'Very encouraging IMO that a fund like Regal would drop 10mil in OSL at next to no discount, they must be pretty sure of it.'
Jbaus - you might want to do some research on this mob. They are not your normal fund manager. They are a hedge fund, and pretty good, looking at all those awards they have. Their specialty is a long/short fund.
Before today I don't recall ever hearing or seeing anything about them. But I'm not a hedge fund sort of dude, so maybe others have.
Interesting mob, for sure.
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High-profile Bell Potter managing director of institutional trading Angus Aitken and Regal Funds Management chief investment officer Philip King, along with both brokerages have been hit with an enforceable undertaking over their trading activities in Ten Network Holdings in 2013.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission accepted the enforceable undertakings from Bell Potter, Mr Aitken, Regal Funds Management and Mr King after an investigation into Mr King's Ten Network trades.
In the most recent action, Mr Aitken is alleged by ASIC to have passed on information about an institutional client's possible selling intentions of stock in Ten Network to Mr King, who was trading on behalf of Regal, also a client of Bell Potter.
ASIC's investigation found Mr Aitken - the brother of equally high profile trader Charlie Aitken - sent an email to Mr King on May 21, 2013, based on the information he had obtained about his client's possible selling intentions.
According to the enforceable undertaking released by the regulator today, the email from Mr Aitken to Mr King read: "TEN – you can create a stop loss and buy some cheapies... i have a bloke who will dump 20m is they break 28c ... only 4m on the bid."
He further told Mr King "If they break 28c he'll give me the order"
"In ASIC's view, Mr King was obliged to avoid using the information and, in particular, to refrain from selling TEN shares."
According to ASIC, Mr King short-sold the TEN shares through a broker unrelated to Mr Aitken and Bell Potter. After this transaction, the price of TEN began to fall through trading unrelated to Regal or Bell Potter, the regulator said in its statement.
"At the same time, Mr King and Mr Aitken negotiated a crossing under which Regal bought 10 million TEN shares from Mr Aitken's client at $0.26 per share."
"In an approximate seven minute period, Regal realised an approximate gross profit of $80,000 on the 4 million TEN that were short-sold by Mr King," the regulator added.
-------------------------- arbaczy, who was one Philips’s first hires on the investment side of the business says the funds return series is what makes him proudest. Regal’s Market Neutral Fund has returned about 21 per cent since its May 2007 inception.
“Our ethos is to work hard, to be hungry, not to be fed by the sell-side or to wait for the phone to ring. Our desire to work hard hasn’t changed from when we were a 20 million dollar fund," he says.
Barbaczy says Regal’s additional edge compared with other companies is its ability to make money shorting companies – an activity on which most hedge funds only devote about “5 per cent of their time".
“We are generally prepared to be very patient and run shorts for multiple years," he says. “Our best short investments have been those that have fallen 80 to 90 per cent over a number of years." While part of the game for US short sellers is to actively talk down companies Regal prefers to be discrete about the companies against whose fortunes it is betting. But Barbaczy did provide insights as to where opportunities are arising.
“The mining boom is largely over, although mining as an asset class is not over," he says.
(20min delay)