Of Imminent Defaults And Self Deception: Hedge Fund Manager Kyle Bass Prepares For The Worst

Flashback:

University of Texas Takes Delivery Of $1 Billion In Gold Bars After Cue From Hedge Fund Manager Kyle Bass, Storing It In New York Vault


Of Imminent Defaults And Self Deception. Kyle Bass Prepares For The Worst (ZeroHedge, Nov. 30, 2011):

In his latest letter to LPs, Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital Management, offers his tell-tale clarity on what may lie ahead for Europe and Japan. With his over-arching thesis of debt saturation becoming more plain to see around every corner, Bass bundles the simple (and somewhat unarguable) facts of quantitative analysis with a qualitative perspective on the cruel self-deception that we all see and read every day about Europe.

Whether it is Kahneman’s “availability heuristic” (wherein participants assess the probability of an event based on whether relevant examples are cognitively “available”), the Pavlovian pro-cyclicality of thought, or the extraordinary delusions of groupthink, investors in today’s sovereign debt markets can’t seem to envision the consequences of a default.

His Japanese scenario is no less convicted, as we have discussed a number of times, with the accelerant of this debt-bomb being the very-same European debacle and his time-frame for this is set to begin in the next few months.

Hayman_Nov2011

University of Texas Takes Delivery Of $1 Billion In Gold Bars After Cue From Hedge Fund Manager Kyle Bass, Storing It In New York Vault


Kyle Bass

Apr. 16 (Bloomberg) — The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing the bars in a New York vault, according to the fund’s board.

The fund, whose $19.9 billion in assets ranked it behind Harvard University’s endowment as of August, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, added about $500 million in gold investments to an existing stake last year, said Bruce Zimmerman, the endowment’s chief executive officer. The holdings are worth about $987 million, based on yesterday’s closing price of $1,486 an ounce for Comex futures.

The decision to turn the fund’s investment into gold bars was influenced by Kyle Bass, a Dallas hedge fund manager and member of the endowment’s board, Zimmerman said at its annual meeting on April 14. Bass made $500 million on the U.S. subprime-mortgage collapse.

“Central banks are printing more money than they ever have, so what’s the value of money in terms of purchases of goods and services,” Bass said yesterday in a telephone interview. “I look at gold as just another currency that they can’t print any more of.”

Read moreUniversity of Texas Takes Delivery Of $1 Billion In Gold Bars After Cue From Hedge Fund Manager Kyle Bass, Storing It In New York Vault

Hedge Funds Bet Europe’s $1 Trillion Bailout Won’t Solve Crisis, Forecast Jump in Inflation, Buy Gold

John Paulson, who made $15 billion betting on the subprime trade, is one manager who may not be replicating the CDS trade he used three years ago. Earlier this month, in a conference call with investors, he called Europe’s debt problems “manageable.”

A weaker euro will benefit French and German exporters, he told clients. Like Bass, he’s been forecasting a jump in inflation, which is why he’s been a buyer of gold and gold producers since at least last year.


j-kyle-bass
J. Kyle Bass smiles in the office of his company, Hayman Capital Partners, in Dallas. (Bloomberg)

May 19 (Bloomberg) — Kyle Bass, who made $500 million in 2007 on the U.S. subprime collapse, is betting Europe’s debt crisis won’t be solved by the $1 trillion loan package the International Monetary Fund and European Union agreed on last week.

“The EU and the IMF effectively went all-in with a bad hand in the highest stakes game of financial poker ever played with the world,” wrote Bass, head of Dallas-based Hayman Advisors LP, in a letter to clients sent after the bailout was announced.

Bass bought gold last week and took other steps to position the fund for hyperinflation and a “competitive devaluation” by Europe, Japan and the U.S. that he is forecasting, according to the letter. Christopher Kirkpatrick, general counsel for Hayman, declined to elaborate on the comments.

Read moreHedge Funds Bet Europe’s $1 Trillion Bailout Won’t Solve Crisis, Forecast Jump in Inflation, Buy Gold