Healthways, Inc. (HWAY): Point72 Discloses New 6.5% Position as Company Considers Strategic Options

Steve Cohen’s Point72 Asset Management disclosed a new position in Healthways, Inc. (NASDAQ:HWAY) in a filing with the SEC on Wednesday. The filing revealed Point72 now owns a 6.5% passive stake in Healthways, with an aggregate ownership of 2.32 million shares of common stock.

It’s the latest bullish move on a mid-sized company in the health and wellness field from Point72 Asset Management; as we reported on Tuesday, they have also taken strong positions in Zeltiq Aesthetics Inc (NASDAQ:ZLTQ) and Five Prime Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ:FPRX) recently, opening up a new 5.0% stake in Five Prime with 1.27 million shares, and increasing their stake in Zeltiq to 5.2% with 1.96 million shares. We also learned this week that Cohen has interest in managing clients’ money again, and that executives with his Point72 fund will try and appeal to the SEC to limit any ban on managing outside capital to three years. Regulators have said they would seek to ban Cohen from ever doing so again.

That situation resulted from insider trading charges levied against members of Cohen’s S.A.C Capital Advisors last year, which forced him to close down his fund and return its investor capital, while shifting its personal assets to his new fund Point72, which is a family office that cannot accept outside clients but only manages its own assets. Despite Point72’s inability to take on new clients, the fund’s moves are still important to track, as S.A.C was one of the most successful hedge funds of its generation, producing average annualized returns of 25%.

In the Franklin, Tennessee-based Healthways, Inc. (NASDAQ:HWAY), Point72 is investing in a company that appears primed to take advantage of a health management industry that is estimated to swell to $50 billion. Numerous factors are leading the industry’s growth, including the aging of the population, and the increase in chronic diseases, which are tackled by Healthways through an approach that targets the patient’s physical, emotional, and social well-being. Of particular note is their patient retention rate, which is a strong 90%+.