Forbes – Billionaire John Paulson, who initially made his fortune betting against subprime mortgage bonds, has been one of the most aggressive hedge fund managers to bet on stocks that would benefit from the tax-driven inversion deal wave that has swept corporate America this year. Now, one of Paulson’s big inversion bets appears to be in trouble as the U.S. government moves to discourage such tax inversion deals in which U.S. companies attempt to lower their tax rates by redomiciling offshore.
Paulson’s hedge funds are the second-biggest shareholders of Irish drugmaker Shire , which has a $51 billion deal to be purchased by AbbVie ABBV -3.17%, an Illinois-based company. If completed, AbbVie would redomicile in the U.K. in what would be the biggest inversion deal ever done. But AbbVie is now saying it is rethinking doing this deal after the U.S. Treasury Department adopted new tax regulations that make inversions less attractive to U.S. companies. AbbVie’s board of directors could decide to recommend shareholders scrap the deal when it meets next week.
