Pine River’s Kuhn Diversifies to Bet Against ‘Drunk Businessman’

In a time with no “home-run trade,” investors should look for sell-offs that aren’t driven by logic, which Pine River Capital Management LP’s Steve Kuhn likened to betting against a card player who’s had too much to drink.

When investors pull money for illogical reasons, “it’s as if we’re sitting at a poker table and a drunk businessman walks into the casino and sits at our table,” Kuhn, whose Pine River Fixed Income Fund was the second-best performing hedge fund last year, said in a Bloomberg Television interview today. “That’s a good day for you, when people are making decisions for less than logical reasons, and you can sit there and calmly try to decide what true value is.”