NEW YORK, July 28 (Reuters) - Two hedge funds have placed bets that bonds issued by life insurance company Lincoln National Corp (LNC.N) will fall or that its default risk will increase, due to their concerns about the company's commercial real estate (CRE) exposure.
Lincoln declined to provide comments on the hedge funds' positions and referred to previous remarks by its management.
Fitch Ratings' senior director Jamie Tucker said in an email to Reuters the agency considers Lincoln's CRE exposure modestly below-average compared with the industry, while the quality is materially stronger.
In April, Boaz Weinstein, founder of New York-based Saba, said in a post the firm was holding some of Lincoln's credit default swap (CDS), and had already sold some of it.
loadingLincoln's CDS spread, a measure of credit risk, is 238 basis points, compared with 323 when Saba disclosed the position, meaning the perceived risk has declined.
Persons:
Ellen Cooper, David Meneret, Lincoln, Fitch, Moody's, Jamie Tucker, Boaz Weinstein, Saba, Tracy Benguigui, Carolina Mandl, Megan Davies, Anna Driver
Organizations:
YORK, Lincoln National Corp, Saba Capital, Moody's, Reuters, New, CDS, Partners, Citizens Inc, Barclays, LNC, Thomson
Locations:
CRE, Hill, Lincoln, Saba, New York