Where Do Hedge Funds Stand On Manchester United PLC (MANU)?

We at Insider Monkey have gone over 817 13F filings that hedge funds and prominent investors are required to file by the SEC The 13F filings show the funds’ and investors’ portfolio positions as of September 30th. In this article, we look at what those funds think of Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU) based on that data.

Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU) shareholders have witnessed an increase in activity from the world’s largest hedge funds of late. Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU) was in 15 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of September. The all time high for this statistic is 12. This means the bullish number of hedge fund positions in this stock currently sits at its all time high. Our calculations also showed that MANU isn’t among the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds (click for Q3 rankings and see the video for a quick look at the top 5 stocks).

Video: Watch our video about the top 5 most popular hedge fund stocks.

Why do we pay any attention at all to hedge fund sentiment? Our research has shown that a select group of hedge fund holdings outperformed the S&P 500 ETFs by 66 percentage points since March 2017 (see the details here). We were also able to identify in advance a select group of hedge fund holdings that’ll significantly underperform the market. We have been tracking and sharing the list of these stocks since February 2017 and they lost 13% through November 17th. That’s why we believe hedge fund sentiment is an extremely useful indicator that investors should pay attention to.

Tom Sandell of Sandell Asset Management

At Insider Monkey we scour multiple sources to uncover the next great investment idea. For example, Federal Reserve has been creating trillions of dollars electronically to keep the interest rates near zero. We believe this will lead to inflation and boost real estate prices. So, we recommended this real estate stock to our monthly premium newsletter subscribers. We go through lists like the 15 best blue chip stocks to pick the best large-cap stocks to buy. Even though we recommend positions in only a tiny fraction of the companies we analyze, we check out as many stocks as we can. We read hedge fund investor letters and listen to stock pitches at hedge fund conferences. You can subscribe to our free daily newsletter on our website. Now let’s check out the latest hedge fund action regarding Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU).

Do Hedge Funds Think MANU Is A Good Stock To Buy Now?

At the end of the third quarter, a total of 15 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 36% from the second quarter of 2020. By comparison, 12 hedge funds held shares or bullish call options in MANU a year ago. With hedge funds’ capital changing hands, there exists an “upper tier” of notable hedge fund managers who were boosting their holdings considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

More specifically, Renaissance Technologies was the largest shareholder of Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU), with a stake worth $14.7 million reported as of the end of September. Trailing Renaissance Technologies was Royce & Associates, which amassed a stake valued at $8.5 million. Sandell Asset Management, Potrero Capital Research, and Alyeska Investment Group were also very fond of the stock, becoming one of the largest hedge fund holders of the company. In terms of the portfolio weights assigned to each position Sandell Asset Management allocated the biggest weight to Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU), around 2.6% of its 13F portfolio. Potrero Capital Research is also relatively very bullish on the stock, setting aside 1.43 percent of its 13F equity portfolio to MANU.

As industrywide interest jumped, key hedge funds were leading the bulls’ herd. Royce & Associates, managed by Chuck Royce, initiated the biggest position in Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU). Royce & Associates had $8.5 million invested in the company at the end of the quarter. John Smith Clark’s Southpoint Capital Advisors also initiated a $2.2 million position during the quarter. The other funds with new positions in the stock are Matthew Hulsizer’s PEAK6 Capital Management and Noam Gottesman’s GLG Partners.

Let’s now take a look at hedge fund activity in other stocks – not necessarily in the same industry as Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU) but similarly valued. These stocks are Altra Industrial Motion Corp. (NASDAQ:AIMC), Broadstone Net Lease, Inc. (NYSE:BNL), Webster Financial Corporation (NYSE:WBS), Norbord Inc. (NYSE:OSB), Commercial Metals Company (NYSE:CMC), FirstCash, Inc. (NASDAQ:FCFS), and HB Fuller Co (NYSE:FUL). All of these stocks’ market caps resemble MANU’s market cap.

View table here if you experience formatting issues.

As you can see these stocks had an average of 18.4 hedge funds with bullish positions and the average amount invested in these stocks was $138 million. That figure was $47 million in MANU’s case. Webster Financial Corporation (NYSE:WBS) is the most popular stock in this table. On the other hand Broadstone Net Lease, Inc. (NYSE:BNL) is the least popular one with only 12 bullish hedge fund positions. Manchester United PLC (NYSE:MANU) is not the least popular stock in this group but hedge fund interest is still below average. Our overall hedge fund sentiment score for MANU is 50.5. Stocks with higher number of hedge fund positions relative to other stocks as well as relative to their historical range receive a higher sentiment score. Our calculations showed that top 20 most popular stocks among hedge funds returned 41.3% in 2019 and outperformed the S&P 500 ETF (SPY) by 10 percentage points. These stocks gained 30.7% in 2020 through December 14th and still beat the market by 15.8 percentage points. A small number of hedge funds were also right about betting on MANU as the stock returned 14.1% since the end of the third quarter (through 12/14) and outperformed the market by an even larger margin.

Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey.