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Platforming opportunity for VC Portfolio companies in MIF Inhibitor space

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Distressed Intellectual Property, Distressed IP, Gerbsman Partners, Inetellectual Property, Intellectual capital, Life Science, NVCA, Venture Capital, Venturebeat on December 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Outlined below are Intellectual Property and Trade Secrets assets from Cortical Pty. Ltd.  The IP and Trade Secrets were developed by Cortical, a biotechnology company that is focused on the development of inhibitors of MIF (macrophage migration inhibitory factor) for the treatment of inflammation and other diseases.

Professor Eric Morand, MD, PhD – Scientific Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer is the primary scientist behind the developments and will be available on a consulting basis to an acquiring company.  Eric is a Professor of Medicine at the Monash University Centre for Inflammatory Diseases at Monash MedicalCentre, Melbourne. Eric’s laboratory first identified the role of MIF in rheumatoid arthritis and SLE. He is an acknowledged expert in research on MIF research and glucocorticoid-regulated proteins, and is an author of over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the area of inflammatory diseases. His academic research group has won grants from the NIH, National Health and Medical Research Council Australia, Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and Arthritis Foundation of Australia. He is also the Deputy Director, Rheumatology Unit, Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, Australia and heads the Monash Lupus Clinic.

The objective of this correspondence is to qualify and determine any potential interest in one of your portfolio companies platforming this opportunity.  If there is interest, Gerbsman Partners will forward additional information and upon receiving a CDA will set up due diligence with Professor Morand and Cortical.

The sale process for any interested party is outlined below and Cortical will entertain Cash and Stock as potential consideration for the Intellectual Property and Trade Secrets.

Please call Steven R. Gerbsman at 415 505 4991 or email steve@gerbsmanpartners.com for additional information.

Steven R. Gerbsman
Principal
Gerbsman Partners
Phone: 415.456.0628, 703.823.1855
Fax: 415.459.2278
Cell: 415.505.4991
steve@gerbsmanpartners.com
thegerbs@pacbell.net

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SALE OF CORTICAL PTY LTD

Gerbsman Partners (www.gerbsmanpartners.com <http://www.gerbsmanpartners.com&gt; ) has been retained by Cortical Pty. Ltd. (www.cortical.com.au <http://www.cortical.com.au&gt; ) to solicit interest for the acquisition of all, or substantially all of, Cortical’s assets.

Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, Cortical is a discovery-phase, biotechnology company that is focused on the development of inhibitors of MIF (macrophage migration inhibitory factor) for the treatment of inflammation and other diseases.

Cortical has recently overcome a major roadblock in MIF research, resulting in a cellular assay platform that has enabled fast compound ranking, SAR and screening.  Cortical has developed a library of proprietary MIF inhibitors, including a primary scaffold currently in lead optimization.

To date, Cortical has raised more than $5 million in three rounds of venture capital financing, lead by GBS Ventures (Melbourne, Australia).  In addition, Cortical has benefited from more than $1 million in government assisted grants.

IMPORTANT LEGAL NOTICE:

The information in this memorandum does not constitute the whole or any part of an offer or a contract.

The information contained in this memorandum relating to Cortical’s Assets (as defined herein) has been supplied by Cortical.  It has not been independently investigated or verified by Gerbsman Partners or their respective agents.

Potential purchasers should not rely on any information contained in this memorandum or provided by Gerbsman Partners (or their respective staff, agents, and attorneys) in connection herewith, whether transmitted orally or in writing as a statement, opinion, or representation of fact.  Interested parties should satisfy themselves through independent investigations as they or their legal and financial advisors see fit.

Gerbsman Partners, and their respective staff, agents, and attorneys, (i) disclaim any and all implied warranties concerning the truth, accuracy, andcompleteness of any information provided in connection herewith and (ii) do not accept liability for the information, including that contained in this memorandum, whether that liability arises by reasons of Cortical’s or Gerbsman Partners’ negligence or otherwise.

