Soros appoints first CEO
From The Wall Street Journal
Soros Fund Management, which manages $13.2 billion for wealthy offshore investors, is expected to announce that former Bankers Trust Corp. Treasurer Duncan Hennes will become the firm's first-ever chief executive officer. The move is intended to free chief investment strategist Stanley Druckenmiller of management responsibilities so that he can concentrate on managing the $6.7 billion Quantum Fund. This year Quantum has struggled greatly. After declining about 19% earlier in the year, it has bounced back to a loss of 11.2% through Aug. 4, compared with double-digit percentage gains for the Dow and the Nasdaq. Druckenmiller's worst previous year had been a loss of 1.5% in 1996.

Flying the coop
From The Wall Street Journal
Philip Treick, the manager of two outperforming Transamerica funds, has left to start a new investment-advisory firm. This announcement comes just a few weeks after health-stock guru Ken Kam left the sizzling $400 million Firsthand Technology Value Fund. Treick said he had become disenchanted with some aspects of running a mutual fund, specifically the increasing power of mutual fund "supermarkets" to control the flow of assets to small and mid-size fund operators such as Transamerica. The departure of Treick is the latest in a string of high-profile manager defections. Firsthand's Kam is also leaving to start his own firm, while Ryan Jacob, who managed the $700 million Internet Fund for Kinetics Asset Management, departed earlier this year with a similar goal.

Getting out
From The Wall Street Journal
Fidelity Investments and Putnam Investments are selling their stakes in an unusual secondary offering of stock by Rhythms NetConnections, a high-speed Internet-access provider based in Denver. The stock of Rhythms has fallen to 34 3/4, or 69%, on the Nasdaq from a peak of 111 1/2 on April 13. The company went public April 7. What makes this offering unusual is that the vast bulk of the 3.9 million shares being offered come from Fidelity (1.03 million shares) and Putnam (2.5 million shares). Fidelity will still own 428,400 shares after the offering; Putnam will own none.

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