New York Times – The Highbridge Capital Management hedge fund will announce today that it has taken a major equity stake in the energy business of the Louis Dreyfus Group, the old-line commodities trading firm, in a deal worth about $1 billion.
Highbridge Capital, a $17 billion hedge fund headquartered in New York that is majority owned by JPMorgan Chase, said it invested in Louis Dreyfus to gain more access to energy delivery and trading markets on its own.
The venture with Louis Dreyfus reflects a trend among larger hedge funds to try to diversify their investment offerings in an attempt to gather more capital.
“We saw this as a real opportunity that is uncorrelated to everything else we’re doing,†said Glenn Dubin, managing partner of Highbridge. He explained that he had considered trying to get Highbridge into the energy trading business more heavily on its own, but concluded, “there was no way we could do this by ourselves.â€Â
