The allure of betting on mergers

rarely happen without big personalities. If Elon Musk were an uninteresting tycoon with a low public profile and a puritanical approach to promises, then shares in Twitter, a social-media platform, would be trading within a whisker of his $54.20 per share offer. The difference, or “spread”, between this offer and Twitter’s current trading price, of below $40, is a reminder that he is not. The wider the spread, the lower the chance investors assign to a deal completing. To Mr Musk and Twitter’s management, the spread is a live opinion poll in a fractious situation. But to a group of specialised hedge-fund managers, it is their bread and butter.