Is Brink’s Company (BCO) A Good Stock To Buy?

Hedge funds and other investment firms run by legendary investors like Israel Englander and Ray Dalio are entrusted to manage billions of dollars of accredited investors’ money because they are without peer in the resources they use to identify the best investments for their chosen investment horizon. Moreover, they are more willing to invest a greater amount of their resources in small-cap stocks than big brokerage houses, and this is often where they generate their outperformance, which is why we pay particular attention to their best ideas in this space.

Is Brink’s Company (NYSE:BCO) a safe investment today? The best stock pickers are becoming less confident. The number of long hedge fund positions were trimmed by 1 recently. BCO was in 23 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. There were 24 hedge funds in our database with BCO holdings at the end of the previous quarter. At the end of this article we will also compare BCO to other stocks including Federal-Mogul Corporation (NASDAQ:FDML), Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc. (NYSE:WDR), and MRC Global Inc (NYSE:MRC) to get a better sense of its popularity.

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With all of this in mind, we’re going to take a look at the fresh action encompassing Brink’s Company (NYSE:BCO).

How have hedgies been trading Brink’s Company (NYSE:BCO)?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 23 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey were long this stock, a drop of 4% from one quarter earlier. With the smart money’s capital changing hands, there exists a select group of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Jeffrey Smith’s Starboard Value LP has the number one position in Brink’s Company (NYSE:BCO), worth close to $169.8 million, corresponding to 4.6% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Mario Gabelli of GAMCO Investors, with a $77.1 million position; the fund has 0.5% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Other members of the smart money that are bullish include Dan Friedberg’s Sagard Capital Partners Management Corp, John W. Rogers’s Ariel Investments and Glenn Russell Dubin’s Highbridge Capital Management.

Since Brink’s Company (NYSE:BCO) has witnessed a decline in interest from hedge fund managers, it’s easy to see that there exists a select few money managers who were dropping their entire stakes last quarter. At the top of the heap, Matt Sirovich and Jeremy Mindich’s Scopia Capital said goodbye to the largest stake of the “upper crust” of funds tracked by Insider Monkey, valued at an estimated $21.5 million in stock. Ken Griffin’s fund, Citadel Investment Group, also cut its stock, about $4.4 million worth of BCO shares. These bearish behaviors are intriguing to say the least, as total hedge fund interest fell by 1 fund last quarter.

Let’s now review hedge fund activity in other stocks similar to Brink’s Company (NYSE:BCO). These stocks are Federal-Mogul Corporation (NASDAQ:FDML), Waddell & Reed Financial, Inc. (NYSE:WDR), MRC Global Inc (NYSE:MRC), and Simmons First National Corporation (NASDAQ:SFNC). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble BCO’s market cap.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 12 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $445 million. That figure was $429 million in BCO’s case. MRC Global Inc (NYSE:MRC) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Simmons First National Corporation (NASDAQ:SFNC) is the least popular one with only 6 bullish hedge fund positions. Compared to these stocks Brink’s Company (NYSE:BCO) is more popular among hedge funds. Considering that hedge funds are fond of this stock in relation to its market cap peers, it may be a good idea to analyze it in detail and potentially include it in your portfolio.

Disclosure: none.