Buffett’s 5-year itch

Warren Buffett is feeling the heat.  In 2012, for the third time in four years, shares of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway trailed the Standard & Poor’s 500 — a position the Oracle of Omaha finds particularly distasteful.

Buffett called the 1.6 percentage point loss to the S&P a “subpar” performance.

“To date, we’ve never had a five-year period of underperformance, having managed 43 times to surpass the S&P over such a stretch,” Buffett wrote in his annual letter to shareholders.  The letter, anticipated by millions of investors and read for clues into Buffett’s investment strategy, promised an improved performance in 2013...

Read all about it at http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/buffett_year_itch_7nAK1VyB40XAIqvaJaQ22L

JPMorgan No. 1 Investment Bank Amid a Flurry of New Deals

From Bloomberg:  Investment banking, after five long, hard years of negative or anemic growth, job cuts, pay cuts and public lashings, is on the verge of a comeback. Really, it is -- if the data can be believed.

All the economic statistics show that the markets are ripe for a rebound in mergers and acquisitions and equity issuance in 2013, dealmakers say….

Yet Bank of America Corp. (BAC)’s top investment banker is guarded in his forecast, and he isn’t alone, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its April issue.

“I hesitate to be the one that says 2013 will be the year, because invariably it may not,” says Christian Meissner, BofA’s head of global corporate and investment banking. “But I think that we’re pretty close to it changing.”

Find out more at http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-02-28/jpmorgan-no-dot-1-investment-bank-amid-a-flurry-of-new-deals

Top hedge fund manager loses $29 million tax case

Reuters reports that a prominent London hedge fund manager has failed in his attempt to shelter 19 million pounds ($29 million) of profits from taxes through the use of an avoidance scheme, the UK tax authority said on Friday, as it steps up a government-backed crackdown on such schemes.

Patrick Degorce, chief investment officer at hedge fund Theleme Partners, availed himself of a scheme marketed by film finance group Goldcrest Pictures Limited, which involved buying and selling movie rights via a British Virgin Islands entity. The transactions created losses which Degorce sought to offset against 18.8 million pounds of profits from his hedge fund, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) said.

But a Tax Tribunal has now ruled that Degorce could not reduce his taxable income in this way….

Read more at http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/01/uk-hedgefund-tax-idUKBRE9200SL20130301

Einhorn drops Apple lawsuit over preferred stock

From the AP: A disgruntled Apple shareholder pressing the iPhone and iPad maker to create a new class of preferred stock has dropped a lawsuit that prompted the company to change its agenda at its annual meeting this week.

Lawyers for hedge fund manager David Einhorn of Greenlight Capital notified US District Judge Richard Sullivan in a letter sent Thursday that they no longer planned to pursue the lawsuit. Sullivan then closed the case. Einhorn had already achieved his goal last week when Sullivan issued a preliminary ruling blocking an Apple Inc. proposal that would have required shareholder approval before preferred stock could be issued. Apple withdrew the proposal from the agenda at its annual meeting held Wednesday.

Apple's slumping stock fell to a new 52-week low $431.89 in trading on Friday……

More?  Check out http://www.nypost.com/p/news/business/david_einhorn_drops_apple_lawsuit_CDJpRwsmd3vGqg5H7reWRJ

You’ve Gotta Be Kidding: Former UBS Trader Seeks to Appeal Multi-Billion Fraud Conviction

According to Dealbook: Kweku M. Adoboli, a former UBS trader currently serving a seven-year jail sentence for a fraud that prompted a multibillion-dollar loss at the Swiss bank, has requested an appeal.

Mr. Adoboli, who was sentenced in November, filed an “application against his conviction and sentence,” a clerk at Britain’s Court of Appeal said. Tim Harris, Mr. Adoboli’s lawyer, was not immediately available for comment.

Last year, a jury was unanimous in its decision to find him guilty of one count of fraud. The jury was nine to one on a second fraud charge and acquitted Mr. Adoboli on two charges of false accounting. Mr. Adoboli’s jail term is unlikely to be significantly reduced should the second fraud charge be reversed, his lawyer said last year.  Mr. Adoboli had pleaded not guilty on all charges. He argued that his actions were aimed at generating profit for UBS and that colleagues were aware….

Read all about it at http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/former-ubs-trader-requests-to-appeal-fraud-conviction/

Pershing Square's Bill Ackman has a two aspirin kind of day

From Reuters: Noted stock picker William Ackman had a decidedly gloomy day on Thursday: Two of his most high-profile bets were moving fast, but in the wrong direction for the hedge fund manager and investors in his $12 billion Pershing Square Capital Management.

The day started with news that the shares of retailer J.C Penney, in which Pershing Square is the largest investor, tumbled as much as 22 percent in the wake of disappointing earnings news. The shares closed down about 17 percent at $17.57.  The second blow came hours later when Herbalife Ltd  - in which Ackman made a $1 billion bet its shares would fall to zero - invited two representatives of arch enemy Carl Icahn onto its board. The company's shares ended the day 7.6 percent higher at $40.29 after the announcement….

To learn more check outhttp://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/28/us-hedgefunds-pershingsquare-idUSBRE91R1JG20130228

Tudor Said to Plan First Equity Funds Since Pallotta Left

Tudor Investment Corp., the $11.6 billion hedge fund that seeks to profit from macroeconomic events, is planning its first equity funds since stock manager James Pallotta left the firm in 2009, four people with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.

Tudor may offer two equity funds to clients next year, one of which would be based on the performance of a number of portfolio managers focused on different industries, said the people, who asked not to be named because the plans are private. Tudor is in the early stages of planning, and may decide to shelve the funds, the people said. Patrick Clifford, a spokesman for Greenwich, Connecticut-based Tudor, declined to comment....

More?  Go to http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-28/tudor-said-to-plan-first-equity-funds-since-pallotta-left.html