Hedge fund jumps in with Avoro ac­tivists in an at­tempt to de­rail Mer­ck­'s $11B Ac­celeron buy­out

Avoro Cap­i­tal, which made its bones blow­ing up the Seagen-Im­munomedics deal and then sell­ing the small­er biotech for $21 bil­lion, is get­ting an as­sist in its quest to de­rail Mer­ck’s $11 bil­lion buy­out of Ac­celeron $XL­RN.

Wednes­day morn­ing one of Ac­celeron’s biggest in­vestors joined the op­po­si­tion. Dar­win Glob­al Man­age­ment, a hedge fund which owns about 4% of Ac­celeron, blast­ed the Mer­ck deal, say­ing the Big Phar­ma is get­ting the com­pa­ny for bil­lions less than what it’s worth. Ear­li­er, Holocene Ad­vis­ers, re­port­ed­ly a top-20 in­vestor in Ac­celeron, said it would not ten­der its stock af­ter crit­i­ciz­ing the $180-per-share deal.

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