(Reuters) – The billionaire investor Steven Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management suffered a loss of almost 15% this year due to a sudden increase in the shares of video game retailer GameStop Corp, the New York Times reported nyti.ms/2YiotoW on Wednesday .
The losses at Point72, which manages nearly $ 19 billion in assets, came in part from its investment in the hedge fund Melvin Capital Management, which made a massive bet against GameStop, the report said.
But while GameStop has skyrocketed 700% in the past two weeks, driven by rising interest among amateur investors, Melvin has faced sudden losses.
One of the rescuers was Cohen’s hedge fund, which has about $ 1 billion under management with Melvin, the NYT said.
Point72 decided to add $ 750 million, Melvin said on 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 contacted by Reuters.
A spokesman for Melvin, founded in 2014 by Gabriel Plotkin, said the fund closed its position on GameStop and repositioned the portfolio.
Reporting by Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur