Hedge fund Luxor Capital has made a last-ditch attempt to prevent the merger of auctioneer Ritchie Bros (RBA) with rival IAA Inc, by urging shareholders to oppose the proposed deal ahead of today’s special meeting of RBA shareholders. Despite the proxy deadline having passed, Luxor has highlighted that shareholders can still revoke their proxies cast in favour of the IAA Merger.  In statement, Doug Snyder, President of Luxor which holds a 4.2% stake in the business, said: “We call on all shareholders who voted in favour of this deal to heed the warnings of Ritchie Bros’s co-founder and former president

Brevan Howard Asset Management is continuing its push into the digital assets space with the acquisition of a long-short hedge fund run by crypto investment firm Dragonfly Capital, according to a report by Bloomberg.

Palliser Capital, a London-based activist hedge fund founded by former Elliot Management exec James Smith, is agitating for a boardroom shake-up at Pendragon, the group behind the Evans Halshaw, Stratstone and CarStore car dealership brands, according to a report by the Daily Telegraph.

A recent Form 13F filing made with the US Securities & Exchange Commission has revealed the Neuberger Berman Group reduced its stake in Blackstone Inc by 12.1% to 4,625,456 shares in the third quarter after selling 634,353 shares during the period, according to a report by MarketBeat. Other hedge funds meanwhile have recently bought shares of the company, according to regulatory filings, including Valley National Advisers Inc, which increased its position in shares of Blackstone by 1.5% during the third quarter, and now owns 20,043 shares of the asset manager’s stock worth $1,806,000 after purchasing an additional 302 shares in

Polpo Capital Management, a New York hedge fund founded by Daniel McNamara, is betting against the US commercial property market, having notched up a 119% gain with a short debt linked to US shopping malls, according to a report by Bloomberg. In an interview with Bloomberg, McNamara said that he believes that in the post-Covid world, a large number of older offices will fail to find favour with workers, making them less attractive to occupiers and triggering a wave of defaults. And McNamara isn’t alone in believing that there is trouble ahead for less desireable workplaces, with Marathon Asset Management

A client note issued by JP Morgan on Thursday has warned that the current hedge fund appetite for European equities may wane on the back of continued rising interest rates and further bond market troubles, according to a report by Reuters.  JP Morgan’s view is that European share prices may have been supported since November by hedge funds covering their short positions, essentially bets that an asset price will weaken, while highlighting that there has been less buying of UK equities. The note identified equity, multi-strategy, and computer-led and trend-trading hedge funds as those involved in covering short positions and

Goldman Sachs’ latest prime services weekly report shows that the gross exposure of hedge funds – the combined sum of their long and short positions – hit its highest level in a year last week, indicating that they are increasingly using leverage in their stock market wagers, according to a report by Reuters. Gross exposure reached 241% of assets for the week ending 2 March, an increase of 2.5 percentage points. Net exposure though, the value of long bets minus short bets, is currently close to a year-long low of 66%, according to the report, showing that managers have little