Max Abelson Weighs In On Phil Falcone's Departure From Harbinger Group

In a surprise move today, Phil Falcone announced that he will be resigning as Harbinger Group Inc HRG’s Chairman and CEO to focus on his hedge fund. The move is surprising not because Falcone is resigning, but why he is doing it now? When he didn’t do it last year after he and Harbinger admitted of having committed securities fraud to the SEC.

Bloomberg’s Max Abelson was recently seen discussing Falcone’s departure and what it means for him and the company.

“I am surprised that the shoe fell so far,” Abelson said. “Phil Falcone is in a very small world of incredibly powerful hedge fund managers and now he is stepping down from one thing that we thought he had left because after all don’t forget being barred from managing other people’s money that we thought heading this publicly traded company was sort of one of the interesting things he had going on in his life.”

“Lightsquared is still up in the air I believe. It’s still in bankruptcy, I think he is fighting with another billionaire Charlie Ergen and we don’t know and we don’t know where that’s leading to […] I think it’s fair to ask what’s going on, I mean listen first of all we have to be fair and trajectories are the same way trajectories go, up and then down, there are also rebounds […]”

Abelson thinks that might be this is just a hard time Falcone is facing and it will soon pass. However, he highlighted that it’s not only Falcone, but various other successful hedge-fund managers are also facing hard times this year.