FINalternatives has culled through the Forbes list for all of the alternative investment guys who are represented. Notably missing: Allen Stanford. Here's the list:
Tags: Allen Stanford, Avenue Investments, Bruce Kovner, Carl Icahn, Citadel, DE Shaw, Eddie Lampert, George Soros, Harbinger, Hedge funds, Henry Kravis, Highbridge, Jim Simons, Leon Black, Private equity, SAC Capital, Sam Zell
"I
think it was a huge mistake — both the general concept of it and more
specifically the way that it was implemented," Ross said at the Reuters
Restructuring Summit in New York on Monday.
He said the main problems with the rules, were that accounting treatments for
the exact same security can be different for different companies, based on
whether they decide to hold them to maturity, or mark-them-to market as part of
a trading portfolio.
"I think it was well intentioned and horribly botched," Ross said of
the mark-to-market rules.
Wilbur Ross: Mark-to-market was a mistake – Reuters
Tags: Credit Crunch
Wilbur Ross is said to be in takeover talks with Ambac according to The Evening Standard….
Tags: Bond Insurers, Credit Crunch
The big ugly mortgage monster isn’t dead: Wilbur Ross continues to think there are opportunities in mortgages and he’s putting his money where his mouth is. According to Bloomberg:
“We’re looking at everything that’s in
trouble,” said Ross, founder of New York-based WL Ross & Co., in an
interview.He won an Oct. 5 auction for the home-loan
servicing unit of Melville, New York-based American Home Mortgage Investment
Corp. Ross agreed to pay between $435 million and $500 million for the right to
collect payments and maintain escrow on about $45.3 billion of mortgages from
the biggest residential lender to go bust this year. His company has also joined
with Richard Branson’s London-based Virgin Group Ltd. to bid for Northern Rock
Plc, the U.K. lender bailed out by the Bank of England.Dubbed the King of Bankruptcy by clients
during his quarter century at the Rothschild investment bank, Ross, 69, is
entering the market as an increasing number of borrowers quit making payments
and profits sink in the servicing business, according to the Washington-based
Mortgage Bankers Association.“They will probably have their hands full
the next couple of years,” said Bose George, an industry analyst at Keefe
Bruyette & Woods Inc. in New York.
Tags: Banks, Credit Crunch
- Extra tax break for buy-out partners
- Private-Equity Executives May Bend To Critics in U.K. Hearing
- Insider Trading Makes Comeback in Options 20 Years After Boesky
- Wilbur Ross offers concerns about CLOs
Tags: Insider Trading, Private equity
Are there dangers lurking in the bowels of the London Stock Exchange? Wilbur Ross thinks that their market for lesser quality stocks in their AIM ("Alternative Investment Market") is an accident waiting to happen. And the Brits aren’t very happy with his comments:
In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Ross also said the private equity boom might be a bubble that could contribute to a sharp rise in corporate bankruptcies over the next few years.
Mr Ross, who has accumulated an estimated fortune of more than $1bn by investing in unfancied sectors such as steel and car parts, said London’s junior market was in danger of attracting “the wrong kinds of people”.
Asked whether he thought Aim was a dangerous market, Mr Ross said: “It clearly is a dangerous one. I think it is no accident that quite a few of the companies have fallen far short of the business performance that had been forecast at the time of their launching.
Next year could be a good one for vulture investors if Wilbur Ross is right. He’s predicting a surge of bankruptcies next year:
Ross, dubbed the ‘King of Bankruptcy’ by Fortune magazine in 1998, said at a conference in London on Wednesday that defaults would rise to about 7 percent of all companies by the end of next year — one of the most bearish predictions in the industry — from about 1 percent now.
"The number of defaults will rise even in the absence of an economic downturn or interest rate increases," said the chairman of WL Ross & Co. LLC in a videoconference from his office in New York. "There will be some tragedies. When you pay higher multiples, you have less margin of error."
The value paid by the average European leverage lender has risen to 8.2 times a company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) from 5.2 times five years ago, Ross said.
Leveraged companies are more likely to default in their third or fourth year rather than during the initial years after an investment, and 2007 coincides with the end of the cycle of the 2002-2003 investments, Ross said.
‘King of Bankruptcy’ predicts rise in defaults – Reuters
Tags: Distressed
Wilbur Ross is gearing up for the widely expected new default cycle. He now has $685 million more fire power behind him to invest in larger distressed companies thanks to Goldman Sachs. Rather than invest directly in WL Ross funds, the Goldman Sachs WLR Opportunities Fund LP. will invest alongside him:
Ross anticipates better opportunities for so-called distressed investing next year as slower economic growth throttles companies loaded down with debt. The investor, who rolled up five bankrupt steel companies and sold the group to Mittal Steel Co. for $4.5 billion last year, said he’s bulking up his war chest as leveraged buyouts swell in size.
“It’s inevitable that we will see higher default rates than where we are today,” Ross said. “We are trying to get ourselves organized to deal with that opportunity.”
Ross said the Goldman fund is “a new product for us” to keep pace with so-called club deals by private-equity firms that band together to take on bigger targets. A group including Bain Capital LLC and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. agreed to pay $33 billion for hospital operator HCA Inc. in July.
Ross, Expecting More Defaults, Gets $685 Million From Goldman – Bloomberg
Tags: Distressed
Citing synnergies, Wilbur Ross is merging two companies in which he has majority ownership: International Textile Group and Safety Components International. The company will be headquartered in Greensboro, NC; WL Ross & Co will own approximately 82% of the combined entity which will have annual revenues of around $1 billion…..
Wilbur Ross is selling his buyout firm, WL Ross & Co,. to Amvescap PLC for as much as $375 million…
Amvescap will pay $100 million for WL Ross & Co. and then make annual payments of as much as $55 million for five years, the London-based company said in a statement distributed by PR Newswire….
Tags: Distressed, Hedge funds
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