Any sale of the Cortical Assets will be made on an “as-is,” “where-is,” and “with all faults” basis, without any warranties, representations, or guarantees, either expressed orimplied, of any kind, nature, or type whatsoever from, or on behalf of Cortical and Gerbsman Partners. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, Cortical and Gerbsman Partners and their respective staff, agents, and attorneys,  hereby expressly disclaim any and all implied warranties concerning the condition of the Cortical Assets and any portions thereof, including, but not limited to, environmental conditions, compliance with any government regulations or requirements, the implied warranties of habitability, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose.

This memorandum contains confidential information and is not to be supplied to any person without Gerbsman Partners’ prior consent. Thismemorandum and the information contained herein are subject to the Confidential Disclosure Agreement attached hereto as Appendix B.

Company Profile

Cortical is a discovery-phase, Australian biotechnology company developing small-molecule inhibitors of MIF for the treatment of inflammation and other diseases.

Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor (MIF) is a differentiated disease target:
·     MIF is a unique pro-inflammatory protein.
·     The MIF knock-out mouse has a normal phenotype, except in disease models.
·     MIF plays a pivotal role in immune-inflammatory diseases, atherosclerosis, metabolic disease and cancer.

Cortical has recently overcome a major roadblock in MIF research, resulting in a cellular assay platform that has enabled fast compound ranking, SAR and screening.  Cortical has developed a library of proprietary MIF inhibitors, including a primary scaffold currently in lead optimization.

To date, Cortical has raised more than $5 million in three rounds of venture capital financing, lead by GBS Ventures (Melbourne, Australia).  In addition, Cortical has benefited from more than $1 million in government assisted grants.

Cortical’s program is lead by Prof Eric Morand who is both a highly respected thought leader in this field and a practicing Rheumatologist.  Dr Morand has published widely; including seminal MIF research and technical reviews: Morand et al., MIF: a new cytokine link between rheumatoid arthritis and atherosclerosis. Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 5, 399–411 (1 May 2006); see Appendix C. The technology originated at Monash University and Cortical was established to exploit its unique know-how around the inflammation target MIF.  Cortical is seeking partners with resources to fully support the MIF program, thereby maintaining its leadership position in the development of MIF-based therapies.

Cortical believes its assets are attractive for a number of reasons:

Cortical has recently overcome a major roadblock in MIF drug development, resulting in a robust cellular assay platform that has enabledCortical to advance their primary MIF inhibitor scaffold to lead optimisation.   Until recently, Cortical and other competitors in the field ranked compounds using various physical assays which were not considered a reliable predictor of in vivo activity.  Utilizing unique target know-how, Cortical has now successfully developed a robust cellular assay to enable drug development against this well validated biological target.

Cortical’s program provides the platform for MIF inhibitor development:

1.    Composition of Matter and Use claims over independent scaffolds
2.    Library of  >1000 compounds, SAR driven program
3.    Lead candidates in optimization phase
4.    Proprietary  assay methodology (TRADE SECRET) – unique in MIF space
5.    X-ray crystallography (TRADESECRET – Cortical compound-MIF co-crystals)
6.    Preclinical oral proof of concept established in several disease models
7.    Mechanistically driven clinical strategy

Impact of Technology on the Market:

Cortical’s program has targeted first-in-class oral cytokine inhibitor drugs with potential applications in inflammatory disease and cancer indications.
The inflammatory disease market is over $60 BN annually with strong recent growth expected to continue[1 – footnote) . Future growth in this sector may be driven by a new wave of targeted therapies based on orally available small molecules.
MIF is a unique cytokine-like molecule which has been validated as a therapeutic target in a wide range of inflammatory diseases (such as RA, asthma/COPD, lupus, MS, SLE colitis, atherosclerosis), metabolic diseases and cancers.

•  The inflammation market has an unmet need for oral targeted small-molecule approaches
•  Small-molecule MIF inhibition offer huge advantages to a developer:

A.  a biologically distinct target, in an uncrowded space
B.  opportunity in a wide breadth of inflammatory indications § blockbuster (e.g. RA) and niche indications (e.g. SLE)
C  oral administration – a competitive advantage compared with biologicals
D.  mechanism-based application to enable steroid sparing therapy
E.  additional roles of MIF in atherosclerosis, metabolic disease and cancer

•  Potential first-in-class line of therapeutics
§  There are no small-molecule targeted therapies currently approved in inflammation.
§  There are no known clinical-stage MIF antagonist programs worldwide.

