Elliott, is wors type of capitalist a RAT SCUNK18 Jul 2019 16:58
Hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer’s ruthless strategies include bullying CEOs, suing governments and seizing their navy’s ships
Hedge fund managers are rarely the quiet, retiring type, but few are as boldly bare-knuckled as Paul Singer, the founder of Elliott Management.
Singer, who took home $400 million last year, makes his fortune through activist investing. While other investors are content to buy shares or bonds, and wait for them to accumulate value, Elliott Management, which oversees almost $33 billion, specializes in taking stakes in companies or institutions where it can shape the outcome. That can include agitating for changes in leadership, or spending years and million of dollars in court pursuing its interests.
Elliott Management is perhaps most notorious for its 15-year battle with the government of Argentina
Most recently, Elliott drew attention for its campaign against the management of Arconic, a manufacturer of auto and aerospace components. While waging a proxy battle to control the board, Elliott took aim at CEO Klaus Kleinfeld, calling him ineffective and a wasteful spender. After months of attacks, Kleinfeld responded in April with a bizarre letter that appeared to be an attempt to extort Singer by hinting at embarrassing behavior that took place at the 2006 World Cup in Germany (Kleinfeld enclosed a soccer ball with the letter). Once the letter was made public, Arconic’s board fired Kleinfeld and, not longer after, reached a settlement (paywall) that gave Elliott much of what it wanted.
Singer isn’t the first activist investor to play rough, but he may be the most successful. Elliott Management is wildly popular with investors, and it raised $5 billion in 24 hours when it opened a rare window to enter the fund in March.
The fund’s performance may re-write the rules of business, as other fund managers try to compete. “Because they’re so massively successful, their rapaciousness is now viewed in hindsight as success,” a former hedge fund executive said in an article about Elliott and its tactics in Institutional Investor, a trade publication. “Breaking the social norm of being pleasant in business is not a high cost to them.”
https://qz.com/1001650/hedge-fund-billionaire-paul-singers-ruthless-strategies-include-bullying-ceos-suing-governments-and-seizing-their-navys-ships/