https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyle_Bass
2025-01-30-wikipedia-org-kyle-bass.pdf
Born : Miami, Florida
Nationality : American
Alma mater : Texas Christian University (B.B.A.)
J. Kyle Bass is an American investor and founder of Conservation Equity Management, a Texas-based private equity firm focused on environmental sustainability. He is also the founder and principal of Hayman Capital Management, L.P., a Dallas-based hedge fund focused on global events.[1]
In 2008, Bass successfully predicted and effectively bet against the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis by purchasing credit default swaps on subprime securities, which, in turn, increased in value when the real estate bubble burst.[2]
As a manager of the Coalition for Affordable Drugs (CFAD), Bass challenged the validity of 28 pharmaceutical corporations' patents via inter partes review, claiming that he wanted to invalidate weak patents imposing costs on consumers, thus making drugs covered by those patents more affordable.[3][4] The drug companies targeted by Bass allege that the sole purpose of the validity challenges was to allow Bass to short the market, thereby profiting from the change in companies' stock prices.[5] However, at least one event study indicates that if Bass had in fact pursued such a strategy, he could not have profited, because his "petitions for inter partes review ... did not consistently produce statistically significant negative returns in the patent holders' share prices."[6] The drug patent challenge campaign fizzled after several legal setbacks.[7]
Bass was the recipient of the 2019 Foreign Policy Association Medal for his responsible internationalism.[8] Bass is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a founding member of the Committee on the Present Danger (China).[9][10]
He is on the advisory board of the China Center at the Hudson Institute, executive advisory board of the George W. Bush Presidential Center, and the investment advisory board member to NewEdge Wealth.[11][12][13]
Bass is also a boardmember of the Texas Department of Public Safety Foundation, the Texas Wildlife Association Foundation (TWAF), and The Quad Fund.[14][15][16]
On June 14, 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported that Bass is facing regulatory scrutiny from SEC investigators for potential market manipulation—an issue that appears to stem from a controversial trade, executed in late-2015, in which Bass' fund built a short position against the stock price of a publicly traded REIT, United Development Funding (UDF), then accused the REIT of being a Ponzi scheme.[17] The REIT executives were convicted and sentenced to a combined 20 years in federal prison.[18]
Bass was born in Hollywood, Florida,[19] and graduated from Lamar High School in Arlington, Texas.[20][21] His father, Charles Bass, was a tourism executive whose career managing the Fontainebleau Miami Beach Hotel and the Dallas Convention and Visitors Bureau.[22][23][24][25] Bass attended Texas Christian University on an academic and Division I diving scholarship, and was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity at the university from 1989 to 1991.[26][27][28][29][25] He graduated with honors in 1992, earning a B.B.A. in finance with a concentration in real estate.[30]
Bass worked as a stockbroker in the Dallas office of Bear Stearns in the 1990s. He identified stocks that appeared to be overvalued or fraudulent from East German shipyards to Texas mortgage lenders. Once he had enough to launch his fund, he started making bets against subprime mortgage.[31]
Before founding Hayman Capital Management in 2005, Bass briefly worked at Prudential Securities from 1992 to 1994 before joining Bear Stearns in 1994.[32] At Bear Stearns, he rose through the ranks rapidly, becoming a senior managing director at the age of 28 – among the youngest in the firm's history to carry such a title.[2][30]
In 2001, he joined Legg Mason, signing a five-year deal to form the firm's first institutional equity office in Texas. There, he advised hedge funds and other institutional clients on special situation investment strategies.[2]
In December 2005, when Legg Mason sold the portion of the business where he worked, Bass left Legg Mason and started Hayman Capital Management to serve as the investment manager to a "global special situations" hedge fund that he planned to launch. Bass launched Hayman Capital Management, L.P., with $33 million in assets under management – $5 million he had saved on his own and the balance he had raised from outside investors.[32]
In 2007, Bass testified as an expert witness before the U.S. House Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises.[33] During his testimony, he addressed: i) the role of credit rating agencies in the structured finance market and ii) policy measures that could be taken to minimize inherent conflicts of interest between rating agencies and issuers.[34]
In 2010, Bass testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. During his testimony, he addressed his analysis of the factors that caused the crisis.[citation needed]
From August 2010 to May 2019, Bass was a member of the Board of Directors of the University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Company (UTIMCO), an endowment fund for Texas public universities.[35][36]
The flagship fund had a successful year in 2007 and gained 212% based on the subprime mortgage meltdown bet that brought fame to Bass. The fund also gained 16% in 2012 based on Greek debt bets. The long-term performance of Hayman Captal's flagship fund is described by the New York Post as "small caliber." From 2008 to mid-2015, the flagship fund experienced a modest annualized performance of 1.56%. Apart from predicting the housing bust in 2007, Kyle called Greece's economic woes and the devaluation of the Japanese yen a few years later.[37] He later profited from the call that the Japanese yen would fall with a projected round of monetary stimulus by the Bank of Japan.[38]
