10 Hedge Funds That Love Barington Capital’s New Activist Campaign

Barington activist, Darden: Although James Mitarotonda’s activist hedge fund didn’t file a 13D with the SEC this afternoon, that didn’t stop Barington Capital from publicly disclosing (via the Wall Street Journal) that it holds a 2.8% stake stake in Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI). The fund, which has gone activist on companies like Dillard’s and Ameron (here’s an example of one of his letters) in the past, wants Darden to split.

More specifically, Mitarotonda and Barington believe that a spinoff of Olive Garden and Red Lobster would benefit Darden’s remaining “higher-growth chains,” according to the WSJ.

With this news in mind, we thought it’d be useful to visualize the other hedge funds that currently have investments in Darden. Due to the stock’s massive jump today, they probably love Barington Capital’s activist stake, if not for the sole reason that it gave them a solid gain.

Here’s the top 10:

Israel Englander’s Millennium Management is the largest hedge fund in Darden (second now to Barington), and the fund upped its stake by 400% last quarter.

Ken Griffin and the massive Citadel Investment Group hold the next biggest stake, which it established in Q2 of 2012. It currently comprises almost 1 million shares, about one-fourth the size of Barington’s position.

Eric Bannasch of Cadian Capital took a new, albeit small stake last quarter, worth about $13 million at about 250K shares.

Dmitry Balyasny, quant guru Claes Fornell, Steven Cohen, the duo of Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson, Daniel Arbess, and Alexander Mitchell also hold positions valued close to this figure.

Billionaire David Harding maintains a minor $7.2 million stake in Barington’s new activist campaign at Darden.

Disclosure: none

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