Inelegant Investor is a collection of real-world investing observations, focused on the edge cases that don’t show up in textbooks — restructurings, CVRs, spinoffs, and the strange outcomes that accumulate in actual portfolios. And whatever else interests me about investing. Investing isn't always pretty, it's usually quite inelegant.
Recent Series: The Portfolio Graveyard
Arbutus Biopharma ($ABUS) completed its $230 million Dutch-auction tender at $5.00 per share, the bottom of its $5.00-to-$5.75 range. The offer was heavily oversubscribed. Ordinary shareholders who tendered at or below the clearing price had only about 55.6% of their shares accepted. Qualifying odd-lot holders were exempt from proration and had all of their properly tendered shares purchased.… Read More »
There may be no more dangerous sentence in investing than “this time is different.” Seritage Growth Properties (NYSE: SRG) deserves that skepticism more than most. Seritage has looked cheap for years. In 2022, when shareholders approved a plan to sell the company’s assets and liquidate, management estimated eventual shareholder distributions of $18.50 to $29 per share. Almost four… Read More »
Medtronic’s final separation from MiniMed has created another odd-lot situation worth watching. Medtronic plc (NYSE: MDT) is offering shareholders the chance to exchange MDT shares for shares of MiniMed Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: MMED). The offer is designed to deliver approximately $107.53 of MiniMed stock for each $100 of Medtronic stock accepted, subject to a maximum exchange ratio of… Read More »
We now have the first real test of our Computer Modelling Group odd-lot trade, and the preliminary result is almost as favorable as it could have been. Computer Modelling Group Ltd. (TSX: CMG) says its substantial issuer bid expired September 21 with a preliminary purchase price of C$4.50 per share, the very top of its C$4.00 to C$4.50… Read More »
Another odd-lot tender has appeared. This one has excellent mechanics and rather less exciting math. Utah Medical Products, Inc. (NASDAQ: UTMD) announced that it intends to repurchase up to 650,000 shares at $75 per share, representing roughly 20% of the company’s outstanding stock. If the offer is oversubscribed, shareholders owning fewer than 100 shares who tender all of… Read More »
Another odd-lot tender has appeared, and this one gets interesting almost immediately. Computer Modelling Group Ltd. (TSX: CMG) is offering to repurchase up to C$20 million of its own shares through a modified Dutch auction. The tender range is C$4.00 to C$4.50 per share, while CMG closed Friday, September 11 at C$3.80. Even better for our purposes, shareholders… Read More »
We recently wrote about odd-lot tenders for fun and profit: those peculiar corporate actions where owning 99 shares can sometimes put you ahead of investors who own 100, 1,000 or a million. The obvious next question is whether there are any actual opportunities to try it on. As of September 10, 2026, there are three live publicly traded… Read More »
There are not many situations in investing where owning 99 shares is demonstrably smarter than owning 100. Odd-lot tender offers are one of them. Every so often, a company decides to repurchase a large block of its own stock through a tender offer. If too many shareholders want to sell, everybody is normally prorated. But some offers contain… Read More »
You finally found a bank willing to provide a Medallion Signature Guarantee. You have the transfer paperwork, identification and account statements, and the person at the branch even knows what a Medallion stamp is. Then someone asks how much the securities are worth. That is not idle curiosity. Every Medallion Signature Guarantee has a financial limit, and a… Read More »
When a company announces plans to buy back 10%, 15% or even more of its outstanding stock through a modified Dutch auction, investors should pay attention. That does not mean they should buy the stock. A large self-tender is one of the more consequential capital-allocation decisions a public company can make. Unlike an ordinary open-market repurchase authorization, which… Read More »