It’s been a while since we last heard from activist Jana Partners. Its 13F stock picks haven’t been impressive over the last 12 months. It ranked #617 (out of 648) in Insider Monkey’s latest hedge fund rankings. So, Barry Rosenstein must have felt the need to shake things up a bit. Why bother with a new idea when you can recycle an old idea and quickly score a 10% gain. So, Jana Partners filed a 13D on Bloomin’ Brands Inc (NASDAQ:BLMN) and the stock responded with a nearly 8% jump.
Jana Partners started buying Bloomin’ Brands shares in early July when they were trading around $17.50. Overall, Jana Partners paid $127.7 million for 7.82 million BLMN shares (Jana’s average cost basis is $16.33). Twenty one months ago Jana pulled the same trick, spending $139.8 million on 7.98 million BLMN shares ( average cost of $17.52). After reaching a quick agreement with the company in February 2018, Jana sold its holdings at prices between $20 and $24 by the end of the second quarter of 2018. That means Jana Partners were happy that they made 25-30% from that trade in about 6 months.
This time around investors are less enthusiastic. Now that BLMN’s stock price is already 10% higher, Jana will probably start dumping its position as the stock price gets closer to $20.
When we look at the hedge fund interest in BLMN, we see that all top 5 hedge fund holders of the stock are quant hedge funds. Activist Barington had a tiny stake in the company at the end of June after trimming its position by 78%. Given that BLMN is a cyclical stock and the recession risk isn’t trivial, there are much better stocks to invest in. Actually, we just uncovered a large cap growth stock that is trading at less than 3 times its core earnings (see our latest idea) and we expect this stock to triple in value over the coming years.
You can see the details of Jana Partners’ filing below. (Click here if you experience problems with the formatting of the article.
Ownership Summary Table
| Name | Sole Voting Power | Shared Voting Power | Sole Dispositive Power | Shared Dispositive Power | Aggregate Amount Owned Power | Percent of Class |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JANA PARTNERS | 7,819,899 | 0 | 7,819,899 | 0 | 7,819,899 | (see Item 5) 9.0% |
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Page 1 of 7 – SEC Filing
| SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION | |
| Washington, D.C. 20549 | |
| _______________ | |
| SCHEDULE 13D | |
| INFORMATION TO BE INCLUDED IN STATEMENTS FILED PURSUANT TO RULE 13d-1(a) AND AMENDMENTS THERETO FILED PURSUANT TO RULE 13d-2(a) | |
| Under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 | |
| (Amendment No. ) | |
| Bloomin’ | |
| (Name of Issuer) | |
| Common Stock, | |
| (Title of Class of Securities) | |
| 094235108 | |
| (CUSIP Number) | |
| Eleazer Klein, Esq. Marc Weingarten, Esq. | |
| 919 Third Avenue | |
| New York, New York 10022 | |
| (212) 756-2000 | |
| (Name, Address and Telephone Number of Person | |
| Authorized to Receive Notices and Communications) | |
| August 20, | |
| (Date of Event which Requires | |
| Filing of this Schedule) | |
If the filing person has previously filed a statement on
Schedule 13G to report the acquisition that is the subject of this Schedule 13D, and is filing this schedule because of Rule 13d-1(e),
13d-1(f) or 13d-1(g), check the following box. [ ]
NOTE: Schedules filed in paper format shall include
a signed original and five copies of the schedule, including all exhibits. See Rule 13d-7 for other parties to whom copies are
to be sent.
(Continued on following pages)
(Page 1 of 7 Pages)
————————–
The information required on the remainder
of this cover page shall not be deemed to be “filed” for the purpose of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of
1934 (“Act”) or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section of the Act but shall
be subject to all other provisions of the Act (however, see the Notes).
