Aktiva buys Yaco: A case study of market manipulation with options

On September 6, 2008, Aktiva Corporation (“Aktiva”) announced that it would make a tender offer to acquire 100% of the shares of Yaco Inc (“Yaco”). The bid price offered was $330 per share of Yaco. Both Aktiva and Yako were medium-size, publicly-traded companies, operating in the services sector.The announcement was made after Aktiva had bought a 24.1 percent stake in the firm in the open market. Additionally, both before and after the announcement, Aktiva bought call options representing an additional 26.12 percent of the equity of Yaco. The options had times to maturity varying between 229 and 558 days, and with exercise prices (“strikes”) ranging between $300 and $390. In three cases, the options were bull spreads (a combined position of a long call and a short call with different strikes). Except for the bull spreads, all options were American.