Bass' first Asia-focused fund was the Japan Macro Opportunities Fund. This fund returned capital to investors after the Japanese yen depreciated 40% from 2012 to 2015. In 2016, he had a knockout with Hayman Capital's Master Fund finishing the year with an estimated net performance of 24.83%. Since Hayman's inception in 2006, the fund has returned 436.75% and an annualized return of 16.7%.[39] Between 2006 and the start of 2017, Hayman delivered an annual return of 16.5% over 11 years. By contrast, the stock market returned 9.4% a year during the same period.[40]
According to investors, his hedge fund has averaged after-fee returns of 25 per cent a year since 2006.[41] He earned a return of more than 500 percent shorting the subprime mortgage market in 2007 and profited from a wager against Greek bonds.[42] Bass has also predicted Greece's economic woes and the devaluation of the Japanese yen.[43]
Bass called 2015 one of his fund's worst years.[44] By early 2019, Hayman had $423.6 million in discretionary assets under management, down from $2.3 billion at the end of 2014.[45]
Subprime mortgages[edit]
Bass first began formulating his subprime strategy after he met with an investment banker from New York while attending a wedding in Spain. They discussed how and why the Subprime Mezzanine CDO business existed.[46][47] After returning to the US, Bass hired several private investigators to determine the ease of obtaining a mortgage. Bass spent a significant amount of time studying the residential mortgage market and performed research to identify which residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) composed of low-quality mortgages were most likely to default. This investment thesis was expressed by purchasing credit default swaps against the securitizations he deemed to be most unstable, which essentially was a manner of shorting the bonds using synthetic instruments. After purchasing the positions for his flagship fund in 2006, Bass raised additional capital for a special fund dedicated exclusively to capitalizing on the opportunity that existed in the market place. Bass managed or advised over $4 billion of positions in subprime RMBS.
In December 2007, after a wave of foreclosures had swept across the US, Bass was featured on Bloomberg TV as making a fortune betting against these subprime securities.[48] By forecasting the mortgage market crash, he parlayed $110 million into $700 million alongside his two Subprime Credit Strategies Funds.[49]
Europe and Japanese debt "doomsday"[edit]
After the subprime debt crisis occurred, Bass decided that it was the symptom of a more significant problem with debt and made predictions about debt "doomsday" in Europe and Japan. In 2009 he warned about the possibility of defaults by major countries over the next 3 years.[50] As of 2010, 10-15% of his portfolio was involved in bets against European and Japanese sovereign debts.[51] He went as far as predicting that 2012 would be a "doomsday year" for Europe and spoke of a looming breakup of the Eurozone, which, he declared, would lead to defaults in Japan and the United States. He stated in June 2012, "Europe goes first, then Japan and finally the United States."[52]
Since 2012, Bass has also predicted a "full blown crisis" in Japan describing its approach to financing debt as a Ponzi scheme similar to Bernie Madoff's investment scam. Though many experts have disagreed with his analysis.[53][54] Renren, Inc., a Chinese company headquartered in the Chaoyang District, Beijing, China invested $80 million in Hayman's Japan Macro Opportunities Offshore Partners, LP, a Cayman Islands exempted limited partnership, between November 2011 and January 2014.[55] Renren reported that it received capital distributions of $84.0 million and $69.1 million in the years ended December 31, 2014 and 2015, respectively, and disposed of the investment on August 24, 2015.[55] RenRen's investment in Bass’ Japan fund was meant to be beneficial that it represented the overwhelming majority of the public company's profits for the 2-year period and therefore had to be disclosed to the SEC as ‘material’ profits.[56]
The Chinese company's investment in Hayman's Japan Macro Opportunities Offshore Partners, LP, required Renren to include the Japan Macro Opportunities Master Fund, LP, audited financials with its Form 20-F filed with the United States Securities & Exchange Commission.[55] The Chinese company included the financials of Hayman's Japan Macro Offshore Partner, LP,[55] as Renren “can exercise significant influence, but not control…”[57]
Cullen Roche criticized Bass's Japan analysis in August 2010, noting that Bass comparing Japan to the EU was an error since their monetary systems are wildly different. Roche stated, "people still fail to understand that a nation with monetary sovereignty that is the supplier of currency in a floating exchange rate system never has a problem funding itself."[58] In May 2012, Business Insider agreed, faulting Bass's analysis, since debt-to-GDP ratios do not reflect the interest rate or credit risk of a nation. The Business Insider noted that in a nation that borrows its own currency, public spending finances borrowing.[59] However, Bass reported in his 2016 Investor Letter, that the Japan Macro Opportunities Fund performed well, stating "Our first Asia-focused fund, the Japan Macro Opportunities Fund, successfully returned capital to investors after the Japanese yen had depreciated approximately 40% from 2012-2015."[60]
Bass has been vocal about future calamities stemming from financial meltdown in public appearances. September 14, 2011, Bass maintained on CNBC that Greece's only way out of its debt mess was a restructuring. Bass noted that despite the strife it would bring to Greece, it was the only measure the nation could take. He added that within a year, all of Europe would be in default as well.[61] In a speech reported on January 1, 2014, he assured the audience of his confidence that the next few years would be rife with turmoil, including the eruption of major wars. In his speech, he claimed that with the growing debt and inability to pay it off, eventually, social unrest will lead to violent outbreaks. Bass finished his speech by stating, "War is coming – just as it has throughout history."[62]