Cortical’s Pipeline

Cortical is developing first-in-class small molecule cytokine antagonist compounds which directly target MIF.  Cortical’s novel small molecule MIF inhibitors have been discovered through a structure-based drug design approach, proprietary compound-target crystallography data, and proprietary screening assays.
Cortical molecules have good drug development characteristics such as novelty, ease of synthesis, stability, oral bioavailability, lack of off-target interactions and clean non-GLP toxicity profiles.
Cortical compounds have demonstrated preclinical proof of concept with once daily oral activity in in vivo models of rheumatoid arthritis, atheroma, endotoxic shock, delayed type hypersensitivity, and acute liver inflammation.

Pipeline

Cortical’s Intellectual Property and Trade Secret Summary

Cortical Pty Ltd has 4 active patent applications in various stages of approval, allfiled as Composition of Matter applications.  Three applications have been filed around a benzamidazole pharmacophore (Therapeutic molecules and methods 1, MIF inhibitors, and Therapeutic Small Molecules and Uses Thereof).  A fourth patent application has been filed around a bicyclic pharmacophore (Novel methods for treatment of inflammatory diseases).  This is presented in more detail in Appendix B.

In addition to patents, Cortical has developed and holds a number of trade secret data packs:

(1)  The cellular assay:
Following feedback from large pharmaceutical company partners, Cortical focused on reducing to practice a cellular assay amenable to high throughput screening, and has been successful. Other players in the field have not succeeded in solving this technical problem; literature biological assays do not reliably predict activity against the MIF target.  Physical assays such as tautomerase and biacore show binding of compounds to MIF but these have been shown to not be directly predictive of MIF in vivo activity inhibition.
Cortical has strategically elected not topatent or disclose this assay system to any parties so that this unique ability to successfully rank compounds based on in vitro cellular data remains a competitive advantage.

(2)  The crystal structures:
Cortical holds a number of high resolution proprietary compound-protein X-ray co-crystallography data-sets which demonstrate how Cortical compounds bind to MIF.  At 1.6 Å, these crystal structure data-sets further strengthen the SAR rationale.

Management

Nicole Fowler –CEO:

Nicole Fowler was appointed CEO of Cortical in October 2008.
Nicole has a BSc (Hons) from Monash University, an MBA from Melbourne Business School, with over 15 years experience in biotech. Previous roles include big pharma early discovery (SmithKline Beecham, USA), clinical trial management (Parexel, USA and ICTI, Europe) and the manufacture of generic sterile injectables and biologicals (Southern Dental Industries, Australia and Southern Cross Biotech, Australia). During the last 8 years Nicole has focused on working within young biotech companies managing the translation of academicwork into preclinical and clinical development, capital raising, and in-licensing/out-licensing of intellectual property.

Professor Eric Morand, MD, PhD – Scientific Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer

Eric is a Professor of Medicine at the Monash University Centre for Inflammatory Diseases at Monash MedicalCentre, Melbourne. Eric’s laboratory first identified the role of MIF in rheumatoid arthritis and SLE. He is an acknowledged expert in research on MIF research and glucocorticoid-regulated proteins, and is an author of over 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals in the area of inflammatory diseases. His academic research group has won grants from the NIH, National Health and Medical Research Council Australia, Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and Arthritis Foundation of Australia. He is also the Deputy Director, Rheumatology Unit, Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne, Australia and heads the Monash Lupus Clinic.

Board of Directors

·     Nigel Stokes, Chairman: Sydney, Australia
·     Brigitte Smith: Managing Partner, GBS Ventures – Melbourne, Australia
·     Prof Eric Morand: Founder – Melbourne Australia

The assets of Cortical will be sold in whole or in part (collectively, the ” Cortical Assets”). The sale of these assets is being conducted with the cooperation of Cortical. Cortical will be available to assist purchasers with due diligence and a prompt, efficient transition to new ownership. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Cortical should not be contacted directly without the prior consent of Gerbsman Partners.

