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Tuesday, July 9, 2013

The Allen-Stevenson School Exceeds Annual Fund Goal

The Allen-Stevenson School is an all-boys elementary school in New York City. Believing in a vigorous curriculum the school employs a mix of academics, athletics and the arts to wholly educate a student and prepare him for the future. The school offers eight sports, seven physical education teachers and boasts 250 student athletes. Dance is also offered, and with 14 instructors, there are over 220 instrumental students.

The school is kindergarten through 9th grade and was founded in 1883 as The Allen School by Francis Bellows Allen. With a staff of 142 and 414 students in 2012-2013, the school prides itself on being very conscious of technology, possessing approximately .8 computers for every student in every classroom.

The school relies on donations to help cover 10% of its operating budget. Dan Zwirn and Monica Keany have contributed to this cause, and in the period of 7/1/2012-6/30/2013, the school raised over 2.5 million to its Annual Fund, exceeding its goal by over $60,000.

Monday, June 10, 2013

Dan Zwirn Participates on Panel at Bloomberg Hedge Funds Summit

The Bloomberg Hedge Funds Summit opened last week in New York City with a panel discussion titled "Hedge Funds Hit the Mainstream." The panel featured Dan Zwirn, a managing member of Arena Investors, Tim Garry, chief risk officer at Passport Capital, Averell Mortimer, founder and chief executive officer of Arden Asset Management, Girish Reddy, founder of Prisma Capital Partners, and Charles Stucke, chief investment officer at Guggenheim Investment Advisors. Interviewed by Pimm Fox of Bloomberg Radio and Questioner in Chief Jason Kelly of Bloomberg Link, the panel discussed the outlook of the hedge fund industry. The video of the discussion is below.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Ben Bernanke Says the Stimulus Will Continue

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before congress on Wednesday that the stimulus program needed to continue, saying that ending it too early would endanger the economic recovery.

"A premature tightening of monetary policy could lead interest rates to rise temporarily but would also carry a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery and causing inflation to fall further.”

Bernanke credited monetary policy for keeping inflation falling further below the Federal Reserve's 2% longer-run objective.

The central bank is buying $45 billion in Treasury bonds and $40 billion in mortgage-backed debt monthly to keep borrowing costs low and to encourage investment, hiring and economic growth.

Bernanke in some ways blamed lawmakers for dragging growth telling them "fiscal policy at the federal level has become significantly more restrictive.

“In particular, the expiration of the payroll tax cut, the enactment of tax increases, the effects of the budget caps on discretionary spending, the onset of sequestration, and the declines in defense spending for overseas military operations are expected, collectively, to exert a substantial drag on the economy this year.”

Bernanke's quantitative easing program of $85 billion a month will not be cut short in the near future. He denied that the stimulus was causing a new bubble (2008). He leveled the most concern towards long-term unemployment. In April, there were 4.4 million long-term unemployed individuals. Long-term unemployment refers to those jobless for more than 27 weeks. "We are seeing evidence that employers are reluctant to look at people if they have been out of work for a long time." Bernanke did add, however, that he did not think that was an "irreversible problem."

Thursday, May 2, 2013

North Mill Equipment Finance Closes $50 Million Loan Facility With Wells Fargo

North Mill Equipment Finance announced on Wednesday that they had closed a $50 million loan facility with Wells Fargo Capital Finance.

The facility will allow North Mill to expand its business throughout the US. North Mill originates small-ticket equipment leases and loans through vendors, dealers and brokers. North Mill was born out of Colford Capital's acquisition of Equilease Financial Services in November of last year.

The Senior VP of Wells Fargo Capital Finance, Stewart Hayes said in a press release, "We are pleased to have completed such important financing for North Mill Equipment Finance. The new loan facility for North Mill will support the senior capital they need to fund loans and leases to their customer base. We are proud to have been able to work with a leading independent specialty finance company like North Mill and look forward to supporting their plans for successful business growth."

President of North Mill, Gary Silverhardt, views the loan facility as a chance to originate and fund a number of leases in the target markets of transportation, materials handling and construction.

