Wall Street Journal – If you thought the collapse of one of the biggest leveraged buyouts in history would be devastating for merger-arbitrage hedge funds, you’d be right. But pure merger arbitragers weren’t the only hedge funds hurt.
The $41 billion buyout of Canadian telephone company BCE Inc. (BCE) has been officially nixed, sending the stock down to its lowest levels in six years. Even investors who don’t typically play merger deals have gotten hurt.
That’s because starting in mid-September, the spread between the deal price and BCE’s share price had widened considerably, thanks to what turned out to be legitimate