REUTERS/Rick Wilking
Jamie Dinan, CEO of York Capital Management, speaks at the SALT conference in Las Vegas May 14, 2014. SALT is produced by SkyBridge Capital, a global investment firm.
- Jamie Dinan, the founder of $17.6 billion York Capital and a co-owner of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks, told attendees of Context Summits in Miami that Japan, a post-Brexit United Kingdom, and deleveraging European banks are all attractive areas in the market.
- Dinan said that you need to have a "rifle-shot" approach to invest in the US and be uncorrelated with the overall market.
- Within the US, he still thinks there are opportunities around mergers and in the credit markets for investors who look hard enough though.
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Jamie Dinan is going to put his investors' money to work.
While renowned investors like Seth Klarman and Warren Buffett load up on cash, York Capital's founder believes that if he can't find opportunities to invest, "I'm not looking hard enough."
"It's our problem, not the market's problem," he said during a talk at the Context Summits conference in Miami.
The billionaire co-owner of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks said the opportunities he is watching right now are in Japan, following corporate governance reform that has let activism grow in the country, a post-Brexit United Kingdom, and deleveraging European banks.
Those banks, he said, are being forced to sell off parts of their balance sheets at what he considers to be a discount.
"Buy things from people that don't want to sell you stuff," he said.
His $17.6 billion firm takes a "rifle-shot" approach to investing in the US though to produce uncorrelated returns as the stock market continues to surge. He finds opportunities around mergers and in the credit markets, he said, but US equities are challenging - not dissimilar, he said, to the run-up before the dot-com bubble crashed.
Right now, he said, if you short the S&P, you're "really shorting the winners."
"Your risk-adjust returns might be good, but the absolute return numbers aren't," he said.
And, he said, the investor ultimately focuses more on the absolute number.
"You're the chef, so you know what you put in the dish, all the ingredients, but the customer only knows what you're serving them."