Disney (DIS) and 4 Other Stocks Billionaire Phill Gross Was Buying Up in Q1.

3. Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS)

Value of Adage Capital Management’s 13F Position: $261 million

Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders: 115

Hedge fund ownership of Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) has dropped by 21% since hitting an all-time high at the end of 2020, thanks in part to concerns about Disney+’s declining subscriber numbers, as well as the company’s controversial and damaging stand against a parental rights bill in Florida. Adage Capital Management added 20% more Disney shares to its position during Q1, lifting the size of it to 1.9 million.

A recent report from Media Partners Asia suggests Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) could lose as many as 20 million subscribers after being outbid for, of all things, its rights to Indian Premier League cricket matches. Close to 50 million of Disney+’s subscribers are based in India and several other Southeast Asian countries, where cricket is extremely popular and has been a huge subscriber growth driver. Yet, the company’s streaming service in those regions, Disney+ Hotstar, also pulls in less than 1/10^th the average monthly revenue per subscriber that its U.S service does, at just $0.76.

The Harding Loevner Global Equity Fund is one of several that have exited Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) in recent quarters, citing the capital intensiveness of its business and broader streaming declines as some of the reasons for doing so in its Q1 2022 investor letter:

“The war in Ukraine has given new urgency to the question of whether globalization has reached a tipping point and if the familiar web of decentralized, just-in-time, global supply chains will be a casualty of the inward turn dividing countries into competing trading blocs. It is probably too soon to know. We sold Disney (NYSE:DIS), due to some concerns about the increasing capital intensity of its business amid signs of rising competition and slowing growth in streaming media consumption.”