As a third party servicer, North Mill has the capacity to handle thousands of accounts for multiple parties. In the last 11 years, they have purchased over 30 lease and loan portfolios, totally over $1 billion in asset value.

Dan Zwirn, is a Co-owner of ALDA Capital, which owns a minority stake in Colford.

Click here for the full press release.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Dan Zwirn Quoted in Recent Opalesque Article

Bailey McCann, of Opalesque New York recently published an article titled "Regulators look more closely at non-bank lending as hedge funds, investors see opportunity." In her piece, McCann addresses shadow banking being a concern for regulators. Despite that, more and more businesses and hedge funds are flocking to that space, as liquidity in traditional areas is hard to come by.

Arena Investors, Dan Zwirn's new private investment firm, is still in its brainstorming stage, writes McCann. With new COO and Head of Business Development, Marcel Herbst, Arena is looking at a "variety of options" in this space. Zwrin told McCann in an interview, "As more people move into what is typically referred to as 'shadow banking', the boom and bust cycles are only going to get more extreme. It's going to look more like when everyone made the initial jump into ABL funds. Conventional hedge funds often don't want to take on long duration. Duration often gets mistakenly conflated with illiquidity."

Zwirn went on to say that an opportunity for returns exists but investors who are seeking returns in specialty finance need an expert, rather than going in quickly, as there are blow up risks involved in shadow banking. He added, "Few people have the experience to understand all the different forms of non-bank specialty finance businesses."

Friday, March 22, 2013

Arena Investors, LLC Hires Marcel Herbst

Arena Investors, LLC (Arena) has hired Marcel Herbst as Partner & Head of Business Development.

Arena is a private investment firm seeking to maximize risk-adjusted returns across a variety of fundamentals-based, asset-oriented investment areas. Managing Member Dan Zwirn has started the process of shaping the firm as he rebuilds an investment business that managed $6 billion in equity capital and $12 billion of assets from 2001-2009. The firm employed 275 people across 15 offices globally.

Herbst had previously been an executive at Swiss-based Harcourt Group, where he was COO & Head of Business Development for US business. In addition, he was Managing Director of Harcourt's joint venture with Weston Capital Management.

Read the full release.


Thursday, March 7, 2013

Dan Zwirn to Speak at Second Annual Stern Hedge Fund Association Conference

Dan Zwirn will be speaking at the Second Annual Stern Hedge Fund Association Conference tomorrow, March 8th 2013. The conference, titled, "Generating Alpha in a Low Growth Environment," will take place from 9:30 am until 6:00 pm.

The Stern Hedge Fund Association (SHFA) exists within New York University's Stern School of Business. Dan Zwirn was added as a member of the SHFA Board of Directors in November, and he will be a speaker at tomorrow's conference. Zwirn's speech is titled "The Global Chaser of Illiquidity; Harnessing Opportunities in 2013 and Beyond."

The conference features some of the most prominent and influential investors and academics in the hedge fund industry. With two panel discussions and several keynote addresses, equity and credit best ideas, hedge fund trends and other topics will be covered.

In addition to Zwirn, prominent speakers include:

Marc Lasry, Co-Founder & CEO, Avenue Capital

Whitney Tilson - Managing Partner, T2 Partners; Co-Founder, Value Investing Congress

Daniel Posner - CIO, Golub Capital

Ezra Zask – Founder and President, SFC Associates

Robert Picard – Senior Advisor to InfraHedge

Javier Di Fiori – Investment Manager, Eton Park Capital Management

Edward Altman – World Renowned Bankruptcy Expert and NYU Stern Professor

Jim Liew - NYU Stern and Johns Hopkins Professor

S. Basu Mullick - Principal and Portfolio Manager, Integre Advisors

Paul Zummo - CIO, JPM Asset Management


Location:
Gardner Commons KMC 1-100
44 West 4th Street, Suite 6-130
New York, NY 10012

More Details



Dan Zwirn | SHFA Conference Agenda
The SHFA Conference Agenda