Hedge-fund honcho Dan Loeb gets a lot of credit for his brilliant trade in Greek government bonds, which have been one of his $11.2 billion Third Point’s top winning positions since last September.
But the bragging rights more properly go to Hans Humes, founder of the much smaller Greylock Capital Management, which gained 33.49 percent last year, with about 35 percent of the gain from Greek bonds.
Humes — whose firm was the only investment fund on the steering committee for the Greek bond restructuring that was completed last spring — has held Greek bonds since the fall of 2011.
When the bonds traded as low as 12 cents on the dollar right before the Greek elections last June, Humes boldly proclaimed that buying Greek bonds was a “no-brainer” that would be the “trade of the year.”
“We took incredible flak for that,” said Greylock’s Charles Halsey, adding that financial blog Zero Hedge posted a note “basically saying we were idiots” and that he was bombarded with harassing e-mails as well.
But the last laugh goes to the $475 million midtown Manhattan firm, whose founder has been on every emerging debt restructuring committee since he founded Greylock in 1997.
Greek bonds have tripled since the bottom, and Greylock execs believe they have room to go. Apparently, Third Point agrees with them as Greek bonds were one of the top positions of Third Point in January, and one of its top five gainers as well. The firm gained 21.1 percent last year.
Humes said while many bigger hedge funds did not get in until late summer, he was there all along.
Even if Greece exited the euro, he said, the bonds would still be worth more than 20 cents on the dollar.