Out of Illumina and More Motorola Mobility

Sometimes, merger arb plays don’t work in your favor. I folded my position in Illumina (Ticker: ILMN) today at $40.59 generating a net loss of 22.26% (including income from the covered calls). Roche basically walked away after Illumina refused to negotiate. Fortunately, I was aware of the risk and this was a relatively small position. I learned after my experience last year with Big Lots (Ticker: BIG) and Gen-Probe (Ticker: GPRO) not to go big in these special situation plays.

Motorola Mobility (Ticker: MMI) continues to look attractive here and I’ve been adding to my position. I believe there’s a good chance that MOFCOM will give their approval prior to May. We’ll see…