General Motors[edit]
In April 2014, Bass was among the few defenders of General Motors for failing to address a defect tied to 13 deaths. He said, “GM is taking the right steps to invest properly in the crisis.” Hayman, at the time, owned eight million shares of GM, making it Hayman's single biggest holding.[63] Coming to the defense of GM, Bass said on CNBC that of the 13 passengers who had died owing to the defect, 12 "either weren’t wearing their seat belt or were under the influence of alcohol."[64]
Chinese banking collapse[edit]
Starting in July 2015, Bass made a multiyear bet against the Chinese yuan based on a predicted banking collapse in China.[65] Bass closed out his position against the Chinese currency in early 2019 when the predicted devaluation of the currency did not occur.[65]
Bass argued in 2015 that the Chinese banking system was undercapitalized and its foreign reserves would be insufficient in a crisis. Bass predicted a hard landing for the Chinese economy following a bank crisis and a severe devaluation of the Chinese currency, variously given as "somewhere between 15%-20%" and "30 to 40 percent."[66][67]
Hayman suffered its worst year in 2017, with a loss of 19% due to the strengthening of the Chinese yuan.[37] Bass thinks any trade deal with China must include enforcement mechanisms against intellectual property theft for the U.S. to benefit from it truly.[68] He argued that China signed a special memorandum of understanding in 2013 that companies don't have to do audits or be Dodd-Frank compliant. He is against banning or delisting Chinese companies, but he does support them having to meet the same regulations as U.S. companies.[69] While serving on the Board of UTIMCO in 2018, Bass helped create a set of guidelines compelling its external managers to divest from companies with ties to entities sanctioned by the United States.[36][70]
Argentina[edit]
The BBC described Bass as having a "good relationship" with Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner as of 2014.[71] In February 2014, Bass said that Argentine bonds represented a profitable opportunity and called Argentina an "interesting" nation for investments. He and other groups of investors sued BNY Mellon for failure in distributing interest on Argentine debt.[72] The IB Times noted that the country had "cheated creditors seven times since it gained independence from Spain in 1816," most recently defaulting on its debt in 1989.[73]
When the Argentine government defaulted on its debt in July 2014, Bass supported the move and criticized the bondholders, notably Elliott Management and Aurelius Capital that, with the support of U.S. federal judge Thomas Griesa, had held out for full payment. Echoing Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, he called these creditors "vultures," said that they were "holding up 42 million people from progress" and were holding Argentina for "ransom."[74] On August 27, 2014, Bass accused Elliott's Paul Singer of "holding poor countries as hostages," prompting The New York Post to comment in an editorial the next day that Bass had "sounded more like Argentina's leftist economy minister Axel Kicillof than a US hedge-fund manager."[75] Bass' Dallas-based fund, Hayman Capital Management LP, bought Argentina's international bond at 55 cents on the dollar after prices dropped on concern the country would default. Bass said, "the bonds have since rallied to 73 cents today" in a Bloomberg Television interview with Stephanie Ruhle.[76]
Drug patent challenge campaign[edit]
Bass has attempted to profit from filing and publicizing patent challenges against dubious patents held by big pharmaceutical companies while also betting against their shares.[77][78] In 2014, Renren, Inc., a Chinese company headquartered in the Chaoyang District, Beijing, China invested $30 million in Bass' pharmaceutical strategy through Hayman Credes Offshore Fund, LP, registered as a Cayman Islands exempted limited partnership and claiming Hayman Offshore Management as its General Partner.[55] Renren reported Hayman Credes Offshore Fund, LP in its SEC filings from 2014 through April 2016 as a principal component of the company's "long-term investments" portfolio.[79]
Through its investment in Hayman Credes Offshore Fund, LP, the Chinese company appears to have participated in Bass' challenges of numerous U.S. drug patents reportedly aimed at driving down the price of U.S. drug company stocks.[77][78]
In its form, 20-F, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for its fiscal year, which ended December 31, 2016, Renren Inc. reported, "In December 2014, the Company invested $30,000 in Hayman, which is a Cayman Islands exempted limited partnership and served as a limited partner. The Company recognized its share of loss of $322 and $157 for the years ended December 31, 2015 and 2016, respectively. From February to April 2016, the Company withdrew all of its investment in Hayman and received total proceeds of $29,521."[79] After 2 years of setbacks in his effort, Bass by 2017 ended his patent challenges.[7]
In 2015, Bass organized the Coalition For Affordable Drugs (CFAD) to challenge patent validity through the Inter partes review (IPR) process.[80][81] When he initiated this practice in January 2015, he claimed that his motive was to encourage competition in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals and thus bring down prices.[82]
Bass filed a total of 35 patent challenges in collaboration with Erich Spangenberg. The latter has been called “the world's most notorious patent troll”,[83] including 33 filed by CFAD and two filed by Bass personally on a not-for-profit basis.[84] Bass and Spangenberg state the coalition aims to bring down drug prices that are kept artificially high through dubious patents.[85]
