In a new filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Ken Griffin‘s Citadel Investment Group reported a significant position in Acxiom Corporation (NASDAQ:ACXM). Mr. Griffin has boosted his fund’s stake to over 4.0 million shares, from around 1.29 million held at the end of June, as reported in the latest 13F filing. Following the increase, Citadel’s passive stake amasses 5.2% of Acxiom’s common stock.
Acxiom Corporation (NASDAQ:ACXM). is a $1.30 billion technology company which provides enterprise data and analytics services. The stock of the company dropped by more than 54% since the beginning of the year amid the company delivering weak financial results, which however does not seem to stop Ken Griffin, who acquired more shares since the beginning of the year. As previous 13F filings with the SEC show, Citadel initiated a stake in Acxiom during the first quarter and held 69,200 shares at the end of March, the stake being later boosted to 1.29 million shares.
Even though Acxiom Corporation (NASDAQ:ACXM) has reported a decline in its revenue and net income, it has justified the drop by restructuring and transformation activities, which could mean that the market overreacted on the news, leading to a decline of the stock. For the second quarter of the year (the first of the fiscal year), the revenue of the company declined to $242 million from $266 million a year ago, while the EPS fell to a loss of $0.08 from an income of $0.17 in the same period of last year. As it was mentioned in a statement, the main reason for the income’s decline is the company’s recent acquisition of LiveRamp, a service that onboard customer data into digital marketing applications. Under its restructuring plan, Acxiom Corporation (NASDAQ:ACXM). sold its UK-based call center business, 2Touch, which also affected the company’s revenues.
Overall, for the fiscal year 2015, Acxiom Corporation (NASDAQ:ACXM). still expects that its revenue from continuing operations will decline by around 5%, mainly because of a loss of IT Infrastructure Management customers and the exit of the company’s analog paper survey business in Europe. The company expects its EPS between $0.73 and $0.83 for the current fiscal year.
In addition, Mr. Griffin is not the only investor betting on the company finishing its restructuring and turning back to profit. Among the funds that we track at Insider Monkey, several have boosted their positions in Acxiom Corporation (NASDAQ:ACXM)., as the latest round of 13F filings shows. Mariko Gordon‘s Daruma Asset Management increased its position by 18% on the quarter to 3.12 million shares, while Joel Greenblatt‘s Gotham Asset Management and Jim Simons‘ Renaissance Technologies surged their stakes by 930% and 109% respectively to 1.12 million and 1.04 million shares respectively. However, we should mention that the stakes account for very small portions of the funds’ equity portfolios.
Disclosure: none
Let Warren Buffett, David Einhorn, George Soros, and David Tepper WORK FOR YOU. If you want to beat the low cost index funds by an average of 6 percentage points per year look no further than Warren Buffett’s stock picks. That’s the margin Buffett’s stock picks outperformed the market since 2008. In this free report, Insider Monkey’s market beating research team identified 7 stocks Warren Buffett and 12 other billionaires are crazy about. CLICK HERE NOW for all the details.
