Timing...
Looking over today's coverage of the Provident Financial fiasco on the front pages of the UK business sections I was reminded of a piece written by my esteemed former boss - Richard, the "Fletch", Fletcher - in The Daily Telegraph six years ago.
Back then several hedge funds, such as Odey and Fortelus, had taken short positions in Provident Financial (almost 18pc of the company's shares were on loan in 2011) following their own in depth research into the company's frailties.
And the brilliant Fletch, now business editor at The Times, spotted this and wrote a column about how how those shorts been burned following Provident Financial's significant share price gains. Here is the link:
His sign off - "timing is everything" - must be particularly irritating for those hedge funds that were short back in 2011 but aren't now...
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