In June 2015, Celgene received permission from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to file a motion seeking sanctions against the CFAD for allegedly abusing the patent-review process. The Wall Street Journal noted that this development was “being closely watched because it raises the possibility that patent officials may put an end” to Bass's patent-challenge scheme. Through counsel, Celgene also told the patent office that CFAD had threatened to challenge its patents unless Celgene met CFAD's demands.[86]
In October 2016, Bass prevailed in the case, with USPTO invalidating the two Celgene Corp patents related to its cancer drugs Revlimid, Pomalyst, and Thalomid at issue.[87] However, Celgene convinced the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to re-hear the case one year later.[88]
Politics[edit]
Trump administration[edit]
A ProPublica story describes Bass as a friend of Tommy Hicks Jr., a private investor who was a hunting buddy to Donald Trump Jr. and had further ties to the Trump administration.[89] According to the investigative story on improper links between Hicks and the Trump administration, Hicks had obtained a meeting with Bass with high-level officials at an inter-agency meeting at the Treasury Department to air views on China.[89] This meeting was when Bass held a large short position in the Chinese currency.[89]
China[edit]
On February 8, 2020, Bass had a Twitter disagreement with Hu Xijin; editor of Chinese newspaper Global Times. He tweeted that the "Chinese virus," a reference to SARS-CoV-2, should "rampage through the ranks of the GT and the rest of the communist party."[90] Hu Xijin's editor-in-chief said he had an "anti-human tendency" and ordinary CCP members "are ordinary citizens, fathers, husbands, wives, daughters." Bass later deleted the tweet but doubled down when Hu suggested he apologize.[91][92]
“I will not,” Bass replied. “You arrested, censured, and ‘punished’ (only God knows what you did to him and the other 7 doctors) the heroes of Wuhan. You are a disgrace to humanity.”[93] Bass went on to say “The good people of China have lost trust in the CCP. Barricading people into their own homes, arresting the hero doctors of Wuhan, then ordering the rank and file back to work on Monday? It looks like trust in govt (and even fear of govt) has been lost. @HuXijin_GT #revolt”
Bass is a staunch rhetorical critic of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its policies. Bass, in July, 2021, blasted companies in the United States that speak out against social injustices in the United States yet fail to take a strong stance on human rights violations in China.[94] Bass chastised Nike CEO John Donahoe in particular for remarks made during the company's results call with Wall Street analysts. It is difficult, according to Bass, to strike a balance between keeping in President Xi Jinping's good graces economically while becoming more active on societal concerns in the United States.[94] As U.S. corporations will not stop seeking "the pot of gold" that is access to China's economy, Washington policymakers must demonstrate "leadership" in the face of Beijing's human rights transgressions, according to Bass.[94]
Financial reports filed with the Securities Exchange Commission show that in 2016, he accepted investment capital in two of his investment funds from at least one technology company headquartered in China.[95][96][97]
Following his college career, Bass continued to dive, both cliffdiving and freediving.[19]
By Gretchen Morgenson / Nov. 27, 2015 / Saved as PDF : [HN02HU][GDrive]
J. Kyle Bass made a fortune in the financial crisis when his hedge fund, Hayman Capital Management, bet big against subprime mortgages. Now Mr. Bass is wagering against pharmaceutical companies that he says exploit the patent system, keeping drug prices — and their profits — in the stratosphere.
He has a formidable colleague in the effort: Erich Spangenberg, a man who became reviled in Silicon Valley for bringing lawsuitsagainst technology companies that he contended had infringed on a patent.
Through the Coalition for Affordable Drugs, a company they formed this year, Mr. Bass and Mr. Spangenberg identify pharmaceutical patents that they consider weak or abusive. Then they request that a unit of the United States Patent and Trademark Office review the legitimacy of the patents.
By mid-November, the firm had filed 33 requests for patent reviews, targeting 13 drugs from a dozen companies.
At the same time, on behalf of themselves and their investors, Mr. Bass and Mr. Spangenberg are short-sellers of shares in companies whose patents they consider vulnerable. They also buy stock in companies whose patents, they believe, reflect true innovation.
Drug companies have cried foul, criticizing the coalition for trying to profit from successful challenges that may pressure a company’s revenue and shares. When drugs come off patent and can be sold by generic drug makers, their prices plummet.
Big pharmaceutical companies moaning about others profiteering at their expense? That’s rich.
The patent appeal board hasn’t given the complaints much credence. In a case brought by Celgene requesting sanctions against the coalition and its review requests, the board ruledagainst Celgene. It noted in its ruling that “profit is at the heart of nearly every patent” and nearly every patent review.
Mr. Bass and Mr. Spangenberg say the coalition’s aim is to bring down drug prices that are kept artificially high by dubious patents. And on Wednesday, they filed two new patent challenges that they’re pursuing on a pro bono basis. To help draw attention to their campaign, the coalition will pay all the costs of the two reviews and will have no financial interest in either outcome.
“Some patents and extensions to patents represent an unreasonable use of government regulation to enshrine monopoly power to the detriment of the public at large,” Mr. Bass said. “This system must be fixed or we will continue to pay more and more for the same old drugs we’ve been buying for decades.”
Mr. Spangenberg acknowledges that it is something of a paradox for him to be challenging patents instead of defending them as he did so aggressively — and successfully — at IP Navigation Group, a company he founded in 2003.
