Luxor Capital issues response to Ritchie Bros.’s ‘deceptive claims’

Luxor Capital Group, as the manager of funds owning 4.7 million shares of Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers Incorporated (RBA), representing approximately 4.2% of the company’s outstanding shares, announced that it has released a supplemental presentation addressing various "false and misleading statements," and mischaracterizations made by the company in its recent investor presentation attempting to justify the proposed merger with IAA, Inc. (IAA). The letter says in part: "Luxor has exposed a systematic pattern of manipulation and misstatements, using management’s own words to demonstrate the Board’s complete failure to protect shareholder interests. Said more plainly, we believe that Ritchie Bros. is seeking to deceive shareholders into supporting management’s value-destructive empire-building ambitions. We believe that either the Board woefully misunderstands Ritchie Bros.’s business or is willfully misrepresenting it… Luxor is not short IAA, nor does it have any agreements, contracts, or other means of expressing that position. Luxor has stated this ‘on the record’ multiple times. Fir Tree has confirmed to Luxor that Fir Tree does not have, and never has had, a short position in IAA. Repeating a lie does not make it true, no matter how many times RBA and its surrogates do so. Luxor believes RBA is worth far more on a standalone basis than in the proposed IAA Merger."