The Bidding Process for Interested Buyers

Interested and qualified parties will be expected to sign a Confidential Disclosure Agreement (attached hereto as Appendix A) to have access to key members of management and intellectual capital teams and the due diligence “war room” documentation (“Due Diligence Access”). Each interested party, as a consequence of the Due Diligence Access granted to it, shall be deemed to acknowledge and represent (i) that it is bound by the bidding procedures described herein; (ii) that it has had an opportunity toinspect and examine the Cortical Assets and to review all pertinent documents and information with respect thereto; (iii) that it is not relying upon anywritten or oral statements, representations, or warranties of Gerbsman Partners, or their respective staff, agents, or attorneys; and (iv) all such documents and reports have been provided solely for the convenience of the interested party, and Gerbsman Partners (and their respective staff, agents, or attorneys) do not make any representations as to the accuracy or completeness of the same.

Following an initial round of due diligence, interested parties will be invited to participate with a sealed bid, for the acquisition of the Cortical Assets. Each sealed bid must be submitted so that it is received by Gerbsman Partners no later than Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 5:00pm Pacific Daylight Time (the “Bid Deadline”)  to Gerbsman Partners office at 211 Laruel Grove Avenue, Kentfield, CA 94904. Please also email steve@gerbsmanpartners.com <mailto:steve@gerbsmanpartners.com> with any bid.

Bids should identify those assets being tendered for in a specific and identifiable way.

Any person or other entity making a bid must be prepared to provide independent confirmation that they possess the financial resources to complete the purchase.  All bids must be accompanied by a refundable deposit in the amount of $100,000 (payable to Gerbsman Partners.).  The deposit should be wired to Gerbsman Partners Trust Account.  The winning bidder will be notified within 3 business days of the Bid Deadline. The deposit will be held in trust by Gerbsman Partners.  Unsuccessful bidders will have their deposit returned to them within 3 business days of notification that they are an unsuccessful bidder.

Cortical reserves the right to, in its sole discretion, accept or reject any bid, or withdraw any or all assets from sale.  Interested parties should understand that it is expected that the highest and best bid submitted will be chosen as the winning bidder andbidders may not have the opportunity to improve their bids after submission.

Cortical will require the successful bidder to close within a 7 day period. Any or all of the assets of Cortical will be sold on an “as is, where is” basis, with no representation or warranties whatsoever.

All sales, transfer, and recording taxes, stamp taxes, or similar taxes, if any, relating to the sale of the Cortical Assets shall be the sole responsibility of the successful bidder and shall be paid to Cortical at the closing of each transaction.

For additional information, please see below and/or contact:

Steven R. Gerbsman
Steve@gerbsmanpartners.com
Gerbsman Partners
(415) 456-0628

Kenneth Hardesty
Ken@gerbsmanpartners.com
Gerbsman Partners
(408) 591-7528

Philip Taub
Phil@gerbsmanpartners.com
Gerbsman Partners
(917) 650-5958

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Bidding Process – Procedures for the Sale of certain Assets, Intellectual Property and Trade Secrets of Cortical PTY Ltd.

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, Distressed Intellectual Property, Distressed IP, Gerbsman Partners, Inetellectual Property, Life Science, Venture Capital on December 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Bidding Process – Procedures for the Sale of certain Assets, Intellectual Property and Trade Secrets of Cortical PTY Ltd.

Further to Gerbsman Partners e-mail of December 4, 2011 regarding the sale of certain assets of Cortical PTY Ltd., I attach the draft legal documents that we will be requesting of bidders for certain Assets, Intellectual Property and Trade Secrets of Cortical.  All parties bidding on the assets are encouraged, to the greatest extent possible, to conform the terms of their bids to the terms and form of the attached agreement.  Any and all of the assets of Cortical PTY Ltd. will be sold on an “as is, where is” basis.  I would also encourage all interested parties to have their counsel speak with Ben Gust., counsel to Coritcal PTY Ltd..

