Hedge Funds Aren’t Overly Bullish on Publishing Stocks

#2. Time Inc. (NYSE:TIME)

– Investors with long positions as of March 31: 21

– Aggregate value of investors’ holdings as of March 31: $95.56 Million

Time Inc. (NYSE:TIME) received some love from the hedge funds followed by our team during the first three months of 2016, during which the number of money managers with stakes in Time rose to 21 from 19. Correspondingly, the dollar volume of those stakes jumped to $95.56 million from $89.05 million even though Time’s shares were flat for the quarter. Earlier this week, the New York-based magazine publisher confirmed that social networking subsidiary Myspace had suffered a data breach ahead of the Memorial Day weekend, which is among the biggest data breaches in history. However, as Myspace, a once-powerful social networking powerhouse, most likely generates only a small portion of Time’s revenues, the data breach isn’t likely to hurt the company’s top-line figure at all. Time’s total revenues for the first three months of 2016 were $690 million, up from $680 million recorded a year ago. The increase was mainly attributable to a 23% increase in digital advertising revenues, mainly to due to the acquisition of Viant Technologies in early March. Billionaire Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies added a 1.21 million-share position in Time Inc. (NYSE:TIME) to its pool of holdings during the first quarter.

#1. New York Times Co (NYSE:NYT)

– Investors with long positions as of March 31: 23

– Aggregate value of investors’ holdings as of March 31: $312.65 Million

The smart money sentiment towards New York Times Co (NYSE:NYT) rose during the January-to-March period, with the number of money managers invested in NYT increasing to 23 from 20 quarter-over-quarter. Nevertheless, the value of those managers’ equity investments in NYT fell to $312.65 million from $327.97 million during the quarter. The 23 hedge fund vehicles stockpiled nearly 16% of the company’s outstanding shares. Earlier this week, the New York Times announced the company will be offering voluntary buyout packages to members of the newsroom and several business departments, thus, joining the group of media organizations that have been laying-off employees and restructuring their newsrooms lately. The publisher said in a memo to employees that the buyouts were part of the company’s goal to double digital revenue by 2020, which forces the publication to build a more digitally-focused newsroom. NYT shares have plunged by 10% since the start of the year. Irving Kahn’s Kahn Brothers has 3.89 million shares of New York Times Co (NYSE:NYT) among its pool of holdings as of the end of the March quarter.

Disclosure: None