Paulson Advantage Plus Hedge Fund Declines 2% Last Month

John Paulson, the billionaire hedge- fund manager coming off record losses in 2011, posted a 2 percent loss last month in his Advantage Plus Fund, according to a monthly update to investors obtained by Bloomberg News.

The fund, which seeks to profit from corporate events such as takeovers and bankruptcies and uses leverage to amplify returns, is down 18 percent this year with the July loss. Paulson’s Gold Fund, which can buy derivatives and other gold- related investments, rose 0.2 percent in July and has declined 23 percent this year. Slumping gold-mining stocks have contributed to declines in the Advantage funds and Gold Fund this year.
The firm’s merger arbitrage, credit and recovery funds, which comprise more than 60 percent of the firm’s $21 billion in assets, rose this year on the firm’s “long event positions,” Paulson said today in the letter to clients. Event-driven managers bet on companies facing mergers, spinoffs and bankruptcies....

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Paulson Said to Buy 875 Acres of Land in Las Vegas Area

Paulson & Co., the hedge fund run by billionaire John Paulson, purchased more than 875 acres of land in a resort community in the Las Vegas area, a bet on a housing recovery in the region as the supply of homes shrinks.

The $17 million purchase at Lake Las Vegas in Henderson, Nevada, was made through the Paulson Real Estate Recovery Fund, which seeks to build houses on raw land and resell the properties to homebuilders, said a person with knowledge of the deal.

The fund bought the majority of what remains undeveloped at the 3,600-acre (1,456-hectare) site, said the person, who asked not to be named because the details were private. The deal was among the largest land purchases in the area in at least three years, according to Greg Gross, director of the Nevada region for Metrostudy, a Houston-based firm that tracks new construction. The Las Vegas area has fewer than 13,000 vacant lots for homebuilding, a small portion of which are for sale, he said. Inventories of available properties also have declined in the past year as foreclosures in Nevada slid.

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