Sivers Semiconductors Braces for October Vote as Short Sellers Circle

AQR discloses a net short above 0.5% of Sivers Semiconductors as the chipmaker's Oct 22 meeting weighs options, new shares and an auditor swap.

Hedge fund positioning and a looming shareholder ballot are colliding at Sivers Semiconductors, where professional money managers appear to be splitting sharply on the Swedish chipmaker's near-term prospects.

AQR Capital Management disclosed a net short position exceeding 0.5% of the company's share capital in Sweden's transparency register, according to a filing logged yesterday. Aggregate publicly tracked short interest now stands at 5.37% of capital, with some trade publications putting the figure at 5.4%. In the opposite direction, D E Shaw & Co LP trimmed its stake below the 0.5% disclosure threshold — a sign that not every institutional player is betting on a decline.

The stock traded at EUR 2.81 on the day, up 0.9%. A separate reading earlier in the session had the shares at EUR 2.85, a gain of 2.4%, with no clear corporate catalyst behind the move.

Capital Structure and Auditor Swap on the Agenda

Those shifting bets land just as Sivers convenes an extraordinary general meeting for October 22, 2026, at 16:00 in Stockholm. Shareholders will vote on a long-term employee options program covering up to 7,280,000 options — roughly 2.0% of shares and votes on a fully diluted basis. To hedge the program, the board is seeking authorization to issue new Series C shares, alongside mandates for buybacks and transfers of treasury stock.

The nomination committee is also proposing that Deloitte AB be replaced as auditor by Ernst & Young AB. Proxy voting by post is available for those unable to attend in person.

Compensation packages of this kind are a familiar tightrope in the semiconductor sector, where competition for specialized engineers and seasoned managers is fierce. The dilution question for existing holders is whether the incentive package delivers a tangible offset — a debate that will be settled by the vote count in Stockholm.

Leadership Reshuffle Underway

Management has not stood still. On September 24 the company initiated sweeping changes at the top, with Marc Pegulu taking the helm of the Wireless division as Managing Director effective September 28. Harish Krishnaswamy simultaneously moved into the Chief Strategy Officer role. The reshuffle is intended to support the transition into the next phase of commercial growth.

In Photonics, CTO Andrew McKee is set to retire at year-end. David Clark is slated to join as Vice President of Engineering for Photonics on October 31, though every handover in a key technical post carries execution risk during the onboarding period.

The buildout of the Glasgow manufacturing site, completed roughly three weeks ago, has already provided operational tailwind — the stock is up 7.2% since then.

Chart Levels and the Road to October 22

For chart watchers, the 200-day moving average around EUR 2.82 is the line in the sand. Holding that level would keep the recent technical posture intact; a break below it on sustained selling from short positions would point to a deeper correction.

The October 22 meeting is the next hard milestone. Approval of the capital measures and the auditor change would give the leadership team a predictable framework for its strategy. David Clark's start in Photonics follows on October 31. Until those dates, the short-interest register is likely to be the dominant driver of sentiment.