant Sciences with the aim of finding a new financial model for drug development. On Monday, Roivant Sciences announced it would be going public by merging with a special acquisition company in a deal that values Roivant at $7.3 billion. ...

Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia: AssetMark, the turnkey asset management platform, is offering a new portfolio construction service to RIAs via the iCapital Network platform that services $73 billion in global client assets across more than 760 alternative investment funds. The customized alternative investments service on the AssetMark platform provides a curated selection of fully d...

A SPAC-tacular surge From FA Magazine: During a period of extreme volatility and a global pandemic, the initial public offering (IPO) market had a spectacular year in 2020 in terms of the number of new listings and proceeds raised, along with the rise in popularity for Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) which have become one of the hottest investment tren...

'Frustrated' limited partners are questioning PE-sponsored SPACs From Institutional Investor: It's hard to imagine that private equity firms would have stayed out of the booming business of special-purpose acquisition companies. But private-equity-sponsored SPACs could lead to conflicts of interest with the firms' other funds, according to PitchBoo...

Amundi launches Just Transition for Climate fund From Bloomberg: Amundi has launched a European fixed income fund that will support energy transition. The Just Transition for Climate fund is managed by Alban de Fa?, head of fixed income ESG investing, and Dany da Fonseca, credit portfolio manager. The investment universe of the new strategy is based on the...

Investors sour on SPACs From Institutional Investor: Is the blank-check bubble bursting?Shares of many special purpose acquisition companies are down 20 percent or more from the highs they hit in February. Many of them are blank-check companies that have announced merger partners but haven't yet closed their deals. Stocks of numerous blank check c...

ironSource to go public via $11bn merger with Thoma Bravo-backed SPAC From Reuters: Israeli advertising technology firm ironSource said on Sunday it has agreed to go public through a merger with a blank-check company backed by U.S. private equity firm Thoma Bravo, valuing the business at $11.1 billion. The deal with Thoma Bravo Advantage, a special purp...

Where the world's most profitable hedge fund is investing From Guru Focus: Chase Coleman's Tiger Global Management is one of the most successful hedge funds of all time. Its flagship long-short equity fund has compounded investors' capital at 21% per annum after fees for the past 20 years. An investment in the fund at inception would have gr...

EcoR1 is launching a second SPAC From Institutional Investor: One of the hottest health care-related hedge funds is planning to launch its second blank-check company one month after its first one closed on a merger deal. EcoR1 Capital, headed by one-time Institutional Investor Hedge Fund Rising Star Oleg Nodelman, on Tuesday said in a regulatory filing. Th...

From Bloomberg: Two of the hottest equity market trends are headed for a clash as some ESG investors are having second thoughts about blank-check firms that have flooded the market. Early signs show that money managers wedded to environmental, social and governance themes are reluctant to buy into special-purpose acquisition companies before a target has been identified. That could poten...

VC fund investors not raising alarms over SPAC trend From Axios: Venture capital firms, formed to invest in startups, are increasingly becoming sponsors of SPACs, blank-check companies that bring later-stage businesses into the public markets. It's significant strategy creep, but so far there hasn't been much opposition from venture capital fund investors,...

Tribune Publishing agrees to $430m takeover by hedge fund From Boston Globe: Tribune Publishing Co., the owner of the Chicago Tribune and New York Daily News, agreed to be acquired by Alden Global Capital LLC for about $430 million, putting a hedge fund known for firing journalists atop one of the nation's largest newspaper companies. Alden, which al...

Macquarie closes latest renewable energy fund at $1.9bn Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) has raised more than €1.6 billion for investment in renewable energy with the final close of Macquarie Green Investment Group Renewable Energy Fund 2 (MGREF2) - exceeding its initial minimum fundraising target of €1 billion. MGREF2 is a...

Databricks, a start-up whose software helps companies quickly process large sets of data and get it ready for analysis, said Monday it has raised $1 billion in fresh cash, including from a few prominent corporate investors. Amazon Web Services, Alphabet's CapitalG venture arm and Salesforce Ventures all joined in, according to a statement. Microsoft, which invested in Databricks ear...

Venture capital takes off: How the lines between VC and PE are blurring From PE News: As 2020 came to an end, Ian Connatty, managing director of British Patient Capital (BPC), had good reason to feel satisfied with the progress of the organisation that he helped set up in 2018. In the two and a half years since it was launched by the state-owned British Bu...

Lesser-known Tiger Seed launches long-only fund From Institutional Investor: A hedge fund whose largest investor is Julian Robinson Jr.'s Tiger Management has launched a long-only fund as part of a larger reshuffling of its investment vehicles. Tiger Legatus Capital Management, a so-called Tiger Seed headed by Jesse Ro that has remained under the radar, earlier...