[2008.1.28]
收錄了爆掉的 case, 也要收錄在distribution 右邊的幸運兒們的個案。John Paulson 的 Paulson & Co. 恐怕是2007 全世界金融市場心情&薪情最好的人了, 在投資銀行界高盛能躲過次貸風暴賺錢 11b, 執行長因而可以分紅 7000萬美金以上, 已經是相當可觀的金額; 但比之於 J.P. 這小子可就遜色了。Paulson 的避險基金獲利 12b 約大於高盛, 但年終是 4b USD, 可是布蘭克芬的 5.3x。充分顯示出替人工作與自己當老闆的差別, 還有避險基金績效獎金分紅的威力 ^^
**************************************
投資大師保森 連葛老都加入他公司
【聯合晚報╱編譯彭淮棟/綜合報導】 2008.01.16 03:15 pm
美國次級房貸危機令各地投資者損失慘重，但53歲的避險基金高手保森卻能夠在2006年洞燭機先，看淡美國房市，看壞次級房貸，集資十億美元成立基金押注次貸資產和證券大跌，結果在2007年爆發的次貸風雲和信用危機中大發利市，「保森公司」進帳120億美元，他個人入袋40億美元 (台幣1228億元)，創下華爾街投資人最高年入紀錄，就連前聯準會主席葛林斯班也加入他的公司，因此他堪稱是金融市場中的「新索羅斯」。
保森公司從一個中等評級業者變成今天全球最大的避險基金管理公司之一，而且乘勝追擊，15日宣布，葛林斯班加盟他的避險基金管理公司，葛老要以他的老練經歷，為公司的套利絕招加持，成為15日華爾街要聞。葛老加盟為顧問委員會一員，職責是就可能影響金融市場的問題，為保森的投資管理團隊提供建言。
保森聲明說：「預期經濟方向並評估美國經濟衰退的可能性和嚴重性，對建構投資策略有根本重要性。葛林斯班博士擔任美國聯邦準備理事會主席18年，經歷多次市場循環，使他有獨特眼光來協助我們的投資管理團隊做關鍵性的決定。」
保森公司2006年成立「保森第一信用機會」基金，大買「信用違約交換」 (CDS)。CDS是一種衍生性金融商品，債權人透過CDS，把債務風險賣給他人，有如為債務買保險，CDS契約價格就是「保費」，一旦債務償還出現問題，保費即快速上漲。美國次貸風暴和國際信用危機在2007年滾雪球，違約和止贖規模急遽擴大，全球危機成為「保森第一信用機會」的良機，其價值從1月到10月暴增550%，圈內人形容為金融市場史首見的漲幅。
保森是紐約大學商學院畢業，哈佛商學院MBA，2001年離開學術界轉入金融市場。他透露他2005年就擔心美國經濟活力會出問題。2006年美國房市榮景假象仍在，承做次貸的金融服務業者也維持優等債信評級，保森timing精準，致函投資人表示看壞房市和次貸證券，還遭受不少懷疑的眼光，但他獨排眾議，逆勢操作。他表示，專家們陷在次貸榮景的迷霧裡，見解不客觀。
不過，看空市場，還要有策略來獲利，他的策略就是CDS。Timing也是關鍵，他表示，如果2005年或之前就太早動手，他也會慘賠。
保森成為巴菲特以後華爾街人挑戰傳統智慧，自己走出一條大路的又一傳奇，連國際金融炒手索羅斯也邀他餐敘，向他討教押寶秘訣。
【2008/01/16 聯合晚報】@
http://udn.com/
A trader who made $3-4B on subprime in just 1 yr
http://online.wsj.com
On Wall Street, the losers in the collapse of the housing market are legion. The biggest winner looks to be John Paulson, a little-known hedge fund manager who smelled trouble two years ago.
Funds he runs were up $15 billion in 2007 on a spectacularly successful bet against the housing market. Mr. Paulson has reaped an estimated $3 billion to $4 billion for himself -- believed to be the largest one-year payday in Wall Street history.
Now, in another twist in financial history, Mr. Paulson is retaining as an adviser a man some blame for helping feed the housing-market bubble by keeping interest rates so low: former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. (See article.)
On the way to his big score, Mr. Paulson did battle with a Wall Street firm he accused of trying to manipulate the market. He faced skepticism from other big investors. At the same time, fearing imitators, he used software that blocked fund investors from forwarding his emails.
One thing he didn’t count on: A friend in whom he had confided tried the strategy on his own -- racking up huge gains himself, and straining their friendship. (See article.)
Like many legendary market killings, from Warren Buffett’s takeovers of small companies in the ’70s to Wilbur Ross’s steelmaker consolidation earlier this decade, Mr. Paulson’s sprang from defying conventional wisdom. In early 2006, the wisdom was that while loose lending standards might be of some concern, deep trouble in the housing and mortgage markets was unlikely. A lot of big Wall Street players were in this camp, as seen by the giant mortgage-market losses they’re disclosing.