Two years ago, he said, he began delegating day-to-day management of IPNav to colleagues, focusing on nXn Partners, a company that uses big data to conduct predictive analysis for the government and corporations. The analytics developed by nXn can also predict patent validity, he said, adding that he now spends 80 percent of his time on coalition work.
One of the patents Mr. Bass and Mr. Spangenberg are challenging is for Propofol, an anesthetic marketed by Fresenius Kabi under the name Diprivan. The other covers Suprenza, a weight-loss drug from Citius Pharmaceuticals.
Propofol, a 30-year-old therapy used in an estimated 80 percent of operations nationwide, is protected by a patent not on the drug itself but on the rubber stopper used in its container. Patent approval was extended in 2013 for 12 more years.
“A rubber stopper is the only thing standing between today’s high price for Propofol and its generic’s 90 percent discounted price,” Mr. Spangenberg said.
Fresenius dominates the sales of Diprivan in the United States, holding a 75 percent market share as of December 2014.
Geoffrey Fenton, a spokesman for Fresenius Kabi, said it had not seen the coalition’s submission, but said the company would respond. “Fresenius is one of the largest generic sterile injectable providers in the U.S.,” he said, “we understand the importance of drug availability and affordability.”
The Suprenza patent being challenged was granted in 2013 and extended protection on the drug into 2029. The patent was for an orally disintegrating tablet with a “speckled appearance.”
Extending the patent because of speckles consisting of “colored granules of a water-soluble sugar” is highly questionable, the coalition contends. Such speckles are not patentable because they are well known “to be useful to add to pharmaceutical compositions,” it argued in requesting a review. Thirty Suprenza tablets sell for about $120.
The company did not respond to a request for comment.
Companies try to extend patents on products shortly before they expire, when the door is about to open to generic makers. This practice, called “evergreening” or “product-hopping,” is among the forces keeping drug prices high, experts say.
“A drug company tries to hop over the generic that’s coming into the market by having a new drug with minor variations that does not offer much clinical benefit, but that extends the patent,” said Hagop M. Kantarjian, professor and chairman of the department of leukemia, division of cancer medicine, at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. “They advertise the new drug heavily so it replaces most of the still patented, but old, drug on the market.”
Another tactic to prolong a patent’s life is known as pay-for-delay. This practice has come under scrutiny by the Federal Trade Commission and has been the subject of proposed legislation.
When a branded company’s drug approaches the expiration of its patent, generic manufacturers challenge the patent so they can start their own sales of the drug. But sometimes, after a challenge is made, the branded company pays a large monetary settlement to the generic maker if it agrees not to enter the market for a specified period. That keeps the drug’s price — and the branded-drug maker’s profits — aloft throughout the period.
Last year, the Federal Trade Commission identified 29 possible deals of this kind involving 21 branded drugs in 2013. Combined sales of these drugs were $4.3 billion in the United States.
In September, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, joined with Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, to reintroduce a bill that would make pay-for-delay deals illegal.
“There are crazy things going on with prescription drugs costs, and pay-for-delay stands out as an enormous thorn,” Senator Klobuchar said in an interview. “The solution to a patent problem should not be doing something that is so anticompetitive.”
Mr. Bass said the coalition would not strike a settlement deal in any of its patent challenges.
So far, those challenges have a fairly good success rate: The coalition was batting .500 on its review requests before the two new patent challenges.
Of the 33 initial requests, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board accepted seven for review and rejected a review on the other seven. Once a petition has been accepted for a review, the proceedings, including an oral hearing, must conclude within 12 months.
The seven reviews granted to the coalition involve drugs from Celgene and Shire Plc. Four will examine patents on Revlimid, a blood cancer drug; three others involve two patents on Gattex, a treatment for short bowel syndrome, and one on Lialda, a therapy for ulcerative colitis.
Mr. Bass and Mr. Spangenberg say they also hope their pursuit of reviews will bring scrutiny to the inner workings of the patent office, a government agency that is obscure but powerful.
“The U.S. Patent Office is providing drug companies with a government-backed monopoly,” Mr. Bass said. “It’s important to protect intellectual property that is new and original, but some drug companies are deliberately taking old and expired innovations and repricing them as novelties.”
I asked Scott E. Kamholz, a patent lawyer at Foley Hoag in Washington who is a former member of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, about the coalition’s criticism.
The patent office “is working just about as well as it can,” Mr. Kamholz said. “The easy cases don’t go to litigation. We hear a lot about evergreening, but you don’t hear about the enormous iceberg of cases that the patent office is filtering out.”
Still, shedding light on patent missteps, especially given the high drug costs they enable, is a good thing. The efforts by Mr. Bass and Mr. Spangenberg to highlight problematic patents, whatever role they play in promoting their own investments, may also encourage others to make their own challenges.
“Zombie drugs — those unworthy of patent protection because they are not novel and truly innovative — are being artificially kept alive to the financial detriment of patients and taxpayers,” Mr. Spangenberg said. “This system is both broken and rigged.”