For additional information please contact Ben Gust, of GBS Ventures, counsel to Cortical PTY Ltd.  He can be reached at 61 400 642 668 and his email is ben.gust@gbsventures.com.au

Following an initial round of due diligence, interested parties will be invited to participate with a sealed bid, for the acquisition of the Cortical Assets. Sealed bids must be submitted so that the bid is actually received by Gerbsman Partners no later than Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time (the “Bid Deadline”) at Gerbsman Partners office, located at 211 Laurel Grove Avenue, Kentfield, CA 94904.  Please also email – steve@gerbsmanpartners.com – with any bid.

Interested parties who wish to participate in the Bidding Process must also wire transfer a $ 200,000 refundable deposit to Gerbsman Partners Trust Account.  Information will be forthcoming.

For your convenience, I have restated the description of the Updated Bidding Process.

The key dates and terms include:

The Bidding Process for Interested Buyers

Interested and qualified parties will be expected to sign a Confidential Disclosure Agreement (attached hereto as Appendix A) to have access to key members of management and intellectual capital teams and the due diligence “war room” documentation (“Due Diligence Access”). Each interested party, as a consequence of the Due Diligence Access granted to it, shall be deemed to acknowledge and represent (i) that it is bound by the bidding procedures described herein; (ii) that it has had an opportunity to inspect and examine the Cortical Assets and to review all pertinent documents and information with respect thereto; (iii) that it is not relying upon any written or oral statements, representations, or warranties of Gerbsman Partners, or their respective staff, agents, or attorneys; and (iv) all such documents and reports have been provided solely for the convenience of the interested party, and Gerbsman Partners (and their respective staff, agents, or attorneys) do not make any representations as to the accuracy or completeness of the same.

Following an initial round of due diligence, interested parties will be invited to participate with a sealed bid, for the acquisition of the Cortical Assets. Each sealed bid must be submitted so that it is received by Gerbsman Partners no later than Wednesday, January 18, 2012 at 5:00pm Pacific Daylight Time (the “Bid Deadline”)  to Gerbsman Partners office at 211 Laruel Grove Avenue, Kentfield, CA 94904. Please also email steve@gerbsmanpartners.com with any bid.

Bids should identify those assets being tendered for in a specific and identifiable way.

Any person or other entity making a bid must be prepared to provide independent confirmation that they possess the financial resources to complete the purchase.  All bids must be accompanied by a refundable deposit in the amount of $200,000 (payable to Cortical Pty. Ltd.).  The deposit should be wired to Gerbsman Partners Trust Account.  The winning bidder will be notified within 3 business days of the Bid Deadline. The deposit will be held in trust by Gerbsman Partners.  Unsuccessful bidders will have their deposit returned to them within 3 business days of notification that they are an unsuccessful bidder.

Cortical reserves the right to, in its sole discretion, accept or reject any bid, or withdraw any or all assets from sale.  Interested parties should understand that it is expected that the highest and best bid submitted will be chosen as the winning bidder andbidders may not have the opportunity to improve their bids after submission.

Cortical will require the successful bidder to close within a 7 day period. Any or all of the assets of Cortical will be sold on an “as is, where is” basis, with no representation or warranties whatsoever.

All sales, transfer, and recording taxes, stamp taxes, or similar taxes, if any, relating to the sale of the Cortical Assets shall be the sole responsibility of the successful bidder and shall be paid to Cortical at the closing of each transaction.

For additional information, please see below and/or contact:

Steven R. Gerbsman
Steve@gerbsmanpartners.com
Gerbsman Partners
(415) 456-0628

Kenneth Hardesty
Ken@gerbsmanpartners.com
Gerbsman Partners
(408) 591-7528

Philip Taub
Phil@gerbsmanpartners.com
Gerbsman Partners
(917) 650-5958

Read Full Post »

Social gaming sector finds rising marketing cost

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, Economy, internet, Market research, Marketing, Social Networks, Strategy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from SFGate.

“Just a few weeks after “Mafia Wars 2” went live on Facebook, Din Shlomi got tired of playing the game.

A self-described hard-core gamer from northern Israel, he spent years playing the original “Mafia Wars,” building a virtual criminal empire and fighting online gang wars. But Shlomi says the sequel – launched to great fanfare – has too many bugs (some missions couldn’t be completed) and he ran out of challenges at a certain point.