"Most people told us house prices never go down on a national level, and that there had never been a default of an investment-grade-rated mortgage bond," Mr. Paulson says. "Mortgage experts were too caught up" in the housing boom.
In several interviews, Mr. Paulson made his first comments on how he made his historic coup. Merely holding a different opinion from the blundering herd wasn’t enough to produce huge profits. He also had to think up a technical way to bet against the housing and mortgage markets, given that, as he notes, "you can’t short houses."
Also key: Mr. Paulson didn’t turn bearish too early. Some close students of the housing market did just that, investing for a downturn years ago -- only to suffer such painful losses waiting for a collapse that they finally unwound their bearish bets. Mr. Paulson, whose investment specialty lay elsewhere, turned his attention to the housing market more recently, and got bearish at just about the right time.
Word of his success got around in the world of hedge funds -- investment partnerships for institutions and rich individuals. George Soros invited Mr. Paulson to lunch, asking for details of how he laid his bets, with instruments that didn’t exist a few years ago. Mr. Soros is famous for another big score, a 1992 bet against the British pound that earned $1 billion for his Quantum hedge fund. He declined to comment.
Mr. Paulson, who grew up in New York’s Queens borough, began his career working for another legendary investor, Leon Levy of Odyssey Partners. Now 51 years old, Mr. Paulson benefited from an earlier housing slump 15 years ago, buying a New York apartment and a large home in the Hamptons on Long Island, both in foreclosure sales.
After Odyssey, Mr. Paulson -- no relation to the Treasury secretary -- became a mergers-and-acquisitions investment banker at Bear Stearns Cos. Next he was a mergers arbitrager at Gruss & Co., often betting on bonds to fall in value.
In 1994 he started his own hedge fund, focusing on M&A. Starting with $2 million, he built it to $500 million by 2002 through a combination of its returns and new money from investors. After the post-tech-bubble economic slump, he bought up debt of struggling companies, and profited as the economy recovered. His funds, run out of Manhattan offices decorated with Alexander Calder sculptures, did well but not spectacularly.
Auto Suppliers
By 2005, Mr. Paulson, known as J.P., worried that U.S. economic strength would flag. He began selling short the bonds of companies such as auto suppliers, that is, betting on them to fall in value. Instead, they kept rising, even bonds of companies in bankruptcy proceedings.
[John Paulson]
"This is crazy," Mr. Paulson recalls telling an analyst at his firm. He urged his traders to find a way to protect his investments and profit if problems developed in the overall economy. The question he posed to them: "Where is the bubble we can short?"
They found it in housing. Upbeat mortgage specialists kept repeating that home prices never fall on a national basis or that the Fed could save the market by slashing interest rates.
One Wall Street specialty during the boom was repackaging mortgage securities into instruments called collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs, then selling slices of these with varying levels of risk.
For buyers of the slices who wanted to insure against the debt going bad, Wall Street offered another instrument, called credit-default swaps.
Naturally, the riskier the debt that such a swap "insured," the more the swap would cost. And this price would go up if default risk appeared to be increasing. This meant an investor of a bearish bent could buy the swaps as a way to bet on bad news happening.
During the boom, however, many were so blind to housing risk that this "default insurance" was priced very cheaply. Analyzing reams of data late at night in his office, Mr. Paulson became convinced investors were far underestimating the risk in the mortgage market. In betting on it to crumble, "I’ve never been involved in a trade that had such unlimited upside with a very limited downside," he says.
Paulo Pelligrini, a portfolio manager at Paulson & Co., began to implement complex debt trades that would pay off if mortgages lost value. One trade was to short risky CDO slices.
Another was to buy the credit-default swaps that complacent investors seemed to be pricing too low.
"We’ve got to take as much advantage of this as we can," Mr. Paulson recalls telling a colleague around the middle of 2005, when optimism about the housing market was at its peak.
His bets at first were losers. But lenders were getting less and less rigorous about making sure borrowers could pay their mortgages. Mr. Paulson’s research told him home prices were flattening. Suspecting that rating agencies were too generous in assessing complex securities built out of mortgages, he had his team begin tracking tens of thousands of mortgages. They concluded it was getting harder for lenders to collect.
His confidence rose in January 2006. Ameriquest Mortgage Co., then the largest maker of "subprime" loans to buyers with spotty credit, settled a probe of improper lending practices by agreeing to a $325 million payment. The deal convinced Mr. Paulson that aggressive lending was widespread.
He decided to launch a hedge fund solely to bet against risky mortgages. Skeptical investors told him that others with more experience in the field remained upbeat and that he was straying from his area of expertise. Mr. Paulson raised about $150 million for the new fund, largely from European investors. It opened in mid-2006 with Mr. Pelligrini as co-manager.
