(Reuters) – Billionaire investor Steven Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management has suffered a loss of nearly 15% this year due to a sudden surge in the shares of video game store GameStop Corp, the New York Times reported Wednesday nyti.ms/2YiotoW.
The losses at Point72, which manages nearly $ 19 billion in assets, came in part from its investment in hedge fund Melvin Capital Management, which had made a huge gamble against GameStop, the report said.
But while GameStop was up 700% in the past two weeks, boosted by the increased interest among amateur investors, Melvin faced sudden losses.
One of the rescuers was Cohen’s hedge fund, which has about $ 1 billion under management at Melvin, NYT said.
Point72 decided to add $ 750 million, Melvin said Monday, in addition to accepting a $ 2 billion investment from Citadel, the Chicago-based hedge fund led by Ken Griffin.
Point72 declined to comment when Reuters reached out.
A Melvin spokesperson, founded in 2014 by Gabriel Plotkin, said the fund has lifted its position in GameStop and repositioned the portfolio.
Reporting by Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur