- Thiel gets a tanning
- A New Era For Porn?
- Sir Richard Branson taps Blackstone for assault on Northern Rock
- The Buffett Paradox
Thiel gets a tanning – NY Post
It must have been a sad holiday season for investor Peter Thiel.
The Silicon Valley investor, who turned a $500,000 investment in Facebook five years ago into gold, is having the opposite effect when it comes to running his hedge fund, which lost 10 percent in December and ended 2009 down a whopping 25 percent…..
According to performance data obtained by The Post, Thiel’s hedge fund, Clarium Capital Management, lost $300 million in December to end 2009 with $1.33 billion in assets under management. At the start of the year, Clarium boasted $2 billion in assets. His hedge-fund assets peaked in 2008 at more than $7 billion……
A New Era For Porn? – Barron’s
One of the worst kept secrets about CES is that it overlaps with the annual adult-entertainment convention. The combination of geeks and porn stars under one roof certainly makes for strange bedfellows. As highlighted in our gadget review, three-dimensional television was also a major theme this year. One of its drawbacks, however, is the paucity of 3-D content, which is sure to get rectified when TV sales begin later this year. As one astute stock analyst predicted, as a porn starlet strutted by in the casino, adult video content is one category that will certainly benefit from the extra dimension of 3-D. Perhaps there is more synergy between the two conventions than meets the naked eye……
Sir Richard Branson taps Blackstone for assault on Northern Rock – Daily Telegraph
Blackstone, the US private equity firm, has been approached by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Money about backing a renewed bid for state-owned Northern Rock.
The buy-out house is among several firms that Virgin has talked to as it works on finding a partner for its financial services business in preparation for its move on Northern Rock’s “good bank” spun out of the state-owned lender and thought to be worth up to £2bn…..
The Buffett Paradox – Barron’s
Warren Buffett threw cold water last week on Kraft Foods’ bid for British candy maker Cadbury. But in doing so, he seems to be saying: “Do as I say, not as I do.”
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Kraft’s largest shareholder, with a 9% stake, voted against a proposal that would let Kraft (KFT) sharply boost its share count to facilitate a higher bid for Cadbury — which has rejected Kraft’s original offer. Buffett views Kraft stock as undervalued, and issuing more shares dilutes existing stockholders’ stakes.
Yet Berkshire is issuing $10 billion in shares of its own stock, which some investors view as quite undervalued, for its $34 billion cash-and-stock acquisition of Burlington Northern Sante Fe railroad, at $100 a share…….
Tags: Berkshire Hathaway, Blackstone Group, Clarium, Hedge funds, Northern Rock, Peter Thiel, Porn, Richard Branson, Warren Buffett
