With the Melrose bid for GKN almost complete, our old friends Elliott are back in the news again, this time targeting Whitbread, where it looks like they will be pushing for Costa to be spun off. Cue lots of headlines, many of them identifying Elliott’…Read more…
GKN takeover – losing the battle, winning the war
Few things have made me as angry recently as the Melrose takeover bid for GKN. This bid was opposed by a very wide group – workers, unions, GKN customers, Labour, some Tories, the Daily Mail, most of the large long-term GKN shareholders – yet it got ov…Read more…
Melrose / GKN bid – is the hedge fund long/short trade unwinding?
As you’ll have noticed, I’ve been following the Melrose bid for GKN with interest. In particular I’ve been looking at hedge fund activity around the bid, and the short Melrose / long GKN arbitrage trade. As I’ve blogged previously, one of the key playe…Read more…
Melrose / GKN battle continues
Quite a lot of news on the Melrose bid for GKN today.
Unite, which is campaigning strongly against the bid, held a rally and series of meetings at parliament. It is pleasing to see that a lot of Labour MPs are speaking out against the bid too, and it …Read more…
Melrose / GKN bid arbitrage: like flies round…
The Melrose bid for GKN is currently subject to a lot of scrutiny, and is actively being campaigned against by Unite.
What hasn’t attracted much scrutiny so far (as far as I am aware) is the extent of speculative activity that is occurring, and as suc…Read more…
How seriously do hedge funds take the Stewardship Code?
Just stumbled on this. Try Googling “generally supports the objectives that underlie the Code” and “consistent approach”. Someone somewhere drafted this text…
“The Tories have become the political wing of the Hedge Fund Party”
This story in the Guardian is petty shocking. This email below was sent out on Tuesday by Labour General Secretary Iain McNicol.
Of course the real scandal is these Hedge funds managers are only making this money in the first place by ripping off you…Read more…
Pension funds giving up on hedge funds is just the start
One of the more inexplicable aspects of pension fund behaviour in recent years has been their tolerance for high fees, particularly in relation to alternatives. To state the obvious, high fees – especially where the manager takes a slice of your return…Read more…