By Chris Matthews / Published: April 25, 2019 at 3:09 p.m. ET / Saved as PDF : [HW00DT][GDrive]
Mentioned : Stephen Kevin Bannon (born 1953) / James Kyle Bass (born 1969) /
Hedge-fund manager [James Kyle Bass (born 1969)] teamed up with former Trump administration adviser [Stephen Kevin Bannon (born 1953] to “raise awareness” about what they describe as an economic war launched by a “radical cadre” within the Chinese Communist Party against the United States.
At a conference in New York and in an interview with CNBC, the two argued that the Chinese government has engaged in a systematic effort to undermine U.S. economic power and that Wall Street banks and the leaders of large, multinational U.S. corporations have been aiding the Chinese in this effort.
“The entire operation of the Chinese Communist Party and what they’re running in China is being funded by Wall Street,” Bannon said. “Corporate America today is the lobbying arm of the Chinese Communist Party and Wall Street is its investor relations department.”
Bass concurred, telling CNBC that American multinational firms have been fighting the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul trade relations with China, by protesting the use of tariffs and lobbying against recent legislation to expand the U.S. government’s ability to block Chinese investment in U.S. firms or assets on national security grounds.
“If you look behind the scenes its corporate America pushing Trump to do a [trade] deal,” Bass told CNBC. “And it’s corporate American chieftains that have their biggest businesses, let’s say most growth, coming out of China. And China plays that card. They play it better than anybody else. They open a market to very specific people to basically court influence with that person and going to — into the presidential office to actually change policy.”
While [Stephen Kevin Bannon (born 1953] and [James Kyle Bass (born 1969)] promoted the idea that Americans should fear Chinese economic policy, Bass in particular also argued Thursday, as he did in his first investor letter in three years this week, that the Chinese and Hong Kong economies are nearing a crisis point.
“Hong Kong currently sits atop one of the largest financial time bombs in history,” Bass said in the letter, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal (paywall).
Bass, who made his name and fortune by betting on the subprime mortgage crisis through his hedge fund, Hayman Capital Management, believes there is a large economic bubble forming in Hong Kong, as evidenced by soaring real-estate prices, rising household debt levels and a banking sector that is nearly nine times the size of the country’s GDP — a similar ratio to that of Iceland before its financial system collapsed during the 2008 crisis.
Bass argued that the Chinese government has papered over weakness in its own economy by issuing debt to finance economically inefficient investments, and that some of this stimulus money has flowed into Hong Kong, fueling asset bubbles and forcing interest rates lower, making it attractive for Hong Kong investors to sell Hong Kong dollars to buy higher-yielding U.S. assets.
This in turn has forced the Hong Kong Financial Authority to spend 80% of its foreign reserves maintaining a fixed exchange rate of 7.85 Hong Kong Dollars to one U.S. dollar, Bass said.
[James Kyle Bass (born 1969)] has lost money in recent years betting against Asian economies, with his fund suffering a 17% decline in 2017 after a recovery in the value of the Chinese yuan soured his short bets on Asian currencies, the Journal report said.
Trade negotiations between the U.S. and China continue, with the next round of talks slated to begin April 30 in Beijing, followed by a another round starting on May 8 in Washington. On Wednesday, President Trump said, “we’re doing well on trade, we’re doing well with China’ in reference to the negotiations, echoing the positive tone other administration officials have taken in recent weeks regarding the talks. Nevertheless, few concrete details have emerged on what have been seen as key sticking points toward reaching a deal, like rules surrounding intellectual property protection and mechanisms to force China to adhere to a future agreement.
Bass said at the conference Thursday that China’s vulnerability puts the U.S. is in the perfect position to keep up diplomatic pressure on Beijing to reduce state subsidies to its businesses, crack down on theft of intellectual property belonging to U.S. corporations, and force the Chinese government to adopt a Western-style rule-of-law system that would create a fair playing field between U.S. companies and Chinese rivals.
“We have them exactly where we want them,” Bass said.
“Corona virus developed in Canada and stolen by China?” reads the headline of this article from January 22, 2020. It appears to be the first of a series of such claims about the novel coronavirus, which caused an outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan before spreading elsewhere in the country and around the world.
Other social media users soon shared similar versions of the claim, referring to the investigation of two Chinese virologists in Canada in 2019. [James Kyle Bass (born 1969)], an American hedge fund manager who is currently shorting Hong Kong’s currency, falsely claimed on Twitter [Originally https://twitter.com/Jkylebass/status/1221065421874397185 , now archived Jan 27 2020 and available at https://archive.is/s0RiT] that a “Chinese spy team” sent pathogens “to the Wuhan facility.” He was retweeted 12,500 times, and screenshots of the tweet were shared on Facebook.
The claims appear to be based on a mischaracterization of August 2019 reports about a transfer of Ebola and Nipah viruses from a Canadian lab to Beijing, and an apparently separate issue involving two Chinese researchers at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg, in the central province of Manitoba.
The NML is part of the federal Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), whose senior media officer Tammy Jarbeau told AFP by email that “this is disinformation. (These) statements made on social networks have no factual basis.”
