Sunday 29 July 2018

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 list. One point of interest is that alongside their derivative positions, some of these funds also have very small holdings in Sky shares. I wonder why this is - maybe to give them some legal rights, or so they can legitimately call themselves "shareholders"? If anyone has any thoughts let me know.

Anyhow, here's why I can see from section 8.3 disclosures -

Elliott Capital Advisors - 4.31% derivatives, 0.0044% shares

Davidson Kempner - 3.07% derivatives, 0.00006% shares

Farallon Capital - 2.3% derivatives, no shares

Canyon Capital - 1.9% derivatives, no shares

UBS O' Connor - 1.3% derivatives, no shares

Pentwater Capital - 0.99% derivatives, 1 (one) share

So that's 13.8% in derivatives in total across these six funds - up from 12.5% accounted for by the same group of funds at the start of the month, though Pentwater has almost cut its position in half.

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