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☆ Nikki Haley heads to fundraiser hosted by Wall Street executives
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-24 | by ( Brian Schwartz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Nikki Haley, a Republican who jumped into the 2024 presidential race this month, is set to attend a fundraising event for her campaign hosted by Wall Street executives in New York on Tuesday, according to an invitation first reviewed by CNBC. The Tuesday fundraiser for Haley's campaign is one of her first trips to New York as a candidate for president. Morning Consult's GOP primary tracker shows Haley has 6% of support from potential Republican voters. Former President Donald Trump garners support from about 50% of GOP primary voters, according to Morning Consult. Finance executives have played key fundraising roles for political campaigns of both parties for well over a decade.

Worldwide boy-band sensation BTS may be on hiatus, but refreshing new financial acts threaten to upend the world of K-pop, and perhaps South Korea. The battle over 28-year-old SM Entertainment, the $2.3 billion force behind Girls' Generation and EXO, is at heart a family feud. It helps, too, that K-pop has turned into one of South Korea’s strongest exports, thanks largely to “Butter” and “Dynamite” singers BTS. "We oppose all aggressive outside mergers and acquisitions, including Hybe," SM said in a statement, according to Reuters. Separately, internet conglomerate Kakao said on Feb. 7 it would acquire a 9.05% stake in SM via 112 billion won of new shares and 105 billion won of convertible bonds.

☆ PayPal's CEO search amid an uncertain economy will be no easy task
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-21 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

In case you missed it, PayPal CEO and President Dan Schulman announced his plan to retire at the end of 2023 earlier this month. Coming off an extremely difficult 2022, and with competition seemingly coming at them from every which way, PayPal has to find a new CEO. I hesitate to compare this to the seemingly never-ending CEO search at Carlyle, but it's easy to see how a difficult quarter or two could complicate this entire search. The rich stay rich thanks to another loophole that helps them save on taxes. Elliott Management's Paul Singer and Two Sigma's David Siegel both played second fiddle to Haidar Capital's Said Haidar in 2022 when it came to comp.

☆ Here's how Wall Street pros traded 13 Club stocks last quarter, including Salesforce and Disney
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Big-name investors and hedge funds made moves in Club holdings Disney (DIS), Nvidia (NVDA) and TJX Companies (TJX) in the fourth quarter. Starboard's position stood at 3.03 million shares — valued at $401.22 million — at the end of the fourth quarter, according to the firm's 13F. Inclusive's 1.63 million shares were worth $216.77 million and ValueAct's 560,221 shares carried a market value of $74.28 million. CRM YTD mountain Salesforce (CRM) YTD performance In addition to Salesforce, a number of other Club holdings appeared in hedge funds' quarterly disclosures. Some of the activists swarming at Salesforce have positions in other Club holdings and made changes to them during the fourth quarter.

☆ KKR can limit the pain of Elliott's telco blitz
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Pamela Barbaglia | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Even so, KKR and Vodafone look insulated from the worst sort of Teutonic deal pain. Still, KKR – which has joined forces with Global Infrastructure Partners and will co-control Vantage with Vodafone – has some protections. Reuters GraphicsFollow @pamela_msg on TwitterloadingCONTEXT NEWSActivist investor Elliott Management disclosed a 5.6% stake in German phone masts company Vantage Towers on Jan. 31. The offer was recommended by Vantage Towers' management and supervisory board. Vantage Towers’ Chief Executive Vivek Badrinath is set to depart due to personal reasons.

☆ Premarket stocks: Share buybacks could beat last year's record $1.2 trillion
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Companies have announced about $175 billion worth of planned stock buybacks so far this year. This year will likely be the first with at least $1 trillion in completed S&P 500 company buybacks, said Howard Silverblatt at S&P Dow Jones Indices. ▸ GM (GM) just inked an exclusive deal for the hottest product in automaking: Semiconductors. The strong dollar is hurting multinationalsThe rip-roaring dollar cut deeply into the earnings of multinational companies selling their wares overseas last quarter. “We got hit with that.”McDonald’s (MCD) and 3M (MMM) also said in earnings reports that they were worried that the strong dollar would affect future sales.

Haley also tapped Betsy Ankney, a former political director for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, to run the PAC, according to Axios. Longtime Haley advisor Jon Lerner, will likely have leadership roles within a Haley presidential campaign, two of the people said. Haley has publicly hinted in two recent interviews with Fox News that she could be ready to run for president. Kevin Lemarque | ReutersTrump, who lost his reelection bid to Biden in 2020, is the only candidate so far to jump into the 2024 presidential race. She even said in 2021 that she wouldn't run for president in 2024 if Trump was on the ballot.

