The Wall Street Journal reports today in its Heard on the Street column that Red Sox owner John Henry’s funds are down about 80% in total assets, from $2.5 billion about a year ago to around $500 million today. Potentially bad news for our most important institution.
John Henry’s Boston Red Sox are in first place in baseball’s American League East. But his investment firm is on a losing streak that has investors rushing for the exits.
Amid dreadful performance for more than a year, Merrill Lynch & Co. is pulling about $600 million of investment funds from Mr. Henry’s firm at the end of this month. The move by Merrill, which has had an 11-year relationship with the firm, leaves John W. Henry & Co. with just about $500 million. About a year ago, Mr. Henry’s firm, a managed-futures adviser — a hedge-fund-like operation that bets on commodities, currencies, bonds and stocks, in Boca Raton, Fla. — managed more than $2.5 billion.
Here’s hoping the fortunes of Henry’s investment firm improve. Those pitchers don’t come cheap and even though the Sox have a separate ownership structure it’s always good to have deep pockets nearby.
Henry was interviewed on WEEI yesterday. He says he’s only got about 5% of his assets in the funds, so I wouldn’t worry about any impact on the team. His funds are designed to be a small portion of any investors portfolio and to in general move in the opposite direction of the market, so he says this isn’t the first time they’ve gone through a bad stretch.