Shorting SpaceX? Jefferies Becomes Go-To Bank After IPO Miss (1)

It’s the kind of look that ambitious investment bankers usually strive to avoid: When SpaceX named the roughly two dozen firms handling its IPO, Jefferies Financial Group Inc. was conspicuously absent.

But behind the scenes, bearish investors and some of Jefferies’ own bosses see that as a unique opportunity.

Hedge funds that aren’t sold on Elon Musk’s rockets-to-tweets empire are hitting up Jefferies to see if it can arrange bets against SpaceX’s shares once they go public in one of the most highly anticipated initial public offerings ever, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to ...