One year ago
»» After weeks of refusing to discuss its Sino-Forest position, Paulson & Co. sent its investors a four-page letter detailing the firm’s involvement with the Chinese forestry company, which stock research firm Muddy Waters Research had accused of fraudulent accounting. Shares in the company had plummeted, costing Paulson hundreds of millions of dollars of paper losses. (Sino-Forest has consistently denied the allegations.)
In the letter, Michael Waldorf, a managing director at the firm, and James Wong, Paulson’s head of investor relations, noted that the firm’s Sino-Forest positions were limited to its Paulson Advantage funds and said actual losses, based on the level at which the stock was bought and sold, totaled $107 million.
That proved a small portion for Paulson’s total hedge fund losses in 2012. Event driven Paulson Advantage ended the year down 36.13% (see full returns here), compared with a 4.75% slide for the AR Event Driven Index, and is down a further 6.28% this year.
Armel Leslie, an external spokesman for Paulson, declined to comment.
See also AR’s recent cover story: Quest for growth in emerging markets
Five years ago
»» Deutsche Bank continued to expand its prime brokerage, adding five senior bankers.
Of the five, none are still employed at the German bank, according to their respective LinkedIn profiles. John Dewey is now at Citi, Anthony Demonte works at Jefferies, Tom Filipovits moved to BNP Paribas, E.J. Liotta is at software company Netik LLC and Keith Weintraub is a consultant for a loan insurance company.
Deutsche’s prime brokerage chugs along without them, led by longtime global head Barry Bausano, a former Tiger Fund Management director. The firm was recently ranked fifth in AR’s annual ranking of hedge fund prime brokers by mandates, up one spot from last year.
See previous Americas Prime Brokerage surveys: 2011 • 2010 • 2009
»» Everest Capital hired former SEI investments vice president Ross Ellis as its new director of marketing, a new position. “We are dedicating more resources to both better support our existing institutional book of business as well as building a more robust model to support new, increasingly sophisticated investors,” Ellis said at the time.
Ellis was not at Marko Dimitrijevic’s Miami firm for very long. Less than two years later, he returned to SEI as vice president, again with responsibility for marketing and thought leadership, according to his LinkedIn profile. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Everest now manages $1.8 billion, and recently began marketing a new global debt fund, its first dedicated to global strategies. Its $180 million Everest Capital Frontier Markets fund is up 10.31% in 2012 through the end of May, according to an investor update from HSBC Private Bank, compared with a 1.48% rise for the HedgeFund Intelligence Emerging Markets Equity Index.
Chris Gillick, an external spokesman for Everest, declined to comment.
See also: Everest Capital partners with RiceHadley Group • Everest ratchets down risk for latest offering • Everest Capital hit with drawdowns
