Carillion's Slump Yields a Windfall for Marshall Wace, BlackRock
A worker uses a mobile phone outside the gates of a construction site for new apartment blocks built by Carillion Plc in the Canning Town district of London, U.K., on Friday, July 25, 2014. Balfour Beatty, the U.K. construction company whose chief quit in May after predicting a profit drop, is in merger talks with rival Carillion to form the country's biggest builder with a market valuation of about 3 billion pounds ($5 billion).
Photographer: Simon Dawson/BloombergShort sellers betting on a slump in the shares of Carillion Plc are in line for bumper profits after concerns of writedowns and speculation about a possible forced share sale wiped out more than half of the British construction company’s market value.
Marshall Wace LLP, BlackRock Investment Management and Naya Capital Management are among at least 19 money managers betting against Carillion shares, the most for any British company, according to data based on disclosures with the U.K.’s market regulator. Their combined short interest, a bet aimed at profiting from the drop in a company’s shares, stands at $278 million. A Carillion spokesman declined to comment.