“Like every Zynga game, it can be very addicting,” Shlomi says, “but once you hit level 50 there was nothing to do. It was literally like hitting a ceiling.”

Two years after Zynga’s “FarmVille” enticed millions of Facebook users to plant fields of digital crops, social gaming has mushroomed into a multibillion-dollar industry. The San Francisco startup is weeks away from an initial public offering in which it hopes to raise $1 billion.

While expectations for the social game market remain robust – it will generate $14.2 billion in revenue in 2015, up from $6.1 billion this year, estimates Lazard Capital Markets – the business is experiencing its first growing pains. Hundreds of developers now compete for the clicks of online gamers who are spending shorter periods of time immersed in each game.

To stand out, Zynga and others spend several million dollars developing titles and millions more marketing them, which increasingly puts a squeeze on profit margins. And hits are harder to come by.

“The economics just aren’t what they used to be,” says Josh Williams, president and chief science officer at Kontagent, a consultant on social games.

“The cost of customer acquisition is going up, and that means there is going to be pressure on margins,” says Atul Bagga, an analyst with Lazard.

Slipping profits

Although Zynga continues to enjoy high-speed growth – revenue was up 80 percent in the third quarter, to $306.8 million – profit fell 54 percent, to $12.5 million, from the same period a year earlier.

“Mafia Wars 2” had all the makings of a blockbuster. Its development team, which grew to 80 people, worked for nearly a year on the game, heralded in an October media launch at the company’s new Townsend Street headquarters. (The lobby contains a 1970s Winnebago and a tunnel lit with color-pulsing LED tubes.) The game peaked at more than 2.5 million daily active users in October. Since early November, the virtual organized crime adventure has shed more than 900,000 players, according to research firm AppData.

Sales of “Mafia Wars 2” have not met the company’s own expectations, according to people inside the company who were not authorized to speak on the record. Executives are second-guessing one another about what went wrong. Zynga declined to make Chief Executive Officer Mark Pincus or other senior executives available for comment, citing the company’s quiet period before the IPO.

“I think they are learning that the sequel doesn’t work,” says Michael Pachter, a research analyst at Wedbush Securities.

The number of daily active users in a game is a critical metric of its profitability, according to Pachter, because daily users are more likely to spend on virtual items such as machine guns and shields. “The more frequently they come back, the more likely they are to pay.”

Less than 10 percent of “Mafia Wars 2” players are playing every day, far below Zynga’s 20 percent average for most games, Pachter says. The drop-off may stem from players becoming bored with the same old thing.

“All the old ‘Mafia Wars’ guys who finished everything you could do came over here and said, ‘This is the same game with different missions.’ They are already tired of it, so they are dropping off,” Pachter says. “I think it’s a good case study for what can go wrong.”

Keeping the numbers up means more marketing, and the expenditures don’t always pay immediate dividends. A prime example is Redwood City game developer Electronic Arts, which has pushed to become Zynga’s closest rival. EA found its first major social gaming success with “Sims Social,” a Facebook version of the company’s popular real-world simulator.

Pushing for daily users

Since the title’s release in August, it has attracted 33 million users, with 19 percent of players returning each day. “Sims Social” has become the second most popular game on Facebook after “CityVille.” Yet EA has spent so much money aggressively marketing the game to millions of Facebook users that it is not yet profitable, according to a person close to the company.

Typically, software makers get about 40 percent to 70 percent of their players through ads, and spend between 25 cents to $1.50 for each of those users, according to Kontagent’s Williams. For a game like “Sims Social,” which has reached more than 10 million daily users, EA may have spent at least $10 million on marketing, he says.

Saturating the market with ads is crucial to attracting a wide audience, says Kontagent’s Williams. The strategy, however, squeezes margins and makes it harder to profit from the game over the long term.

“I would estimate that only about 30 percent of social games whose developers are spending money on advertising are hitting a positive return on investment,” says Hussein Fazal, CEO of AdParlor, a consultant on Facebook advertising campaigns.”

Read more here.

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As Investors Flee Groupon, Outlook for I.P.O.’s Darkens

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Economy, FaceBook, internet, Investments, IPO news, Market research, Social Networks, Strategy, Technology, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from NYTimes.

