Covered shorts: the long and short of it

The New York Times has an interesting article on covered shorts. That is the tactic where you are both long and short the same stock.

This is what The Perry Corporation, a New York-based hedge fund seems to have done by buying shares in Mylan Pharaceuticls while simultaneously shorting shares (or more technically having Bear Stearns and Goldman Sachs short the shares).

So if the shares go up,