‘The vulture of Argentina’ has spent €260 million buying up EDP shares after the US Capital Group bailed out last week, selling its remaining holding.
The Elliott Management Corporation is controlled by Paul Singer, a billionaire hedge fund manager who now controls 2.2925% of EDP's capital, according to the company’s statement to the stock market regulator.
"On 16 October 2018, Paul Elliott Singer informed EDP that he holds a qualifying holding, pursuant to article 20 of the Portuguese Securities Code, comprising 83,827,873 shares, representing 2.2925% of EDP's share capital and respective voting rights," read the market statement issued by EDP.
The shares are held by Elliot International, L.P.(1.7077%) and Elliot Associates, L.P. (0.5848), both entries being incorrectly spelt on the EDP statement, as is the businessman’s name.
Singer has bought into EDP at below the price offered for a controlling interest by China's Three Gorges (€3.26). Taking into account the Tuesday closing price (€3.111), Singer has spent around €260 million.
Singer, a US citizen, became known as the Vulture of Argentina for being among the investors who pressured the country to pay its debts. Singer refused to participate in Argentina’s habitual debt restructuring actions and later tried to confiscate state assets. Almost ten years later, the US Supreme Court forced Argentina to pay the $1.5 billion it owed.
In the summer of 2014, Elliot bet on a fall in Portugal Telecom shares, after the company announcing an unauthorised €900 million loan to Rioforte, which later defaulted.
According to Fortune Singer focused from early times "on distressed assets," buying up bankrupt firms' debt and acquiring "a reputation for strong-arming his way to profit."
