Greenlight Capital

Greenlight Capital is a US$ 6 billion hedge fund, specialising in spin-offs [SeekingAlpha 27 January 2009]. In late 2008, its founder, David Einhorn, bought gold stocks positions, deciding that “gold will do good either way; deflation will lead to further steps to debase the currency, while inflation speaks for itself“ [SeekingAlpha, 30 January 2009]...“

Among its gold acquisitions in the last quarter of 2008 was some equity in Canada’s Kinross Gold [Market Folly, 3 December 2008].

However, in the last quarter of 2010, Einhorn sold his holdings in African Barrick (the London-listed subsidiary of the world's biggest gold mining company), declaring he was "not optimistic of the compay's operations..the spin-off [London IPO] ran into severe operating problems" [Greenlight Capital 2010 Q4 newsletter].

Einhorn describes Greenlight as "long-short value-oriented hedge fund"; he is one of the more colourful "activist" hedge fund managers in the US.

In early 2008 he "wowed" Wall Street with his book Fooling Some of the People All of the Time which attacked the allegedly fraudluent practices of a finance company called Allied Capital. He bet against ("shorted") his stock in Allied, and also in Lehmann Brothers bank - both of which were soon to collapse.

In keeping with his passion for betting, Einhorn is also a noted international poker player and contributor to US charities. He donated half the profits from his book to charity and "The Project On Government Oversight (POGO)" and the "Center for Public Integrity (CPI)".