Jana Partners, one of the leading activist hedge funds, managed by Barry Rosenstein, revealed on Wednesday that it holds stake in Groupon Inc. (NASDAQ: GRPN) and Zynga Inc. (NASDAQ: ZNGA).
Jana, which manages in excess of $4 billion in U.S. stock holdings, disclosed in its regulatory filing on Wednesday that it has a stake of 24.6 million Class A shares in Zynga and 21.9 million Class A shares in Groupon.
According to the filings, Jana’s stake in Groupon is worth $134 million while in Zynga its valued at $86 million, at the end of March.
Daily-deal site Groupon and social gaming site Zynga, both made their IPOs in 2011 amid lot of hype and inexplicably high valuations. However, both companies’ shares nosedived during the course of the time as investors doubted their growth and to some extent, their business strategies.
Zynga made its IPO at $10 and Groupon made its public debut at $20.
Now, it will be interesting to watch how JANA Partners will go about. This is because; the fund has been known for its pressure tactics. The fund often builds pressure on management to change business strategies or sell businesses all together.
However, both Zynga and Groupon have dual class shares structures. This means that management from both companies holds strong command over the Company. As a result, Jana Partners is more likely to act as a passive investor.
For instance, in Groupon, Executive Chairman Eric Lefkofsky, ousted Chief Executive and co-founder Andrew Mason and director Bradley Keywell hold more than half of voting power due to their ownership of Class B shares in the Company.
Jana Partners, which released its 13-Filing on Wednesday, showed in which U.S. stocks it has stakes.
A data provided by Reuters showed that the fund was up 6.1% in the first quarter.
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