Energy
Hedge Fund Investor Dumps Most Of Elon Musk’s SolarCity Stock
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One of SolarCity’s largest investors dumped most of the beleaguered solar panel maker’s stocks at the end of the second quarter, company reports show.
The hedge fund Gilder Gagnon Howe & Co. owned 24 percent, or 832,139 shares, of SolarCity at the end of the first quarter of 2016, but that was before they sold off all but 43,840 shares of SolarCity stock at the end of June.
While dumping its SolarCity stock, the hedge fund increased its share of electric car maker Tesla Motors 24 percent to 808,661 shares. Tesla is was founded by Musk, who also serves as the company’s CEO.
Gilder’s decision to ratchet down its SolarCity stock down to nearly nothing comes on the heels of the company’s merger with Tesla Motors, both of which are headed by techno-maestro Elon Musk.The merger gained renewed controversy after analysts pointed out that six of seven of the SolarCity’s board are directly connected to Musk and his kin.
CtW Investor Group, which owns about 200,000 shares of Tesla, said the market’s “hostile reaction” to the SolarCity deal was induced, in part, by the group’s recognition that Donald Kendall, chief executive of investment management firm Kenmont, is the only person on the SolarCity board without deep-rooted ties to Musk.
“This is particularly questionable when six out of our seven board members have ties to SolarCity,” a CtW letter to Tesla noted. “This raises a serious question about whose interests the board is serving — the stockholders of Tesla or the stockholders of SolarCity.”
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