Funky Foxby Flows
FXBY certainly demoed why the Winmill shop has its own unique brand. There really is no other cef asset manager that runs even remotely like it. Winmill certainly is one of the great money managers in the biz as its buy of the Foxby contract was one of the sharper plays. It bought the contract for a song and has been cashing a beefy fee stream all these many years.
It looks like someone stuck in the cef finally gave up on the name with the suddenly hot stock market and dumped shares at a 45% discount. That may or may not have been a smart move given everything but it did snag the bottom on the stock at $11/sh even as the VWAP for the day was a lot higher @ $11.89. Presumably there will be some bargain hunters next week who will like the uber deep discount and may be able to play it for at least a modest bounce. Long term holding may be more problematical though but there's always the chance that the manager may decide to cash the value of the contract and that might require giving cefvestors a little something.
Also, I understand Winmill did have to pay a little greenmail once so its not been all gravy for the shop since it got the contract.