Arena Group Holdings (AREN) Declined Following the Acquisition

180 Degree Capital Corp., an investment management firm, recently released its first quarter 2023 investor letter. A copy of the same can be downloaded here. The fund performed well in a challenging and bear market for microcap funds and was able to gain a +5.7% gross total return for the first quarter of 2023. The Russell Microcap Index returned a -2.9% for the same quarter. The gross total return of the fund since inception in 2017 was +243.6% compared to 31.8% return for the Index. The consumer discretionary, industrials, and information technology sectors were the positive contributors while the communication services sector detracted from the performance. In addition, please check the fund’s top five holdings to know its best picks in 2023.

180 Degree Capital Corp. highlighted stocks like The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AREN) in the first quarter 2023 investor letter. Headquartered in Livonia, Michigan, The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AREN) provides digital media platform. On June 6, 2023, The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AREN) stock closed at $3.77 per share. One-month return of The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AREN) was -7.60%, and its shares lost 71.72% of their value over the last 52 weeks. The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AREN) has a market capitalization of $82.937 million.

180 Degree Capital Corp. made the following comment about The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AREN) in its Q1 2023 investor letter:

“The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AREN): AREN continued to collapse in 2023 following the acquisition of Men’s Journal financed by a new debt facility from B. Riley. AREN reported overall positive results for Q4 2022 and provided positive guidance for 2023, but investors remain concerned with the company’s balance sheet and over $100 million of debt to B. Riley that matures at the end of 2023, along with increasing interest rates of the bridge loan used for the acquisition. Existing investors provided $11.5 million in a registered direct offering at $3.80 per share in the quarter. For the quarter, AREN decreased NAV by $0.47 per share, or $4.9 million.”

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The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AREN) is not on our list of 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 2 hedge fund portfolios held The Arena Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:AREN) at the end of first quarter 2023 which was 1 in the previous quarter. In addition, please check out our hedge fund investor letters Q1 2023 page for more investor letters from hedge funds and other leading investors.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.