10AM US East Coast time
Starring/Mentioned : Stephen Kevin Bannon (born 1953) / James Kyle Bass (born 1969) /
Julia Wang / Aug 6, 2020 / Saved as PDF : [HM00EE][GDrive]
Mentioned : Stephen Kevin Bannon (born 1953) / James Kyle Bass (born 1969) / Bruno Wu (born 1966) / Guo Wengui (born 1970 (est.)) / Yang Lan (born 1968) /
Chinese billionaires accused of corruption who flee China to live in exile in the United States are far from new, but none have been so vocal and at the center of US-China tensions as Gou Wengui, who, it was revealed July 9th, is under FBI investigation for his ties to Steve Bannon and his own self-funded media projects in the United States (1).
Few have benefited like Guo from the actions of high-ranking Republican officials like Bannon or public spokespeople like millionaire short-focused hedge fund manager Kyle Bass and anti-Chinese short analyst Anne Stevenson-Yang. Even fewer have been accused of using their connections to defame and attack their enemies like New York-based billionaire [Bruno Wu (born 1966)], the founder of the Seven Stars Group which controls Nasdaq-listed Ideanomics (IDEX).
The effort made by [Guo Wengui (born 1970 (est.))] and his cast of enablers is astounding. Although he makes himself out to be an activist calling for corruption reform in China, the reality is Guo (who also goes by the names Guo Wen Gui, Guo Haoyun, Miles Guo, and Miles Kwok) fears he and his family will be extradited back to China where he could spend the rest of his life in a Chinese prison.
In his desperation [Guo Wengui (born 1970 (est.))] is waging a war on multiple fronts, including one with [Bruno Wu (born 1966)] that could easily be turned into a movie or novel. Guo has made numerous accusations of sexual misconduct, murder and child rape against Wu and his wife (Chinese media star [Yang Lan (born 1968)]) which resulted in a series of lawsuits. The war isn’t one-sided. In another sensational lawsuit Guo sued Roger Stone for $100 million for comments Stone made on InfoWars accusing Guo of being “a turncoat criminal who is convicted of crimes both here and in China”. Stone, who pled guilty, alleged he got the information from Wu via ex-Trump campaign staffer Sam Nunberg. (2)
This from Wu and wife Lan’s lawsuit against Gou filed in New York State Supreme Court:
“Plaintiff Wu, a prominent investor, media entrepreneur, and published author, and plaintiff Lan, a leading broadcast journalist and media entrepreneur, allege that defendant, a Chinese billionaire ‘in self-imposed’ exile in New York, believing that plaintiffs could negatively influence his ability to remain here, defamed them by stating in various formats that they engaged in criminal conduct, such as murdering and raping children, that Lan has sexually transmitted diseases, and that Lan has engaged in extra marital affairs to advance her career.”
The plaintiffs further state Guo had them under physical and electronic surveillance, had his son and bodyguards intimidate them at a London restaurant, threaten to physically harm Lan on YouTube and a website, and conspire with others to intentionally inflict emotional distress on them.
“His (Guo’s) revelatory claims of political corruption are little more than cheap and defamatory falsehoods about the personal lives of various Chinese and American citizens that Guo hopes to paint as antagonists of soap operatic proportions, and which he then feeds to his millions of followers,” the filing states. “Guo does not expose corruption; instead, he uses the Internet as an extension of his chaotic and criminal enterprise (3).”
In 2014 [Guo Wengui (born 1970 (est.))]’s net worth was $2.6 billion, which placed him 74th among China’s richest according to the Hurun Report (4). He is the developer of Pangu Plaza, a torch-shaped building close to Beijing’s Olympic Stadium. Guo’s fortunes started shifting in 2014 when he made a play for a minority stake in Founder Securities, China’s sixth-largest brokerage firm (5). In another crazy chain of events that generated much speculation about corrupt political influence, Li You, the head of Founder’s state-owned parent, was arrested on corruption charges, as was Ma Jian, a Guo ally and former vice-minister of state security.
In 2015 Guo’s political connections, business practices and ethics were described in a lengthy expose by Caixin Media, controlled by Ms. Hu Shuli (6). Caixin focused on Guo’s relationship with Ma Jian [see https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-46692071 ] — Guo’s ally. The investigation generated headlines such as:
“Five Accused Tell Court That Fugitive Guo Wengui Was Mastermind Behind $60 Million Scheme” (7)
What is important to follow here is how he responded to the Caixin investigation. The following is from Hu’s statement filed with the State Supreme Court of New York, an action she took after repeated negative and intimidating tactics from Guo.
“Guo has repeatedly publicly published fabricated, false and offensive statements about Ms. Hu and Caixin on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, asserting that Ms. Hu has, among other things, engaged in an extramarital affair, borne an illegitimate child, stolen user information, extorted opponents, abused drugs, caused her and her alleged partner to have to go to the emergency room for medical treatment, and abused her position at Caixin to further her allegedly illegal activities.” (8)
Guo fled China and settled in New York in late 2014 as the U.S. geopolitical relationship with China was souring. Guo starts a do-it-yourself campaign using Twitter, Facebook and the courts to go after enemies including Hu and Wu, who he blamed for providing information to the Chinese government about his business practices amongst other things, but after two years of conducting his campaign he had little success and his social media accounts were shut down or blocked and his lawsuits dismissed.
By this point the Chinese government was seeking Guo’s extradition from the US. He was at the mercy of the State Department and Justice Department but luckily for him there was internal conflict about returning him to China. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened to resign if Guo was extradited (9) which put Sessions at odds with multiple senior officials including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who were under intense pressure from Chinese officials.