“Unable to break a three-day slide, shares of Groupon tumbled again on Wednesday, as more investors dumped shares.

For the first time since it went public earlier this month, Groupon broke below its offering price of $20 per share. Shares of Groupon fell 16 percent on Wednesday to close at $16.96.

The popular daily deals site had wrestled with intense scrutiny and volatile equity markets in the weeks leading up to its offering, but its debut was widely heralded as a strong performance. On its first day of trading, Groupon rose as much as 50 percent, before settling at $26.11 per share.

Wednesday’s drop is a disturbing signal for technology investors and other start-ups waiting to go public.

“Selling begets selling,” said Paul Bard, a director of research at Renaissance Capital, an I.P.O. advisory firm. “In the environment we’re in right now, investors are wary of risk, and so these less-seasoned companies will naturally face more selling pressure.”

Technology companies have largely outperformed other sectors in their debuts this year.  Shares of LinkedIn, for instance, doubled on their first day of trading, while Yandex, the Russian search engine, surged more than 55 percent on its debut.

But for many, the glitter has come off just as fast. Pandora, which went public in June, has dropped nearly a third from its offering price. Renren, often described as the Facebook of China, is about 74 percent below its offering price. Both Pandora and Renren tumbled again on Wednesday, with Pandora off roughly 11 percent and Renren down 6 percent.

According to data from Renaissance Capital, the technology sector has seen 41 I.P.O.’s this year, with an average first-day pop of 20.3 percent. Year-to-date, however, the group has lost about 13.1 percent in value.

The widespread pullback seems to suggest that investors, while eager to capitalize on first-day gains, do not have the confidence, or stomach, to hold on to the Web’s latest offerings. That apprehension is likely to be a major concern for high profile start-ups, like Zynga and Facebook, both of which are expected to go public in the coming months.

“When returns turn negative, that creates a problem for the I.P.O. market,” Mr. Bard said. “Because what’s the incentive to buy into the next I.P.O.? Bankers are now probably revisiting how many and which deals they will launch.”

Read more here.

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Despite a Rough Year, Hedge Funds Maintain Their Mystique

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, boic, Business models, Economy, Investments, Market research, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from NYTimes.

“Hedge funds, the golden children of finance, are having a very rough year.

For one, they are not making money the way they used to. Returns for a number of funds, including those of star managers like John A. Paulson, have fallen by as much as half this year. And that poor performance comes just as these investment partnerships are coming under increased regulatory scrutiny.

Yet the money keeps pouring in, even for Mr. Paulson.

This year alone, more than $70 billion in new money has gone to hedge funds, mostly from pensions and endowments. A recent study by the industry tracker Preqin found that 80 percent of investors were mulling new allocations to hedge funds, and 38 percent of investors were planning to add to existing ones.

One bad year for hedge funds can be written off. But most investors rarely enjoy a bounty of returns even over the long run. The average hedge fund investor earned about 6 percent annually from 1980 to 2008 — a hair above the 5.6 percent return they would have made just holding Treasury securities, according to a study published this year in The Journal of Financial Economics.

So why would large investors pay hedge funds billions of dollars in fees over the years for poor returns? The answer highlights the financial problems at the country’s largest pensions.

As waves of workers prepare to retire, pensions find themselves in a race against time. Short of what they need by an estimated $1 trillion, according to the Pew Center on the States, public pensions are seeking outsize returns for their investments to make up the gap. And with interest rates hovering near zero and stock markets gyrating, the pensions and others are increasingly convinced that hedge funds are the only avenue to pursue.

“Even with the short-term ups and downs, at the moment there is not a credible alternative with the same risk profile for pensions,” said Robert F. De Rito, head of financial risk management at APG Asset Management US, one of the largest hedge fund investors in the world.

 

 

 

 

Hedge funds, once on the investing fringes, have become a mainstay for big investors, amassing huge amounts of capital and accumulating more of the risk in the financial system. The impact of this latest gold rush into hedge funds is unclear. Some argue that the hedge fund industry’s exponential growth — it has quadrupled in size over the last 10 years — has depressed returns. Others, meanwhile, wonder whether the bonanza in one of the most lightly regulated corners of the investment universe will have broader, less clear implications.

