Melqart Event Driven UCITS Fund

Melqart Asset Management was founded in 2015 by CIO Michel Massoud and currently manages $1.9bn. The newly launched UCITS fund combines the M&A and Special Situations strategies implemented by Melqart in their offshore fund though is run at a lower level of leverage and excludes the credit holdings. The strategy utilises the full breadth of the fundamental research delivered by Melqart’s 9-member investment team whilst leveraging extensive external resources and connections to supplement their analysis such as antitrust lawyers, consultants, special news providers, expert networks etc. The portfolio is managed by the firm’s founder, Michel Massoud, in conjunction with two other partners, Joseph Gebran and Can Ozdemir. The process is bottom up in nature starting with the fundamental analysis of each underlying asset alongside a legal analysis of the deal and its structuring. The strategy is based predominantly on Merger Arbitrage opportunities (c. 70% of risk) while the remainder is allocated to the Special Situations strategy, targeting a complimentary return stream. The merger arbitrage book focus on hard catalyst equity events, typically announced takeovers or merger deals with a holding period of 3-6 months. The special sits book consists of softer catalysts such as post-M&A re-rating, spin-offs, break-ups, restructurings, asset disposals, etc and are held for longer (c 12  months). The team will actively trade around positions once in the book and retain dry powder for flexibility. Further they have a disciplined profit taking and exit strategy based on target prices and/or realization of catalysts. The universe of approximately 150 investment ideas is constantly screened, with 60-80 investments actively researched, and the portfolio consists of around 50-60 core positions.