According to a Politico source, casino magnate Steve Wynn hand delivered a letter from the Chinese government to Trump which requested Guo’s return (10). Trump, who initially seemed open to sending Guo back, ultimately demurred. Feeling that he was now safe Guo apparently accelerated his anti-Chinese dirt digging, presumably so he could curry favour and convince American officials to allow him to remain in the USA.
Bannon enters the scene shortly after leaving the Trump White House in 2017 when he takes a $150,000 loan from Guo (11). Bannon goes on to sign two $1 million contracts with Guo, the first in 2018 for introductions to media personalities and “advice on industry standards” and the second in 2019 to serve as senior editor of GNews, Guo’s China-bashing website.
The Bannon-Guo relationship strengthens and sees the two announce the Rule of Law Foundation (seeded with $100 million), whose purpose is to “unearth” evidence supporting the prosecutions of members of the Chinese elite — which of course included Wu (12).
It was Bannon who introduced Guo to hedge fund millionaire Kyle Bass, who is currently under SEC investigation for making false and misleading statements about United Development Funding (13), one of the companies Bass has a made a fortune from short selling. Bass went on to join the boards of the Rule of Law Foundation, GNews and G-TV, where quack theories like the COVID-19 virus being created in a Chinese laboratory were promoted (14).
The Central Cast Of Guo’s $100 Million The Rule Of Law Foundation
Bannon also had an established relationship with anti-China analyst Anne Stevenson Yang, whose firm J Capital Is known for bashing Chinese led companies, sometimes with spectacularly bad results. Yang, who had been frequently interviewed by Bannon’s Breitbart, recently turned her attention to Bruno Wu-controlled Ideanomics (15). Yang published a negative research article that criticized the company’s efforts, including abandoning plans for a $283 million fintech campus in West Hartford, Conn., a move Ideanomics said was due to higher than expected site remediation costs. Yang peppered her reports with such terms as “spectacular failure” and “over promised and under delivered”. The timing is interesting as her negative report on Ideanomics was published at the same time as Wu was suing Guo.
Dumping on Chinese companies is a favorite tactic of Yang’s and has sometimes ended in spectacular failure. As far back as 2014 she disparaged Alibaba and beginning in 2015 did the same thing to JD.com.
“The J Capital analyst has a lengthy and documented track record of bearish pronouncements about the Chinese economy and companies, including Alibaba, many of which have been proven wrong. She questioned Alibaba’s finances as far back as 2014, for instance, and later recommended shorting the stock. Alibaba stock has almost tripled since. In 2015, she set a price target on JD.com of $23.36. The stock now trades at almost twice as much, even accounting for recent market turbulence. Digital news outlet Quartz called her firm ‘a bearish-on-China research firm’, and Barron’s has said on multiple occasions that Stevenson-Yang is a bear on China.” (16)
The war against Bruno Wu and his proxy Ideanomics gets nasty after June 24 when Yang published Champion of Stock Promotes . From the report’s disclaimer:
“Be warned. We are short-sellers. We are biased. We do our best to find and present facts, based on extensive primary research and using public sources. But we will profit if these stocks decline in value. We do not offer advice. We present our views.” (17)
J Capital’s report on Ideanomics, followed by a similar report by Nate Anderson from Hindenburg Research two days later (18), was released shortly after the stock’s peak at $3.29 on June 22, 2020 which subsequently fell to $1.42. Will Ideanomics recover and keep growing its EV business in China, and become like Alibaba and JD.com, another failed attempt by Yang to discredit and damage a company and its US shareholders?
Was the short report the culmination of Guo’s war against Wu? We’ll likely never know for sure but the linkages between Guo, Bannon, Bass and Yang are there for anyone to see. What’s next in this drama? In an article published August 5, the Daily Mail reported:
“Billionaire Chinese fugitive ‘is being investigated by the FBI over the funding of his media activities in the US and his ties to Steve Bannon” (19)
“The FBI is reportedly investigating an exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui over his funding of a slew of media projects in the US and his involvement with former White House adviser Steve Bannon.
Sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that FBI agents have been speaking with acquaintances of both Guo and Bannon over the past six months in an effort to obtain information about Guo’s activities in the US. The sources said agents specifically asked about the funding of a media company linked to Guo that hired Bannon as a consultant in 2018.”
Although the story of the war between two New York-based Chinese billionaires is likely far from over it’s worth asking some questions about Guo’s ability to pay for political influence and whether he bought introductions that can be turned against companies like Ideanomics. How did Steve Bannon end up in the middle of this war and did his relationships with anti-Chinese analyst Yang get used to purposely damage Ideanomics? How long will Guo survive in the United States while making so many enemies? If there’s a change in government this November will he be able to curry favor with the new administration and stay out of a Chinese prison? Stay posted.
Kyle Bass, Hayman Capital Management founder and CEO, joins CNBC’s ‘The Exchange’ with Deirdre Bosa to discuss China’s DeepSeek’s impact on American tech players, how DeepSeek sends user data to China, and more.
Stefan Molyneux commenting on this DeepSeek ?