“I worry that institutions are betting on an asset class that is not well understood,” said William N. Goetzmann, a professor of finance at the Yale School of Management. “We know that the real long-term source of performance is not picking someone good at beating the market, it’s taking risks on meat and potato assets like stocks and bonds.”

The growth has been fueled in part by more sophisticated marketing — most funds now have employees whose job is to manage relationships with investors and to seek out new ones, jobs that were uncommon a decade ago. And there is still a mystique: funds that have had at least one spectacular year have excelled at raising and keeping money.

Despite the appeal of a blowout year, however, performance tends to peter out after investors jump into a hot new fund. Yet even with the lackluster returns of late, many investors have resigned themselves to sticking with hedge funds. The financial crisis taught them that even more important than making money was not losing the money you had.

Reflecting that perspective, hedge funds have started to change how they sell themselves. For decades, funds have marketed themselves as “absolute return” vehicles, meaning that they make money no matter the market conditions. But as more and more money crowds into them, the terminology has started to change. Now, managers and marketers increasingly speak of “relative returns,” or performance that simply beats the market.

“In general, they’re probably not going to have the blowout returns of the ‘80s and ‘90s,” said Francis Frecentese, who oversees hedge fund investments for the private bank at Citigroup. “But hedge funds are still a good relative return for investors and worth having in the portfolio.”

Gauging by the inflows, pensions seem to agree.

This year, major pensions in New Jersey and Texas lifted the cap on hedge fund investing by billions of dollars. The head of New York City’s pension recently said its hedge fund investments could go as high as $4 billion, a roughly tenfold increase from current levels. Illinois added another $450 million to its portfolio last month, which already managed about $1.5 billion in hedge fund investments.

About 60 percent of hedge funds’ total $2 trillion in assets comes from institutions like pensions, a big shift from the early days when hedge funds were the province of ultra-wealthy individuals.

As the investor base has changed, hedge funds themselves have grown into more institutional businesses. The biggest firms have vast marketing, compliance and legal teams. They hire top-notch accounting firms to run audits, and their technology infrastructure rivals that of major banks.

They make money even off mediocre returns. A manager overseeing $10 billion, for instance, earns $200 million in management fees simply for promising to invest the assets. Investment returns of 15 percent, or $1.5 billion, would translate into another $300 million in earnings for the hedge fund.

By contrast, a mutual fund that invests in the shares of large companies charges less than half a percent in management fees, or less than $50 million.

Psychology plays a meaningful role in hedge fund investing. Investors often pile into the hottest funds, even well after their best years are behind them.

This year’s must-have manager is John A. Thaler — despite having closed his fund to new investors last year in the face of a flood of money. While little known outside Wall Street, Mr. Thaler and his stock-picking prowess have been the talk of the hedge fund world. A former star portfolio manager at Shumway Capital Partners, Mr. Thaler developed a reputation early on as an astute analyst of media and technology companies.

His hedge fund, JAT Capital, had done well since its founding in 2007, and this year, as returns climbed to 40 percent amid the market upheaval, investors clamored to gain entry.

Then, last month, two of his biggest holdings, Netflix and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, took a bath. His fund fell by nearly 15 percent in a few short weeks, a reminder that even high-flying managers can quickly fall back to earth.

But few hedge fund managers have risen and fallen so quickly and so publicly as Mr. Paulson, the billionaire founder of the industry giant Paulson & Company.

He made his name after earning billions of dollars in 2007 and 2008 with a prescient bet against the subprime mortgage market. Afterward, investors clamored to get money into the fund, and by the start of 2011 assets had swelled to $38 billion.

This year, Mr. Paulson has lost gobs of money on an incorrect call that the United States economy would recover. One of his major funds was down nearly 50 percent, while others fell more than 30 percent. Investors who poured money into Mr. Paulson’s hedge fund after his subprime bet have given back gains from 2009 and 2010, according to an investor analysis.

But last month, when investors had the opportunity to flee the fund that had suffered the worst losses, most instead chose to stick around. Some even put more money into Mr. Paulson’s funds, despite losing almost half of their holdings this year.”

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