An ex-minor baseball player is spinning off a new hedge fund from Leon Cooperman

Welcome to Wall Street Insider, where we take you behind the scenes of the finance team's biggest scoops and deep dives from the past week.

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It was a busy week for hedge fund news, with the finance team landing scoops on an upcoming launch, a fund that's giving outside investors their money back, and one that's winding down entirely.

A new hedge fund run by a one-time minor league baseball player is set to spin off from billionaire Leon Cooperman's Omega Advisors, Bradley Saacks reported. New launches have been few and far between during the global coronavirus pandemic, though, as meetings with potential investors turned into video calls and business travel was cancelled.

Bradley and Alex Morrell learned that billionaire Philippe Laffont's Coatue Management is returning all outside capital in its $350 million quant fund. The fund, started roughly a year ago, had pulled back its exposure from the markets significantly in March and April. Coatue will continue trading the strategy with internal money, though, and hopes to eventually reopen it to outside investors.

And Bradley, Dan DeFrancesco, and Meghan Morris reported that a $2.5 billion Tiger Cub emailed vendors on Tuesday evening to give notice that it has started winding down business operations and liquidating portfolios.

Read the full story here:

Valinor Management is closing — it's the first multi-billion-dollar hedge fund to wind down since the pandemic started

Keep reading to see the advice that value investors are giving each other after getting steamrolled by rising markets; a deep dive into the sports empire of Apollo Global Management cofounder Josh Harris; and a look at why live commerce could soon explode in the US.

Have a great weekend,

Meredith

Advice for value-investing enthusiasts

Value investors, who seemed poised to take control during the initial market crash from the pandemic, have since been steamrolled by rising markets. For value-seekers, it's been emblematic of a decade of futility.

Rebecca Ungarino and Bradley Saacks attended a two-day virtual conference hosted by the New York chapter of the CFA Institute (the event is named after Ben Graham, the father of value investing.) Speakers flagged their picks in the quickly changing markets, and implored listeners to stick with the philosophy.

Read the full story here:

'This is so hard!': Inside a 2-day virtual conference for value investors struggling to make sense of markets

Influencers and home shopping

Live-streamed commerce has taken off in China on platforms like Alibaba's Taobao Live and Douyin, China's version of TikTok. Influencers are driving sales of everything from cosmetics to tech products — think home shopping TV networks, but with check-outs embedded in the platforms and payment details stored there.

"It's entertainment plus shopping," Connie Chan, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, told Shannen Balogh. And it could soon arrive in the US.

Read the full story here:

Social media influencers are driving billions in sales in China with live-streamed commerce. An a16z partner explains why the US could be next.

Apollo cofounder Josh Harris' sports empire

The billionaire Josh Harris, who has cofounded a sports-investing business as well as one of the biggest alternative-investing firms, has been taking a look at buying the New York Mets.

Meghan Morris and Casey Sullivan talked to insiders to learn more about how Harris has been applying an aggressive style honed at Apollo Global Management to the sports world.

Read the full story here:

Billionaire investor Josh Harris is vying to add the New York Mets to his sports empire. Tycoons, colleagues, and an NBA star reveal his playbook.

WeWork competitor Knotel is stretched thin

As Meghan Morris reports, Knotel's finances were in a tough position well before the pandemic hit, and now, the flexible-office company is stretched even thinner. Until recently, New York-based Knotel was one of the fastest-growing brands in the booming coworking and flex-space field, emerging as a chief competitor to WeWork.

Read the full story here:

Leaked Knotel financials reveal that the WeWork rival had huge pre-pandemic losses and now has more unpaid bills than cash. It's a grim sign for the flex-office space.

Inside Airbnb-backed Zeus Living

Zeus Living, an Airbnb-backed startup that focuses on corporate housing, laid off almost two-thirds of its staff in three months and saw its valuation plunge.

As Alex Nicoll reports, the startup is now planning to shift its business model after clients cancelled millions in contracts and occupancy dropped.

Read the full story here:

After 2 layoff rounds and chaotic landlord negotiations, Airbnb-backed Zeus Living wants to shift its business model. Here's how the corporate-housing startup is plotting a way forward.

On the move

Wells Fargo has tapped Barry Sommers, the former CEO of wealth management at JPMorgan, as its new wealth and investment management chief. The post had been vacant since February. Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf, who had a nine-year stint JPMorgan and had been viewed as Jamie Dimon's protégé, brought in Sommers as the latest in a string of JPMorgan alums he's hired since joining Wells last year.

Deals

• Credit Sesame just bought Canadian digital bank Stack as fintech M&A picks up. Its CEO lays out the startup's banking ambitions.

Hedge funds and investing

• Billionaire-run hedge fund Schonfeld fired an executive assistant who added 'Black Lives Matter' to her email signature, saying she didn't get it approved properly first
• How a huge investment in analytics is helping billionaire sports mogul Josh Harris find a competitive edge

Fintech

• An IPO for mortgage giant Quicken Loans could make or break fintech valuations. 5 VC investors lay which startups may get the biggest boost.
• IBM's new head of cloud says there's a $1 trillion opportunity in luring Wall Street firms and other holdouts onto the public cloud. Here's his plan to take on AWS, Google, and Microsoft.
• Inside Ellevest: How a female-focused wealth firm founded by one of the most powerful women on Wall Street with $80 million in funding faces an uphill battle standing out in the crowded world of wealth

Law

• 4 partners at elite litigation firm Boies Schiller Flexner are jumping ship to join King & Spalding
• We talked to 6 legal recruiters about the top hiring trends at major law firms if you're thinking of making a move in the middle of the recession

Real estate

• WeWork is bringing corporate staff back to New York offices in 3 waves as the city enters the next stage of reopening. Here are the details the coworking giant just gave workers.
• Home-financing startup EasyKnock is seeing surging demand. Its CEO reveals how it's adapting with a new marketplace for investors looking to put their money in residential property.