Alexander Knaster’s Pamplona Capital Commits $594M to Mac Gray-CSC Fenway Merger

Pamplona Capital, Mac-Gray: Alexander Knaster’s Pamplona Capital Management just disclosed a 17.7% stake in Mac-Gray Corporation (NYSE:TUC), a laundry facilities company. Knaster and Pamplona are among the wealthiest hedge fund managers in the UK (No. 2, actually), and their position in Mac-Gray is activist in nature.

The move is in relation to CSC ServiceWorks’ recently announced acquisition of Mac-Gray, in which it plans on merging the smaller company with one of its subsidiaries, CSC Fenway. Mac-Gray is the controlling shareholder of CSC after it bought Coinmach Services and AIR-serv Group for $1.4 billion earlier this year.

In a separate letter attached to today’s filing, Pamplona says it “commits to purchase equity securities of or to make loans to Holdings for an aggregate purchase price of, but not exceeding in any event, $594 million,” $70 million more than CSC’s bid for Mac-Gray.

Much of the discount in Mac-Gray shares has already evaporated for merger arbitrage players, however; the stock is up almost 42% since October 15th.

Disclosure: none

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