Billionaire John Malone added about $353 million to his wealth Wednesday after Discovery Inc.’s class B shares soared in the aftermath of the stock selloff by Archegos Capital Management.
Discovery’s A shares were among the major positions liquidated by family office Archegos on Friday, causing the media company’s stock to drop 27%. The firm’s lightly traded B shares, almost all of which are owned by Malone, typically mirror the A-share price but have since diverged. They climbed 83% on Wednesday and closed at $128 a share in New York.
The jump in price was possibly the result of an “arb squeeze,” in which arbitrage traders turned to B shares after being unable to borrow against A shares, according to Dennis Dick, head of markets structure at Bright Trading.
“Just because the share classes are fundamentally linked, that doesn’t necessarily mean they will trade alike,” Dick said.
Malone, 80, is chairman of telecommunications firm Liberty Global Plc and is the largest private landowner in the U.S. with more than 2 million acres. He has a net worth of $9.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
He owns about 94% of Discovery B shares, based on the company’s 2020 proxy statement. The stake was worth about $427 million as of Tuesday’s close.
