Since launching his flagship fund, Third Point, in 1996, activist investor Daniel Loeb has regularly chalked up stellar average annual returns of about 20%. The pandemic looked as if it would put an end to that winning streak – Loeb candidly admits he was “caught flat-footed by the virus”, says CNBC. But he has spent the past quarter rejigging his portfolio and, assuming the current tech-led wobble doesn’t turn into a full-blown rout, may well end the year sitting pretty.
Loeb appears to have set aside his interventionist instincts in favour of a full-blown push into ecommerce and streaming. “He took advantage of jitters around China’s relationship with Hong Kong and the US” to balance an existing large investment in Amazon with a $600m-plus punt on Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com. But the deal that seems to please him most is a $613m investment in Disney made on the back of the media giant’s move into content streaming, which he says is Disney’s “biggest market opportunity ever”.
Putting the fear of God into blue-chips
Loeb is the kind of man who “doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer well”, says Dealbreaker. Perhaps these new moves will soothe the battering his ego has taken from the failure of a high-profile battle with Sony, which has once again rejected his demands “to blow itself up into a bunch of little Sonys”.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Over the course of a loquacious career, says the Financial Times, the “sharp-tongued activist” has taken swipes at everyone from Warren Buffett (for the disconnect between what he practises and preaches regarding hedge funds) to his former Columbia university classmate, Barack Obama (for the former president’s “smack downs on hard-working successful Americans known as the 2%”). He has feuded with his former mentor, fellow activist Bill Ackman, sued Sotheby’s, helped oust the boss of Yahoo and put the fear of God into the boards of targeted blue-chips from Dow Chemical and Sony to Nestlé.
Born in Santa Monica in 1961 to a high-powered lawyer and historian, Loeb always had an entrepreneurial streak. At high school he started a skateboard company called “B Industries”. It ran in the family, says Business Insider: his great aunt and uncle founded the toy giant Mattel, thereby earning the distinction of creating the Barbie doll. After reading economics at Columbia, Loeb spent the mid-1980s to mid-1990s cycling through jobs in finance, says the FT: first at Warburg Pincus, and later at Jefferies and Citigroup. In a brief departure from the script, he worked at the record label Island Records before taking the plunge to launch his own fund. Known for his ferocious energy, he once challenged a group of former navy Seals to a triathlon.
Nicely hedged for the next crisis
“In the pantheon of the masters of the universe,” Loeb remains “one of the more colourful.” But he does appear to have toned down his fieriness in favour of a more conciliatory approach. That worked at Nestlé and may well stand him in good stead in his somewhat surprising latest big foray – into the reinsurance sector. Last month, Loeb’s Third Point Re combined with Sweden’s Sirius in a $3.3bn deal. The timing couldn’t be better, says the FT. “A confluence of global miseries is creating a sort of giddy prosperity and hope for the future of the reinsurance world.” Due to the pandemic, “big ticket buyers have no alternative to purchasing expensive cover”. When the next crisis strikes, at least Loeb will be nicely hedged.
-
Why Chinese stocks are so far out of favourThere’s little appetite for Chinese stocks despite low valuations.
-
The 62 UK areas where you could be priced out of using your Lifetime ISASaving for your first home in Croydon, Ealing, Brent or any one of these other locations? You could be at risk of being priced out of using your Lifetime ISA
-
Deepseek's Liang Wenfeng: the maths whizz who shook Big TechFew people had heard of Liang Wenfeng until the launch of his DeepSeek AI chatbot wiped a trillion dollars off US technology stocks. His pivot to AI was of a piece with his past exploits.
-
Donald Trump's tariffs spark a global game of thronesWe don’t know what Donald Trump intends or will do next. That is in itself damaging.
-
RedNote: the rise of the new TikTokRedNote, a Chinese rival to social-media app TikTok, has seen millions of US users flock to it in the wake of the US TikTok ban. That caught the company by surprise. What is RedNote and can its popularity last?
-
Australian tycoon Andrew Forrest battles it out with oil giant ExxonMobilIron ore billionaire Andrew Forrest made billions before committing himself to philanthropy. Now he is preparing for a showdown with ExxonMobil.
-
Remembering Sir David McMurtry: Renishaw founder and Concorde engineerSir David McMurtry, co-founder of Renishaw, made a unique contribution to Britain. We look back at his legacy
-
Low Tuck Kwong: the Indonesian mining billionaire who is benefitting from coal boomLow Tuck Kwong’s coal business was in deep trouble a decade ago with no future. Now, he is riding the waves of a global coal boom
-
David Montgomery's potential new ally as he seeks to buy The TelegraphVeteran media mogul David Montgomery has seen off a bid for his media group National World. But he now has his eye on The Telegraph
-
Elon Musk to Taylor Swift - the four key figures who moved markets in 2024We look at the four most influential people in 2024 who moved markets – from Elon Musk reshaping US politics to Rachel Reeves struggling as Britain's chancellor
