5 Hot IPOs That Hedge Funds Couldn’t Ignore

4. Trivago NV – ADR (NASDAQ:TRVG)

Top Hedge Fund Backers: 1. Citadel Advisors (3.04 million shares) 2. PAR Capital Management (1.75 million shares) 3. Light Street Capital (1.32 million shares)

Expedia Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE) set Trivago NV – ADR (NASDAQ:TRVG) free in late-2016 (at least as far as investing in it goes, the company is still majority-owned by Expedia Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE)), as the hotel searching platform was unleashed on investors through a $287 million IPO in the middle of December. Expedia Inc (NASDAQ:EXPE), which paid about $531 million for a 62% stake in Trivago back in 2012, maintained its ownership of the company (which will be held in class B shares), while the rest of the company’s ownership was put on the block. While it had been planned for the IPO to have a share price of $13 to $15, it hit the market at just $11 per share, and has risen close to $13 since then.

Coverage of Trivago NV – ADR (NASDAQ:TRVG) was initiated by multiple leading investment firms on January 10, with four of them ranking the stock a ‘Buy’ or equivalent rating, while 3 rated it a ‘Hold’ or equivalent. Cowen, which had rated it ‘Outperform’ at the time, downgraded Trivago to ‘Market Perform’ on February 22, citing increased competition which will likely weigh on margin expansion. 22 hedge funds in our database bought shares of Trivago in the fourth quarter, owning 6.30% of its float. We deemed Trivago NV – ADR (NASDAQ:TRVG) to have one of the creepiest spokesmen ever at the end of last year.

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