Mr. Pandya says the fund has 30 to 40 merger arbitrage holdings at one time with an average holding period of three to five months.Globe Advisor spoke with Mr. Pandya recently about how merger arbitrage works and the role it can play in investment portfolios.Merger arbitrage is an investment strategy in which you seek to profit from completed mergers and acquisitions. You’re trying to capture the spread from when a merger deal is announced until it’s ultimately completed.
It’s also tax efficient as the returns are taxed as capital gains, not interest income. Historically, it has also exhibited a positive correlation with interest rates; the returns increase as rates increase. So, it’s an effective interest rate hedge, which is particularly interesting in this environment we’re in right now, in which interest rates have been rising.There are timing and deal risks. Timing risk is associated with how complex a deal is and how many regulatory approvals are required.
A growing number of Canadians have been blindsided by unexpected tax bills, penalties, or worse from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service since an information-sharing agreement between the two countries was implemented almost a decade ago. The tax treaty attempts to determine which side of the border Canadians fall on for tax purposes through a complicated “substantial presence” formula put forward for the IRS. If snowbirds spend more than 182 days in the U.S.