GDL Fund

Mario Gabelli, Chairman and Chief Investment Officer of GAMCO Investors, makes all final investment decisions for the GDL Fund. Gabelli has managed the fund since its 2006 inception and is supported by GAMCO's broader research team, which provides fundamental analysis across the sectors relevant to the fund's merger arbitrage and event-driven mandates.

The fund primarily invests in publicly announced mergers, acquisitions, and corporate reorganizations, so deal flow is effectively sourced from the public record. Gabelli's team screens global M&A announcements and uses GAMCO's in-house research to assess the probability of closing and the adequacy of the offered consideration, often concentrating on deals where the market is pricing in a higher risk of failure than their analysis warrants.

The GDL Fund is a closed-end investment company managed by GAMCO Investors, a publicly traded asset manager founded by Mario Gabelli. It is not a family office. Its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GDL, and it accepts capital from any institutional or retail investor who purchases shares on the open market.

The fund primarily engages in merger arbitrage, purchasing securities of companies involved in announced acquisitions, tender offers, or other corporate events. It also invests in event-driven credit situations, including high-yield and convertible bonds of firms undergoing restructurings. The fund can use leverage to enhance returns on these typically narrow spreads.

The GDL Fund invests directly in the equity and debt securities of companies undergoing merger or corporate events. It does not function as a fund-of-funds and does not commit capital to external private equity or hedge fund vehicles. All its holdings are in publicly tradable instruments.

As a closed-end fund, GDL has a permanently fixed share count. This prevents the forced selling that open-end merger arbitrage funds face during market dislocations when investors redeem. Gabelli can hold positions through deal uncertainty and even add to them when spreads widen, a flexibility that open-end peers cannot replicate without risking a liquidity mismatch.

The fund is authorized to employ leverage to amplify returns on merger spreads. It typically uses bank borrowings or preferred stock issuance to increase the size of its arbitrage positions relative to its net asset value, which can magnify both gains and losses depending on the success of the underlying deals.