Saba’s Weinstein Said to Exit Bets Against JPMorgan’s Whale

Boaz Weinstein’s Saba Capital Management LP has exited credit-derivatives trades against JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s London chief investment office, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Weinstein, 39, was among hedge-fund managers who profited from price dislocations in a credit-default swaps index after outsized trades by JPMorgan’s Bruno Iksil, nicknamed the London Whale, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the trading is private.

The trades in London, first reported by Bloomberg News on April 5, saddled the biggest U.S. bank with a $2 billion trading loss that JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said last month could grow. A strategy intended to scale back a hedge against a financial crisis backfired, leaving what Dimon has said were even bigger and harder-to-manage exposures.

Saba’s main $5 billion fund has returned 2.3 percent this year through June 22, a person familiar with the fund’s returns said. That compares with a 1.1 percent gain in Hedge Fund Research Inc.’s HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index.

Weinstein declined to comment, said Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for Saba.

To contact the reporters on this story: Shannon D. Harrington in New York at sharrington6@bloomberg.net; Mary Childs in New York at mchilds5@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net