Insider trading - last resort

I say last resort because I have asked my old compliance team as well as a friend who is a lawyer. My question is: am I clear to trade in the stock of a former client’s target?

For background: I worked in an industry coverage team for a US BB in London until March 2024. At this stage I left IB and now work for a start up in an unrelated sector. In my final months in IB I was part of a team advising a client on a long, drawn out process where they submitted a number of bids for a listed target. For a few reasons the deal fell apart.

I would now like to invest in that target. The business has strong fundamentals, is deeply undervalued relatives to peers on most metrics, and there is a (decent) chance the original bidder returns at some point.

I don’t believe I have any MNPI and presumably if I did it is now presumably ‘stale’. My old compliance team were not able (or willing) to advise me one way or the other and my lawyer friend is not clear on it either.

And so I come to you in a moment of need - can I invest?

6 Comments
 
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I guess the question is whether it’s worth going to prison or getting struck off the FCA list for bad conduct for? Compliance and specifically insider trading is no joke - I’m sure your former BB bank compliance training would’ve told you that. Not something worth toeing the line for.
 

How much were you realistically going to invest and then make from it? 20k? 50k? 100k? 
 

Doesn’t seem worth going to prison or not being able to work in the finance industry for if you ask me 

 

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