By Suzy Kenly Waite
| Mark Kingdon |
Kingdon Capital Management, the $4.98 billion long/short equity firm founded by Mark Kingdon, has been staffing up, adding a portfolio manager and legal executive. Kingdon Associates, the firm’s flagship global equity fund, gained 2.08% in April, leaving it up 2.79% for the year.
Jonathan Siegel, who invested in health care stocks at SAC Capital Advisors, joined the firm as a portfolio manager in late April. Dennis Bertron, who was Indus Capital Partners’ chief compliance officer, joined in mid-May as an assistant general counsel and compliance associate.
Siegel worked as a health care portfolio manager at SAC starting in 2005. Previously, he was at Bear Stearns as an associate director focusing on pharmaceutical research, and before that, at investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein as a research associate. Bertron served as chief compliance officer at $4 billion Indus Capital for just over one year and previously worked as assistant general counsel at Atticus Capital.
Kingdon’s gains this year have come from stock holdings across sectors including manufacturing and consumer nondurables, while it has lost money on equity shorts on software companies, U.S. equity indices, and European consumer and business services investments, according to a May 13 investor letter. Although Mark Kingdon warned of turbulence ahead, he remained optimistic. “We believe equities in general, and cyclical stocks in particular, will be choppy until we work through this latest episode of slower growth,” he wrote. “Nonetheless, we continue to expect an extended economic recovery thanks to strong corporate profits and low interest rates, and are investing accordingly.”
