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- Investors in the SPAC that merged with Trump Media reportedly sold their stakes on the news.
- "For us, this was not a close call," Boaz Weinstein, of Saba Capital Management, told Bloomberg.
- Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp. climbed 357% on Thursday and 107% on Friday.
As news hit that former President Donald Trump's new media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, would go public via a SPAC, at least two investors pulled their money, reports said.
"I knew that for Saba the right thing was to sell our entire stake of unrestricted shares, which we have now done," Boaz Weinstein, founder of Saba Capital Management, told Reuters.
Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp., a SPAC, or special acquisition company, soared last week as it merged with Trump's new company. Saba sold in the market's "first hours" on Thursday, netting a small profit, The New York Times reported.
Richard Brian/Reuters
Digital World shares jumped on Thursday to $45.40 apiece, a one-day gain of 357%. On Friday, the stock continued its march upward, touching $175 per share, a 285% gain, in midday trading before slipping back down. The stock ended the day at $94.20 per share, a 107% gain.
Reuters reported that Lighthouse Investment Partners also pulled its investment. In a statement sent to Reuters on Friday, the investment firm said: "Lighthouse was not aware of the pending merger and no longer holds unrestricted shares of the SPAC."
Saba had a 9.3% stake in the SPAC, while Lighthouse had a 11.2% stake, CNBC reported, citing documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in September.
In a statement emailed to Bloomberg, Weinstein said, "Many investors are grappling with hard questions about how to incorporate their values into their work. For us, this was not a close call."