Hedge Funds Now Tracking Private Jets To Try And Anticipate M&A Deals

If there was one legal clue telegraphing Occidental Chemical's recent investment by Warren Buffett before it happened, it was that an Occidental owned private jet had been spotted at the Omaha airport. That’s why, according to Bloomberg Businessweek, more hedge funds are now tracking private jets and flight data for information on potential coming merger and acquisition deals.

The reason is simple: there’s always a data trail left behind when private jets move around the country. And this is just one new piece of "alternative data" that hedge funds are watching to try and gain additional insight into corporate news. There has been evidence that it works, too. A 2018 paper from researchers at the University of Oxford and Switzerland’s Federal Science and Technology department tracked aircraft from 36 public companies and identified 7 instances of potential M&A activity.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-02/hedge-funds-now-tracking-private-jets-try-and-anticipate-ma-deals