☆ Disney’s Bob Iger and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff are the latest high-profile execs to come under pressure from activist investors
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Billionaire activist investors are putting pressure on top CEOs who were previously thought to be untouchable. Leaders of beloved brand names are coming under fire — and Marc Benioff of Salesforce and Disneys' Bob Iger are the two latest execs to feel the heat, as my colleague Matthew Fox writes. That means activist investors, moguls they may be, still face an uphill battle in winning over shareholders and management teams. What's your take on this burgeoning wave of activist investors? US stock futures fall early Tuesday, as investors brace for the next wave of high-profile earnings and despite growing hopes for a mild recession.

☆ Elliott Management's Jesse Cohn just picked his next target for an activist campaign: an ailing software giant
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-24 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A battle is on the horizon between Jesse Cohn and Salesforce. But the first rule of activist investing is you HAVE to talk about your activist investment. Jesse Cohn, a managing partner at the hedge fund Elliott Management, is leading his firm's latest activist campaign against troubled tech giant Salesforce via a multibillion-dollar stake. Activist investing, as we've previously covered, is set to be all the rage in 2023. Click here to learn more about Jesse Cohn, a tenacious activist investor who just set his sights on Salesforce.

☆ Meet Jesse Cohn, the hedge fund wunderkind building a campaign on Salesforce
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Casey Sullivan | Bradley Saacks | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

One of the key players behind the campaign is 42-year-old Jesse Cohn, Paul Singer's right-hand man. Hedge fund Elliott Management has taken a multi-billion dollar stake in Salesforce, as the tech company deals with layoffs and a management shake-up. And Cohn, one of Elliott's chief agitators, has emerged as quarterback, announcing his respect for co-CEO Marc Benioff in a statement. "He said, 'Hey, let me talk to you,'" Knowles told BI in 2019. He had the files laid out on a conference-room table when the board met with Cohn in Elliott's New York office.

☆ Inside Ken Griffin's rise to one of Wall Street's most powerful people, and why politics could be next
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Dakin Campbell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +30 min

JB and I are not on speaking terms these days," said Ken Griffin, the billionaire hedge-fund manager, referring to JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois. As Florida rolled back pandemic restrictions more quickly than Chicago, even more Citadel employees migrated south. Ken Griffin's hedge fund has had a run of eye-popping returns since 2020. Others worry that it gives Griffin's hedge fund an unfair advantage. Hundreds of Citadel employees, partners, and families gathered at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando Florida.

☆ Activist investor Elliott Management reportedly takes stake in Salesforce
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Paul Singer, founder of Elliott Management, speaking at Delivering Alpha in New York on Sept. 13, 2016. Activist investor Elliott Management Corp has made a multi-billion dollar investment in cloud-based software firm Salesforce Inc, according to people familiar with the matter. It is unclear what Elliott, one of the world's most prominent activist investors, is pushing for at Salesforce. "We look forward to working constructively with Salesforce to realize the value befitting a company of its stature," Jesse Cohn, managing partner at Elliott told Reuters. It recently won a board seat at Pinterest Inc when the company added Elliott portfolio manager Marc Steinberg as a director.

☆ Clash of the titans: Billionaire activist investors are putting pressure on top CEOs who were once thought untouchable
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Matthew Fox | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The bear market in stocks last year has opened up a new window for aggressive activist investors. Once high-flying tech stocks and beloved brand names are subject to unfamiliar pressure from billionaire activists. Marc Benioff of Salesforce and Bob Iger of Disney are the latest high-profile CEOs to face pressure. Nelson Peltz of the Trian Fund and Paul Singer of Elliott Management recently launched activist investor campaigns against Disney and Salesforce, respectively. Activist campaigns targeting firms of this size and caliber are uncommon, but their struggling share price has painted a target on management's back.

☆ Toshiba buyout heralds a big step back for Japan
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Una Galani | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

MUMBAI, Jan 20 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The end of a long battle to wring some value from Toshiba (6502.T) is finally within reach. Such an outcome won’t encourage private equity firms, and big policy shifts underway may stifle the industry just as it hits a new high. Instead, after an accounting scandal in 2015, Toshiba came to epitomise Japan Inc’s pervasive value destruction. Japan typically outperforms private equity deals in other developed markets, partly because existing incentive structures for company bosses are so poor. The country’s private equity industry is only just finding its feet.

☆ Hunter Biden had access to dad's Corvette that was stored in garage where classified docs were found, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Pictures of Hunter Biden in his dad's Corvette raise questions about his access to classified documents. They are dated to 2017, when classified documents may have been in the Biden garage, it said. The four images, whose metadata the outlet said it examined, appear to show Hunter Biden in the driver's seat of his father's Corvette in July 2017. Revelations about classified documents pose a political headache for the Biden White House. The Republican Party has long targeted Hunter Biden for some of his past business dealings, and allegations of influence peddling.

