Bill Ackman Cuts Mondelez Stake, Carl Icahn Trims Position in This Software Maker, Plus 2 Other Moves

On March 9, Carl Icahn’s Icahn Capital LP entered into a stock purchase agreement with Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN), under which the activist investment firm agreed to sell nearly 26.32 million shares to the provider of voice recognition solutions, at a price of $19.00 per share. The transaction closed earlier this week, which reduced Icahn Capital’s stake in Nuance to 34.47 million shares. More importantly, the widely-followed activist fund sold an additional 4.40 million shares of Nuance on March 16 at a price of $19.25 per share, as revealed in a newly-amended 13D filing on the company. Mr. Icahn’s investment firm currently owns 30.07 million shares of Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN), which constitute 9.88% of the company’s common stock. Several news outlets have been suggesting that the revered activist investor is trying to cash out his firm’s position in the speech-recognition software maker without incurring significant losses, as his initial investment thesis on the company might not have been entirely accurate. Shares of Nuance have advanced by 37% over the past 52 weeks and trade at a forward P/E multiple of 12.0, which is still well below the ratio of 16.7 for the S&P 500 Index. A total of 31 money managers watched by Insider Monkey had stakes in Nuance at the end of December, stockpiling almost 26% of its outstanding shares. Columbus Circle Investors, managed by Clifford G. Fox, had 4.46 million shares of Nuance Communications Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) in its portfolio at the end of 2015.

According to a separate 13D filing, Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value currently owns 2.81 million shares of Four Corners Property Trust Inc. (NYSE:FCPT), which represent 4.7% of the company’s outstanding shares. This is up from the stake of 2.57 million shares disclosed in the fund’s previous 13D filing on the company, which was submitted with the SEC in January. All shares owned by Starboard Value were received in connection with Darden Restaurants Inc. (NYSE:DRI)’s spin-off of 418 properties into the real estate investment trust Four Corners Property Trust. Four Corners began operating as a REIT on January 1, which means that the company has to distribute at least 90% of its adjusted taxable income to shareholders. Therefore, Four Corners Property Trust Inc. (NYSE:FCPT) paid two dividends in the first quarter of 2016: an all-cash dividend of $8.5 million paid on January 29 ($0.20 per outstanding share at that point in time); and a cash-and-stock dividend of $347 million paid on March 2 (20% was paid in cash and 80% in shares of common stock). The distribution involved 17.09 million shares and boosted the number of outstanding shares by 40% to 59.83 million shares. All-in-all, the recent increase in Starboard’s stake reflects the aforementioned distribution of shares. A total of 24 hedge funds in our system had long positions in the REIT at the end of 2015. Dmitry Balyasny’s Balyasny Asset Management was one of them, owning 630,548 shares of Four Corners Property Trust Inc. (NYSE:FCPT) on December 31.