ARCFX
WATER ISLAND CREDIT OPPORTUNITIES FUND
ARBITRAGE FUNDS
Expense ratio1
1.27%
Net assets2
$152.70M
Holdings2
42
Category
Taxable Bond
2025 return3
4.63%

Investment objective & strategy

As of Sept. 26, 2025 · prospectus

Objective. The Fund seeks to provide current income and capital growth.

Strategy. The Fund invests primarily in a portfolio of debt securities including corporate bonds and debentures (including high yield bonds commonly known as "junk bonds"), bank loans, convertible and preferred securities, credit default swaps and other debt instruments and derivatives that the Fund's investment adviser (the "Adviser") believes have debt-like characteristics. The Fund invests in both U.S. and foreign debt securities. The principal types of derivatives in which the Fund may invest are credit default swaps, interest rate swaps, equity swaps, futures, and options. The Fund invests primarily in debt securities whose returns the Adviser believes will be more correlated with the outcome of specific catalysts or events rather than overall market direction. These catalysts and events include mergers, acquisitions, debt … The Fund invests primarily in a portfolio of debt securities including corporate bonds and debentures (including high yield bonds commonly known as "junk bonds"), bank loans, convertible and preferred securities, credit default swaps and other debt instruments and derivatives that the Fund's investment adviser (the "Adviser") believes have debt-like characteristics. The Fund invests in both U.S. and foreign debt securities. The principal types of derivatives in which the Fund may invest are credit default swaps, interest rate swaps, equity swaps, futures, and options. The Fund invests primarily in debt securities whose returns the Adviser believes will be more correlated with the outcome of specific catalysts or events rather than overall market direction. These catalysts and events include mergers, acquisitions, debt maturities, refinancings, regulatory changes, recapitalizations, reorganizations, restructurings, and other special situations. The Fund also uses a relative value approach and may express positive views on specific issuers by taking long positions in cash bonds and/or derivatives and negative views on specific issuers by taking short positions in cash bonds and/or derivatives. The Fund uses fundamental research to identify mispricings or inefficiencies in these situations and assesses their potential impact on security prices. The Fund may engage in short-term trading strategies and may engage in short sales and invest in derivatives. The principal short-term trading strategies may at times include convertible arbitrage, merger arbitrage, and capital structure arbitrage, which are discussed below. The Fund may seek to mitigate the risk of volatility (the appreciation or depreciation of the value of a security over a period of time) and duration (the impact of interest rate changes on fixed-income securities) by engaging in short sales and/or investing in derivatives, including credit default swaps, interest rate swaps, futures, and options. The Fund may purchase or sell short equity securities or derivatives as part of a hedging strategy or hold equity positions or other assets that the Fund receives as part of a reorganization process. The Fund may, but is not required to, seek to reduce currency risk by hedging part or all of its exposure to various foreign currencies. Furthermore, the Fund may invest in exchange traded funds ("ETFs"). The Fund is not limited with respect to its portfolio maturity or duration. The Fund may invest in debt securities without regard to their credit ratings, including securities that are unrated, and in debt securities with a wide variety of terms that may vary from security to security, including but not limited to optional and mandatory prepayment provisions, fixed, variable, semi-variable, and resettable interest rates and conversion options, as well as various combinations of these terms. The Fund may hold a significant portion of its assets in cash, money market or similar cash management funds, or short-term investments for defensive purposes, to preserve the Fund's ability to capitalize quickly on new market opportunities, or for other reasons, such as because the Adviser has determined to obtain investment exposure through derivative instruments instead of direct cash investments. The Fund may also hold a significant amount of cash or short-term investments immediately after a period in which several transactions in which the Fund has invested close in a similar timeframe, yet before capital is redeployed to other opportunities. Merger Arbitrage: Merger arbitrage is a highly specialized investment approach designed to profit from the successful completion of mergers, takeovers, tender offers, leveraged buyouts, spin-offs, liquidations, and other corporate reorganizations. The most common merger arbitrage activity, and the approach the Fund generally uses, involves purchasing debt securities of an announced acquisition target company at a discount to their expected value upon completion of the acquisition. The Fund may engage in selling securities short when the terms of a proposed acquisition call for the exchange of common stock and/or other securities. In such a case, the securities of the company to be acquired may be purchased and, at approximately the same time, an amount of the acquiring company's common stock and/or other securities as per the terms of the transaction may be sold short. Convertible Arbitrage: Convertible arbitrage is a specialized strategy that seeks to profit from pricing inefficiencies between a firm's convertible securities and its underlying equity. The most common convertible arbitrage approach, and the strategy the Fund generally uses, matches a long position in the convertible security with a short position in the underlying common stock. The Fund seeks to purchase convertible securities at discounts to their expected future values and sell short shares of the underlying common stock in order to mitigate equity market movements. As stock prices rise and the convertible security becomes more equity sensitive, the Fund may sell short additional common shares in order to maintain the relationship between the convertible and the underlying common stock. As stock prices fall, the Fund will typically buy back a portion of shares which it had sold short. Positions are typically designed to earn income from coupon or dividend payments and net gains from the purchase and sale of the convertible securities' positions and the underlying common stocks. Capital Structure Arbitrage: Capital structure arbitrage seeks to profit from relative pricing discrepancies between related debt and/or equity securities. For example, when the Fund believes that unsecured securities are overvalued in relation to senior secured securities, the Fund may purchase a senior secured security of an issuer and sell short an unsecured security of the same issuer. In this example the trade would be profitable if credit quality spreads widened or if the issuer went bankrupt and the recovery rate for the senior debt was higher than anticipated. It is expected that, over time, the relative mispricing of the securities may decline, at which point the position will be liquidated.

