Finance Weekly Updates

Finance Weekly Profile: Alan Quasha

From time to time we like to profile interesting and/or successful individuals making news in the world of finance. Alan Quasha is perhaps best known for his great talent restructuring companies. Among his more recent endeavors have been the restructuring of Genius Products. Formerly owned by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Genius is an entertainment distribution company. Alan Quasha also facilitated the acquisition of the private equity operation of Lehman Brothers by the investment firm Reinet Investments.

Alan Quasha is a principal at Quadrant Management, an investment firm which focuses its resources on U.S. and emerging markets.

Alan Quasha started restructuring companies over thirty years ago when there was not much financial incentive to perform this task as an agent. Therefore, he learned early through necessity that the best approach was to become a partner in the process. This philosophy has assured many years of successful restructuring ventures and earned Alan Quasha his well-deserved excellent reputation.

Being a shy man by nature, Quasha has always avoided the limelight. He is associated with several other investment firms in addition to Quadrant, including Carret Asset Management Group and Vanterra Capital, where he is the founding principal of this global private equity fund.

Spirits Rise with Hedge Fund Gains

Hedge Fund managers have been in a good mood lately as world markets seem to head upwards, shaking off the unpleasant memories that hopefully is all that is left of 2008,one of the worst years in financial history.
The month of July alone saw the Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index climb an additional 2.1 percent, adding another month to the five month growth streak of 2009.

To date the Index has improved an impressive 12 percent, with hopes for the rest of the year high.
Another index, the MSCI World Index soared 8.4 percent just in July bringing its year-to-date upward climb to 14%.

This extraordinary improvement relied mostly on the success of the fund managers of the Asian and emerging markets sectors.

“The month’s returns were achieved on the back of strong rallies across underlying equity markets despite a rough start to the month,” Eurekahedge wrote in its report.

This is good news to the hears of fund managers all over the world such as John Paulson, Eric Sprott of Sprott Hedge Fund

PIPE Investment Not a Pipe Dream For GM

As the financial world continues to feel the reverberations of one of the most daring, controversial and largest bailouts of a publicly traded company by the U.S. government in history, that is the General Motors decline into bankruptcy and the U.S. government’s bailout, Corey Ribotsky believes he is seeing just another PIPE investment, albeit on a grander scale.

In an opinion piece which appeared in HedgeWorld News, the managing partner and head portfolio manager of the NIR Group of Roslyn, New York, Corey Ribotsky, described the many ways in which the recent U.S. government bailout of General Motors Corporation resembles a PIPE deal which Ribotsky’s investment firm has been dealing with for years.

PIPE is an abbreviation for private investment in public equity, and according to Ribotsky’s take on the bailout, the U.S. government is investing in the publicly held equity of General Motors, or what’s left of it.

Investigators Warn: Stess Tests Not Enough

The  Oversight Panel which is supervising the U.S. government bailout of banks to the tune of $700 billion issued a report Tuesday, June 9th, stating that the Federal Reserve used “conservative and reasonable” methods for the assessment of the well-being of the country’s largest banks.
However the panel also said that the Fed’s most pessimistic scenario was not far reaching enough. One example is that the “stress tests” which were conducted by the Federal Reserve bases their conclusions on 2009 unemployment figures which averaged 8.9%. This year unemployment actually reached 9.4% in the month of May.

“While no one should gainsay the potentially positive results of the tests, it would be equally unwise to think that those results reflect a diagnosis of all of the potential weaknesses or create a necessarily sufficient buffer against future reverses for the banking system,” warned the panel in their report.

Do Investors Get Unbiased Research From Wall Street?

Appearing before a United States’ House of Representatives’ subcommittee hearing to discuss “Analyzing the Analysts: Are Investors Getting Unbiased Research from Wall Street?” Gregg Hymowitz, a founder and principal of EnTrust Capital Inc. offered his opinion as testimony. This thought provoking testimony can be viewed in full by following the link.