JANA Partners continues to chip away at its early-year losses as it works hard to get back to break-even.
The New York hedge fund firm founded by Barry Rosenstein posted a 1 percent gain in its flagship JANA Partners fund in August, cutting its loss for the year to 3 percent.
This is the hedge fund’s second straight monthly gain since the firm revamped its portfolio in the second quarter.
The loss is also less than half the 7.5 percent decline suffered over the first two months of the year.
However, JANA is a little further away from its high-water mark after it lost 5.4 percent last year.
JANA Nirvana, the firm’s higher-octane fund, was up 1.5 percent last month, cutting its loss for the year to 4.5 percent. It lost 7.9 percent in 2015.
JANA is known as an activist, but not all of its stocks are targets of some sort of campaign.
As we earlier reported, in the second quarter JANA established 24 new single-stock positions — excluding puts and calls — and liquidated 18 of its existing single-stock positions, leaving just eight stocks that it had held at the end of March.
By the end of July, two of its five largest holdings were not among its five largest positions disclosed in the quarterly 13F filing on Monday, according to its July monthly report sent to clients.
The three stocks that were the same were food producer ConAgra Foods, JANA’s largest long at the end of the second quarter; Liberty Broadband Corp., which owns media properties and is a new position that became the firm’s second-largest long at the end of June; and longtime holding Walgreens Boots Alliance, the global drugstore chain and the third-largest long at quarter’s end.
By the end of July, Coca-Cola European Partners, a Western European soft-drink bottler, and packaged foods company Pinnacle Foods moved onto the top five list, replacing Alphabet, parent of Google, and Microsoft Corp. as the fourth- and fifth-largest holdings. Coca-Cola European Partners and Pinnacle were both new positions in the second quarter.
Other additions to the top ten list at the end of the second quarter included online travel agency Expedia and Harris Corp., which makes communications and air traffic control equipment.
Altogether, by the end of July, JANA’s five largest longs accounted for nearly 31 percent of its assets, while the ten largest positions made up nearly half.
ConAgra was roughly flat last month and down 2.5 percent over the past two months.
On the other hand, Liberty Broadband surged more than 7 percent last month and about 13.5 percent over the past two months.
Walgreens Boots Alliance was up nearly 2 percent in August but down 3 percent over the past two months.
Meanwhile, Coca-Cola European Partners rose 3 percent in August, while Pinnacle was up 1 percent for the month.
For JANA investors, so far, so good.