Top holdings

As of Feb. 28, 2026 · N-PORT
SecurityTickerValue% of fund
MORGAN STANLEY PRIME BROKER US $11.56M 7.57%
Hologic, Inc. $7.46M 4.89%
FYBR 8.75 05/15/30 144A FYBR $6.61M 4.33%
GTLS 7.5 01/01/30 144A GTLS $6.39M 4.19%
Exact Sciences Corporation $6.23M 4.08%
SEE 6.125 02/01/28 144A SEE $6.08M 3.98%
CSG SYSTEMS INTL INC CONV 3.875% 09/15/2028 CSGS $6.07M 3.98%
State Street Navigator Securities Lending Portfolio II GVMXX $5.96M 3.90%
MSILF-GOVT-INS MVRXX $5.96M 3.90%
SATS 6.75 11/30/30 SATS $5.16M 3.38%
View all holdings →

Allocation by sector

As of February 28, 2026 · N-PORT
View portfolio breakdown →

Portfolio moves

Nov 30, 2025 → Feb 28, 2026
Opened
22
Exited
23
Increased
5
Decreased
2
Unchanged
28

How many positions this fund opened, exited, grew, trimmed, or left unchanged between its two most recent N-PORT snapshots — net changes between point-in-time reports, not a trade log.

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Similar funds

Funds whose portfolios most overlap this one, by weight
FundOverlapNet exp.
Water Island Event-Driven Fund · AEDFX, AEDNX, AGEAX 20% 1.46%
AltShares Event-Driven ETF · EVNT 14% 1.33%
THE ARBITRAGE FUND · ARBFX, ARBNX, ARBCX, ARGAX 13% 1.46%
View all similar funds →

Advisers

As of May 31, 2025 · N-CEN
FirmRole
Water Island Capital, LLC Adviser

Footnotes

  1. Expense ratio as of September 26, 2025, from the fund's prospectus.
  2. Net assets and holdings count as of February 28, 2026, from the fund's N-PORT filing.
  3. Total return for calendar year 2025, before tax and after fund expenses. Computed by compounding the twelve monthly total returns the fund reported in its SEC N-PORT filings for 2025 (the latest prospectus does not yet chart this year).

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