A couple of years ago, I got into the guts of the Melrose Industries hostile takeover of GKN. This deal squeaked through, despite it being opposed by GKN employees.
The bit of it that particularly interested me was the role of hedge funds doing the mer…Read more…
How seriously do hedge funds voting disclosure?
Not seriously, I would argue. The principle that investors should disclose their voting records is pretty well established now, but we still get this cut & paste stuff justify not doing so.
Turnout tales
If recent events tell us anything, it’s that voting matters… With that in mind this is a quick post on something that caught my eye this year: sharp changes in voting turnout at a number of companies. Some of the more striking examples have been at c…Read more…
Outsourcing hell – continued
If anyone were in anyone doubt that the outsourcing sector is in big trouble, Friday saw Interserve’s precarious position finally resolved. The major shareholder – US hedge fund Coltrane Asset Management – voted against the proposed debt-for-equity swa…Read more…
Interserve & hedge funds
The ongoing battle at Interserve is grimly fascinating. The company’s biggest shareholder is hedge fund Coltrane Asset Management which is trying to scupper the board’s plans for a debt-for-equity swap. This would (obviously) be bad news for existing s…Read more…
Stock-lending and shorting, again
I’ve been thinking a bit more about the potential conflicts of interest around stock-lending and shorting in light of the RD:IR paper I blogged about a couple of weeks back. It suggested that passive managers are in part able to offer lower fees becaus…Read more…
More short stuff
Again, huge caveat that the data in these charts is only 0.5%+ short positions, but some interesting stuff I think. At the end of play yesterday the FCA had disclosed 581 current short positions of 0.5% and above in UK shares. So I looked at which firm…Read more…
More hedge fund cut ‘n’ paste fun
I had some fun last year exposing the boilerplate blah that many hedge funds (and a few bigger firms) were using to “explain” their non-compliance with the Stewardship Code. Many thanks to Responsible Investor for recently giving this a plug.
Anyway, …Read more…
Stewardship Code duplication
Last year I blogged about the duplicate text that lots of hedge funds were using to “explain” their non-compliance with the Stewardship Code. It’s still out there, and on a recent trawl I managed to find more examples of funds using the same blurb. But…Read more…
Shire takeover & derivatives
So the takeover of Shire PLC by Takeda Pharma has been completed. I thought I’d have a quick look for merger arbitrage plays in the filings.
A few familiar names in the list below. Most of these investors are listed as having an interest (presumably s…Read more…
Cut and paste hedge fund reporting, again
Back from holidays, so had a quick Google to see if I could find any of that pro forma stewardship reporting that I had been tracking. And, yes, there is more:
Altavista Capital:
Altavista Investment Management UK LLP manages or advises a number of f…Read more…
Hedge funds and Sky
I thought I’d have another quick look at hedge fund activity around the bidding war for Sky PLC. This looks like it could be quite a profitable trade (especially after several got burnt on Qualcomm / NXP).
As before, some old favourites are in the lis…Read more…
Just one more thing about hedge funds…
In the middle of the Melrose bid for GKN there was a point when the merger arb activity seemed to be falling back. Specifically, the total shorts in Melrose in the FCA’s list started dropping (having been building up steadily up till that point). And o…Read more…
NEX Group takeover & derivatives
Another takeover, another example of hedge funds piling in using derivatives. In this case its NEX Group, which is being taken over by US-listed CME Group. It’s not hostile so it went to a vote and got a strong thumbs up.
I find this one interesting a…Read more…
More hedge fund shenanigans
1. I had a quick Google to see if there are any more funds that use the generic blurb I’ve found in dozens of cases to avoid compliance with the Stewardship Code. And… yes there are.
Curam Capital Management:
Curam Capital Management LLP (the “Firm…Read more…
Another snippet on Inmarsat takeover and hedge funds
Just to keep this updated, there are a lot of regulatory disclosures being fired out by Inmarsat now. So I’m just keeping track of the hedge fund related ones.
Marshall Wace, which is very active on the short side in the UK, now has a 2.38% long posit…Read more…
Inmarsat: in come the hedge funds
At the back end of last week the UK-listed telecoms business Inmarsat revealed that it has been approached by US-listed Echostar Corporation about a potential takeover, which it knocked back.
As a result of the offer, a different regulatory disclosure…Read more…
Derivatives, influence, tax, policy etc
One of the things that was left hanging after the Melrose/GKN bid was the nature of the relationship between hedge funds and similar investors and their counter parties, and how this plays out during bid situations.
When I watched Greg Clark defending…Read more…
Unite calls for tougher takeover laws as GKN bid gets government go-ahead
Unite calls for tougher takeover laws as GKN bid gets government go-ahead24 April 2018The whims of short-term speculators and hedge funds will ‘drive a coach and horses’ through the UK’s industrial strategy unless the government toughens up the UK’s ta…Read more…
Merger arbitrage in practice: Sand Grove Capital
Given the renewed interest in financial market activity around mergers and acquisitions, I thought it might be interesting to have a look at the regulatory disclosures for one of the funds that has caught my eye lately.
I hadn’t heard of Sand Grove Ca…Read more…