JANA’s Barry Rosenstein Is Slashing HPE; NUVA; But Buying EQT

Billionaire investor and Edelman protégé Barry Rosenstein currently manages the $4.82 billion fund, Jana Partners LLC. According to the most recent 13-F filings, the fund’s third quarter moves were rife with big changes, from additions and reductions to scratching the board on holdings. Rosenstein pulled the trigger on Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE: HPE) and offloaded positions in NuVasive, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUVA) while he ramped up his fund’s stake in EQT Corporation (NYSE: EQT).

JANA Partners LLC, formed in 2001 is named after Barry Rosenstein’s four children’s initials. Prior to founding JANA, He was the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Sagaponack Partners, L.P. from 1993 to 2001. A C.P.A. charter holder, Mr. Rosenstein received his M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania – The Wharton School of Business in 1984 and his B.S. from Lehigh University Phi Beta Kappa in 1981.

Rosenstein began his career as an Investment Banker specializing in mergers and acquisitions at Merrill Lynch in 19080’s. His illustrious career includes stints with Reatta Partners, Plaza Securities Corporation, Tum 2, Inc., Waterworks Operating Company LLC, Tuneup Masters, Inc., Signs USA, Revtech, Inc., Pacific Wireless, Inc., Cobra, Inc., Product Resources, Inc., Triangle Signs, Inc., Princeton Photo Network Inc., and Test America, Inc.

According to TipRanks, Jana Partners LLC has consistently underperformed against average hedge fund portfolios and S&P 500 benchmarks over the past few quarters.

Let us now take a deeper look at the fund’s latest Q3 moves and how they have fared.

Sells Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co (NYSE:HPE)

Tech giant HPE got the scorched earth policy from the hedge fund this time, as Rosenstein has struck all shares in the tech giant in Q3. Since selling out, the stock has declined by -4.21%.

The announcement of CEO Meg Whitman’s retirement and mixed results are weighing on HPE. However five-star rated Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron remains optimistic about the future prospects of HPE. In the latest report, Kidron wrote: “HPE reported mixed results with soft January-quarter guidance. The big news is that CEO Meg Whitman is stepping down effective 2/1/18 and will be replaced by HPE veteran Antonio Neri (current HPE President; formerly head of Enterprise Group; started at HP in 1995). Ms. Whitman will remain on the board. We view Mr. Neri as a logical choice given his knowledge of the company. Overall, we believe that trends in the underlying business are more positive than the headline numbers suggest, with solid results in HPE’s target growth areas. The encouraging top-line trends in multiple product areas (HPC, networking, storage, technical services) combined with HPE Next provide an attractive setup for improved fundamentals in FY18/FY19.” He has a buy rating and $17 price target on the stock (30% upside potential).

On the other hand, others like BofA/Merrill Lynch analyst Wamsi Mohan said the likelihood of large strategic changes occurring following news Meg Whitman is stepping down as CEO is unlikely. Mohan thinks HPE’s story has become dependent on a large restructuring and execution and believes risks are skewed to the downside with increased execution risk, lack of positive catalysts, and downside estimate revisions. The analyst reiterated his Underperform rating and trimmed his price target on HP Enterprise to $12 from $13.

The majority of analysts are sidelined on the stock. TipRanks shows HPE has a Hold analyst consensus with 5 buy, 14 hold and 2 sell ratings published in the last three months. Analysts are predicting an upside of 13.59% for the stock, which is currently trading at $13.10.

Sells NuVasive, Inc. (NASDAQ:NUVA)

NuVasive is a leader in in spine technology innovation, focused on transforming spine surgery with minimally disruptive, procedurally-integrated solutions. Rosenstein believes his NUVA position is less favorable than the last quarter, as the hedge fund guru dialed down in the company by a massive -54.38. This translates to a new total value of $42.77 million. Since the last filing, the price of NUVA has remained more or less flat, posting just 0.04% gain.

RBC Capital analyst Glenn Novarro seems to concur with Rosenstein as he has taken a cautious stance. In a recent research report, Novarro lowered his price target on NuVasive to $70 and kept his Outperform rating. Novarro says that investor sentiment on pure-play spine stocks remains cautious given the year-to-date U.S. market slowdown, but the company’s lowered guidance to reflect competitive dynamics is conservative and sets up a potential beat and raise.

Early initial word hovering around this medical device company points to the bulls, as TipRanks analytics exhibit NUVA as a Buy. Out of 14 analysts polled by TipRanks in the last 3 months, 12 are bullish, 1 remains on the sidelines and 1 is bearish. The 12-month average price target stands at $71.75, marking a 27.33% upside from where the stock is currently trading.

Buys EQT Corporation (NYSE:EQT)

EQT Corporation is a petroleum and natural gas exploration and pipeline company headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. For Q3, Rosenstein revved up his holdings in EQT by 26.06%, making it the #1 stock in the fund’s portfolio. EQT is currently worth $669.18 million and forms 13.89% of the overall portfolio. Since the last filing, the stock has slipped down by more than -9%.

EQT Corporation had recently completed its acquisition of Rice Energy Inc. Under the terms of the merger agreement, two former Rice directors, Daniel J. Rice IV and Robert F. Vagt, had joined the EQT Board, effective immediately. In addition, Thomas F. Karam, founder and Chairman of Karbon Partners, LLC; and Norman J. Szydlowski, former President and Chief Executive Officer of SemGroup Corporation, have also joined the EQT Board of Directors. For Q3, the energy major had beaten the earnings as well as revenue estimates.

 

Disclaimer: TipRanks is an independent cloud based service that measures and ranks digitally published financial advice. TipRanks' natural language processing (NLP) algorithms aggregate and ...

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