Millionaire hedge fund bosses Sir Paul Marshall and Ian Wace make £50m on coronavirus crash
Millionaire hedge fund bosses Sir Paul Marshall and Ian Wace have made more than £50million from the collapse of leisure stocks as the coronavirus outbreak grips London markets.
Their Knightsbridge-based firm Marshall Wace placed huge bets on falling share prices, its disclosures reveal.
It holds half the declared short-selling contracts in travel firm Tui and the entire short position in hotel group Intercontinental, which have been hit by travel bans.
Among dozens of other bets, it has also targeted beleaguered Cineworld, which last week warned it would struggle to pay debts if its cinemas closed.
Ian Wace and his wife Saffron Aldridge at a Night of Disco in aid of Save The Children held at The Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, London on 5th March 2015
So-called short-selling contracts are used by hedge funds to make money from falling share prices. Marshall Wace also invests in shares in the traditional way, profiting when they rise.
Data firm IHS Markit says short positions account for almost £17billion of stock issued by Britain’s biggest 350 listed companies, which means hedge fund profits from falling share prices could run into billions.
Other firms profiting include GLG, owned by Man Group, BlackRock and Odey Asset Management, whose owner Crispin Odey warned in The Mail on Sunday that the FTSE 100 could hit 5,000.
At the time the index stood at 6,581. It closed last week at 5,366, its lowest level since 2011.
Curbs on short-selling were imposed on Italian and Spanish stocks on Friday.
Marshall, whose son Winston is in rock band Mumford & Sons, was a prominent donor to the campaign to leave the EU.
Wace donated to the Remain campaign. Marshall Wace declared profits of £258million last year, prompting a bumper payout for its 17 partners.