Five Big Equity Bets Behind JANA Partners’ First Annual Loss Since 2011

#3 Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE:CSC)

– Shares Owned by JANA Partners (as of September 30): 7.33 Million

– Value of Holding (as of September 30): $450 Million

Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE:CSC) recently completed the spin-off of its U.S. public sector business as a separately-trading entity CSRA Inc (NYSE:CSRA) and paid a onetime special dividend of $10.50 per share to its shareholders. The company announced the spin-off in May, three months after JANA Partners revealed that it had built up an activist stake of 8.37 million shares of the company. Although JANA Partners reduced its stake in the company in the subsequent months to 7.3 million shares at the end of September, it was still the largest shareholder of the company among the funds covered by Insider Monkey at the end of December. Recently, analysts at Barclays have reduced their rating on the stock to ‘Equal Weight’ from ‘Overweight’ and also reduced their price target to $35 from $76. John Brennan‘s Sirios Capital Management increased its stake in the company by 50% to 905,713 shares during the July-September period.

#2 ConAgra Foods Inc (NYSE:CAG)

– Shares Owned by JANA Partners (as of September 30): 30.57 Million

– Value of Holding (as of September 30): $1.24 Billion

JANA Partners initiated a stake in ConAgra Foods Inc (NYSE:CAG) during the second quarter of 2015 and solidified it by raising it by 165% during the third quarter. The fund went activist on the stock immediately after initiating a position, asking the company to improve the performance of its private label food business. ConAgra Foods Inc (NYSE:CAG), on its part, didn’t put a fight and reached an agreement with JANA Partners in July by allowing two of the fund’s nominees to join its Board. However, all these changes didn’t translate into gains for ConAgra Foods’ stock, which has been drifting lower since the start of second-half of 2015. On December 22 the company reported its fiscal 2016 second quarter results, declaring EPS of $0.71 on revenue of $3.09 billion. For the same quarter last year it reported EPS of $0.61 on revenue of $4.15 billion. Robert Pohly‘s Samlyn Capital initiated a stake in ConAgra Foods during the third quarter of 2015 by acquiring 1.25 million shares of the company.

#1 QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM)

– Shares Owned by JANA Partners (as of September 30): 28.55 Million

– Value of Holding (as of September 30): $1.53 Billion

JANA Partners’ biggest bet in 2015, QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM), turned out to be one of its main loss-making investments for the year. While shares of QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) declined gradually throughout the year and ended 2015 down by over 30%,  JANA Partners held on to the massive stake of over 28 million shares of the company that it had initiated in the first quarter without making any significant changes in the first nine months of 2015. JANA Partners has been pressing QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM)’s Board to split it into licensing and chip design companies. However, on December 15, QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM)’s Board announced that it had rejected the idea of dividing the company. Following this announcement, analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. upgraded the stock to ‘Overweight’ from ‘Neutral’, but reduced their price target to $55 from $57.50. Ken Fisher‘s Fisher Asset Management reduced its stake in the company slightly (by 1%) to 9.38 million shares during the July-September period.

Disclosure: None