☆ Activist investing cries out for some pushback
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The number of aggressive investing campaigns led by firms such as Paul Singer’s Elliott Management and Nelson Peltz’s Trian Fund Management swelled last year, including from a record arrival of rookie practitioners. It represents a 36% increase from 2021 and the busiest year since 2018, when there were 249. There were also 55 first-time activists last year, who initiated more than a third of the campaigns. If the result is no better than a coin flip, it gives shareholders and boards fresh reason to question an activist’s arrival. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ 'We were duped': How George Santos raised money from wealthy GOP donors while lying about his resume
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Brian Schwartz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +10 min

His name was actually Sam Miele, and he worked for Santos raising money for his campaign, according to one GOP donor who contributed to Santos' campaign. In raising money for his campaign, Santos fed donors the same falsehoods he gave voters, campaign fundraisers and others say. "We were duped," said a Republican political strategist close to GOP donors and the leadership of the Republican Jewish Coalition. The RJC is considered the most prominent group of Jewish Republican donors, making gatherings such as the Hanukkah event key networking platforms for politicians. Vallone gave $17,900 in August between Santos' campaign, his leadership PAC and a joint fundraising committee, according to FEC records.

Carl Icahn had a textbook strategy for the Nevada-based energy utility Southwest Gas Holdings. In August, Southwest Gas' board decided against a divestiture, and the sale of subsidiaries that Icahn had urged remains uncertain. "Shareholders don't want to hear it, but you really have great difficulty selling a company at a good price today," the widely followed activist investor Icahn told Insider. via CNBCBut, like Icahn in the case of Southwest Gas, participants in this new onslaught may find themselves confounded by an increasingly complex and fraught business environment. According to Lazard, 37% of activist campaigns this year were launched by first-timers, the highest proportion since the company started tracking these figures in 2015.

Carl Icahn had a textbook strategy for the Nevada-based energy utility Southwest Gas Holdings. In August, Southwest Gas' board decided against a divestiture, and the sale of subsidiaries that Icahn had urged remains uncertain. That means that the sale of companies like Southwest Gas is off the table for the time being — or will get done at prices far lower than before. via CNBCBut, like Icahn in the case of Southwest Gas, participants in this new onslaught may find themselves confounded by an increasingly complex and fraught business environment. According to Lazard, 37% of activist campaigns this year were launched by first-timers, the highest proportion since the company started tracking these figures in 2015.

☆ Corporate America is bracing for a rise in activist investing. Meet the 13 lawyers on speed-dial when companies and investors fight for boardroom control.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +11 min

Law firms including Olshan Frome Wolosky LLP and Schulte Roth & Zabel are go-tos for activist investors looking to change how companies do business. Kai Liekefett, who co-chairs Sidley's shareholder activism practice, last year successfully defended cloud company Box Inc. in a proxy fight by Starboard. Liekefett has also defended clients against major activist investors including Carl Icahn and Trian Partners. He has advised clients against major activist investors including Trian, Carl Icahn, Starboard Value and the billionaire Paul Singer. Lawrence Elbaum and Patrick Gadson, Vinson & ElkinsPatrick Gadson (L) and Lawrence Elbaum (R), co-heads of Vinson & Elkins' shareholder activism group.

☆ Hedge funds were busy trading Club holdings last quarter, regulatory filings show
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-15 | by ( Kevin Stankiewicz | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

What's more, Third Point added to its bet on Disney (DIS), owning 1.4 million shares as of Sept. 30, up 40% compared with its position on June 30. That valued the position at roughly $700,000 as of Sept. 30, which is quite small for a multi-billion dollar investment firm like Trian. In August, the firm had reported owning 14.34 million shares as of June 30. They are current as of the reporting date, which for this latest round of disclosures was Sept. 30. As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade.

☆ Factbox: How Wall St and billionaires have donated to U.S. elections
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-08 | by ( John Mccrank | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Prior to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United ruling, which struck down limits on political contributions by corporations or unions, political contributions of billionaires made up around 3% of overall political contributions, she said. Griffin said in a statement: "I hope that my political engagement will help to protect the American Dream. * Crypto-billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried of FTX was the sixth-largest donor, at $39.8 million with the vast majority going to help Democrats. * Elliott Management founder Paul Singer spent $19.7 million to support Republicans, making him the 15th-largest donor. * Renaissance Technologies founder Jim Simons, together with Marilyn Simons, were the 20th-largest donors, spending nearly $16 million to help Democrats.

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