Goldman sold US$10.5 billion of stocks in block trades, hitting Baidu, Tencent Music, iQiyi and US media amid ‘forced deleveraging’ by mystery fund
- Goldman sold stakes in Baidu, Tencent Music, Vipshop, as well as shares in ViacomCBS, Discovery, Farfetch, iQiyi and GSX Techedu, according to email
- Media reports linked forced sales by banks with ties to Archegos Capital Management controlled by Bill Hwang, former Julian Robertson protégé
More of the unregistered stock offerings were said to be managed by Morgan Stanley, according to people familiar with the matter, on behalf of one or more undisclosed shareholders. Some of the trades exceeded US$1 billion in individual companies, calculations based on Bloomberg data show.
The Financial Times reported that Morgan Stanley sold US$4 billion worth of shares earlier in the day, followed by another US$4 billion in the afternoon, Reuters reported, citing the Financial Times. Goldman Sachs told counterparties that the sales were prompted by a “forced deleveraging,” the UK newspaper added, citing people with knowledge of the matter.
“This was highly unusual,” said Oliver Pursche, a senior vice-president at Wealthspire Advisors, which manages US$12 billion in assets. “The question now is: Are they done? Is this over? Or come Monday and Tuesday, are markets are going to be hit by another wave of block trades?”
